The first review of E.K. Johnston’s Ahsoka has appeared on Kirkus. It’s short, but there do appear to be some minor spoilers. Still, they say it “a great treat for young—and not-so-young—Star Wars fans that provides a thrilling back story for a compelling character.” The book is due out October 11.
I’ve got a new Unboxing Star Wars video up, with Yowie and I looking back at this past week in the world of Star Wars, with Star Wars Reads Day, the start of the new season of Rebels, some more Journey to the Force Awakens books, and of course we talk about the new poster for The Force Awakens.
Star Wars Reads Day returns. The fourth annual event will be on October 10th – just over a month after the Journey to the Force Awakens books hit stores.
Upcoming.Star Wars Bookworms attended a Star Wars Reads Day event with author Joe Schreiber, who revealed a few things about his next Star Wars book, Maul: Lockdown. They have the recording and an excerpt. (Not into audio? Check their tweets for some detail.) Lockdown will be out in January.
And it’s official: William Shakespeare’s Star Wars is getting two sequels, The Empire Striketh Back and William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return . The writing duties will again be handled by Ian Doescher and they’ll be out March 25 and July 1 next year.
The blogside. At the Star Wars Blog, Rich Handley and Abel G. Peña conclude their look at The Wheel. Tosche Station’s Bria has some thoughts on redemption in the recent EU. And Alexander Gaultier at Eleven-ThirtyEight has a case for starting over.
Licensees. Dark Horse has signed a distribution deal with Random House, reports Publisher’s Weekly. Given it’s a distribution deal, it’s not that exciting for our purposes, though if you don’t have a comic shop (which will still get their comics through Diamond) this may mean more Dark Horse in your bookstore.
Interviews. TheForce.net chats with J.W. Rinzler, The Wookiee Gunner has Jason Fry (plus a few other folks) and Star Wars Union talks to Zack Giallongo about Ewoks: Shadows of Endor
Tomorrow, October 5 is the second annual Star Wars Reads Day. Last year, over 1,000 bookstores, libraries and schools got into the action with events to promote literacy combined with Star Wars, and this year aims to be bigger!
Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million are hosting events chainwide, and there are at least a dozen local events where Star Wars authors and illustrators are participating. Many locations will also be getting visits from their local chapters of the 501st Legion, Rebel Legion, and Mando Mercs costuming clubs.
The Star Wars Reads Day program is sponsored by all of the main publishers of Star Wars books (Del Rey, DK, Dark Horse, Scholastic, Chronicle, Quirk, Abrams, Titan, Randon House Audio, Workman), and We Love Fine has the official Star Wars Reads Day tees (in men’s sizes only, seriously?!):
In honor of Star Wars Reads Day, Dark Horse Digital is having a 50% off sale on a bunch of digital comics this weekend, mostly from the Star Wars Adventures and Clone Wars digests.
Gaming.Kotaku has a lengthy write-up/expose on the last days – and games – of LucasArts. There’s plenty on the evolution of the game that was announced as 1313, and what was going on behind-the-scenes after the Disney sale. Interesting stuff – even for a non-gamer.
Star Wars Reads. A number of locations have been added to the StarWars.com list of venues participating on October 5. Ashley Eckstein, Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, Martha Wells, John Jackson Miller and many other EU luminaries will be attending events around the country. (Anyone else considering the Ann Arbor stop?)
Lists. John Williams’ theme for Star Wars tops a BBC poll of voter’s favorite soundtracks.
The second annual Star Wars Reads Day has been announced for Saturday, October 5th, 2013. As it was with last year, I’m sure there will be plenty of Star Wars Reads events happening in libraries and bookstores across the US (and perhaps beyond).
Andrew Liptak, who troops with the 501st New England Garrison, fires back at Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn, who included the Star Wars Reads Day at Massachusetts’ Abington Public Library in his ‘Waste Book’ and implied that the $365 in question went to Lucasfilm.
Patricia C. Wrede was the guest of honor at Conjecture, a sci-fi/fantasy convention in San Diego, this past weekend. While known more for her young adult fantasy work (including The Enchanted Forest Chronicles and Frontier Magic series), Wrede is also the author of the middle school novelizations of the three prequel movies (from Scholastic). As part of Star Wars Reads Day, she and voice actor Mark Biagi performed a reading of different scenes from her junior novelizations. I got a chance to chat with Wrede about getting into the heads of Amidala and other prequel characters as well as other aspects of writing the novel adaptations for movies that weren’t complete at the time she was writing. She also discusses her most recent Frontier Magic novel, The Far West, the conclusion of a tale of magic in frontier America.
As a panelist at Conjecture, I got to moderate a panel entitled “What Didn’t George Lucas Steal?”, with Patricia Wrede, David Brin (of Star Wars On Trial), and Donna Keeley. While we started on topic about original concepts in the Star Wars films (and whether original ideas in storytelling even matters), we soon moved into the usual dissection of the saga, with Brin serving up his usual gripes against the moral lessons of Star Wars and George Lucas. Wrede had some good counters when examining the parallels between Revenge of the Sith and Return of the Jedi, and Keeley broke down how haters of “Do or do not. There is no try.” are missing the context.
The first review of E.K. Johnston’s Ahsoka has appeared on Kirkus. It’s short, but there do appear to be some minor spoilers. Still, they say it “a great treat for young—and not-so-young—Star Wars fans that provides a thrilling back story for a compelling character.” The book is due out October 11. 
Upcoming. 
Tomorrow, October 5 is the second annual Star Wars Reads Day. Last year, over 1,000 bookstores, libraries and schools got into the action with events to promote literacy combined with Star Wars, and this year aims to be bigger! 
Gaming. 
The second annual 
As a panelist at