Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
The official site has a double punch of new cover art today: Fate of the Jedi:Omen and Darth Bane: Dynasty of Evil featuring the return of original Bane cover artist John Jude Palencar.
Meanwhile, Sue Rostoni has revealed the name of the new character on Omen: Vestara.
Mystery solved… The Deathtroopers UK summary was unapproved copy, Sue Rostoni says:
the folks in the UK got a bit carried away here… they posted unapproved copy. We had wanted to keep the DEATHTROOPERS Han/Chewie bit secret as they aren’t the main characters… we wanted a happy surprise. Ah, no surpises now.
The others? I think they’ll be taken down and replaced with approved copy.
So you can stop arguing, kids. (The official copy from StarWars.com is here.)
Updates from Sue Rostoni: Deathtroopers is becoming a hardcover, and the release date has been moved up to October 13th – all the better for Halloween sales, no doubt. Also moving is the newly-titled Fate of the Jedi: Backlash, back a week to January 26. Our book release schedule has been updated.
EUC nabbed Lucasfilm Licensing editor Sue Rostoni to talk about Legacy of the Force, Fate of the Jedi, and other EU works past, present, and future.
Sure, we got Blood Oath the other day, but as things stand that’s not coming out until December… Whereas the first Fate of the Jedi book is due in March. No doubt we’ll get it soon, but for now, here’s what Sue Rostoni has to say:
I think I had posted earlier that OUTCAST would have Luke and Ben on the front — but we reviewed the cover yesterday and think it will look better with just Luke (Ben on the back) — Plus, the FOTJ is going to have a completely different cover treatment than what we’ve used in the past.
I don’t think having a EU character featured on the front is going to make a difference to readers — it hasn’t in the past, for the most part.
As long as it the phrase ‘like Rebel Force‘ doesn’t come up, I’m hopeful! Meanwhile, there’s been a little confusion about Outcast being in Previews under the name The Hidden Ones, which Sue says was a working title/placeholder.
Our first street date shuffle of the new contract! After a fan noticed that there was something awry with the book’s catalog listing, Sue Rostoni has confirmed that Elaine Cunningham’s Blood Oath has been moved back to a December release date.
The manuscript hasn’t been delivered yet — it just got to be too late to make the deadline, so we moved it. I feel badly because the story, as you know, takes place before OUTCAST so we wanted it to come out as close to OUTCAST as possible… but it didn’t happen.
Meanwhile, there’s a whole new schedule entry on Sue’s blog, with a few additional details about the 2009 books, including some minor Fate of the Jedi details.
Off to update our book release schedule…
Joe Schreiber’s Star Wars horror novel now has a title and a time period… Deathtroopers, set just before A New Hope. It’s due out in November. (Thanks, Zee Zee!) Here’s what Schreiber had to say on his blog:
I had the time of my life on this one, I have to say. I’m doing the final edits now, and I’ve tried to make it into exactly the kind of book you’d want to read if you were a child of the 70s who grew up with the original Star Wars trilogy and really digs horror in the vein of The Shining and Alien, with a little dose of William Gibson mixed in.
Bad news, folks – The Essential Atlas release date has moved from February to July. Still confident we’ll see it… eventually. (Thanks for the heads-up, Zee Zee!)
EU Cantina has posted their interview with James Luceno. Topics include writing, Millennium Falcon, Brian Daley, and the future of the EU. They’re also taking questions for their next interview, with Lucasfilm Licensing Executive editor Sue Rostoni.
She’s back on the StarWars.com boards and had this to say about Dave Seeley’s cover for Elaine Cunnigham’s Blood Oath, including some hints at the book’s content:
We received the “final” cover art yesterday, but one of the other characters on the cover had to have her blaster changed — it looked too earth-bound, so we’re having it changed to a more Star Wars hold-out blaster style. Dave Seeley is painting the cover, and it looks awesome — At first glance it looks a bit like a romance novel cover, but don’t let that put you off. The cover features Zekk up front, with two women in the background… Hapan women… women you may remember from a previous LotF novel… oh, I just spilled my coffee — hang on a moment…
She answers a few questions on the next page, too.