How is that possible? Three words: Advance Reader Copies. I don’t know how Jay Tomio of FantasyBookSpot.com got one of Zahn’s Allegiance, but we’ve got a rather overwritten review containing details (spoilers, even) that sound pretty likely.
Video Monday
The Star Wars episode of That 70’s Show. Or skip straight to the spoof, if you have the urge to hear the term “Jedi dumbass.”
The unemployed Stormtrooper. Awww.
The PhanDom Menace, excerpt from a documentary about an Australian Star Wars fan club. Accents! Costumes! And Timothy Zahn’s in there, for some reason.
The Darklord of Stall One. Will people in Stormtrooper uniforms doing random stuff ever not be funny? Don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.
That is a freaking Stormtrooper!
The skinny on Star Wars Insider #92
Two week delay for the next Insider. Just as mine started coming in on time, too. But it looks like the issue contains some good stuff, including a peek at the The Making of Star Wars and an interview with Timothy Zahn about Allegiance.
TFN thread of the indeterminate time period
“Will Zahn Dare to Do It?” It being Luke/Leia twincest. I don’t know about you, but when I think of Star Wars authors willing to flirt with sibling-on-sibling action, Tim Zahn is the first person that comes to mind.
Zahn, militaristic? How novel.
Andrew Wheeler reads Allegiance. Really, that’s it, no spoilers or anything. But please, no one tell him about Splinter of the Mind’s Eye. That’s fandom’s little crackhead secret.
Filk Friday
This week’s featured filk is a classic from one of Club Jade’s earliest and most prolific filkers, Echo. Inspired by the events in Tim Zahn’s “The Last Command”, I Wanna Clone Your Hand is sung to Luke by the crazy clone Jedi Master C’Baoth.
Read more from Echo’s body of work in the archive here.
Random outbursts of Allegiance news…
A summary of Timothy Zahn’s Allegiance was found by a TFN user on Amazon U.K. I wouldn’t put too much faith in it, as there are two listings for the book and the summary seems a rather rough rewording of the first look at the novel. And they have the movie placement wrong. But, for posterity:
A “Star Wars” novel set between the events of “Empire Strikes Back” and “Return of the Jedi”, it features a younger Han, Leia, and Luke, as well as Mara Jade. Mara Jade, the Emperor’s Hand, is looking into the illicit financial affairs of a planetary governor, hoping to find evidence that he might be funding the Rebellion. Luke, Han, and Chewbacca are sent on a mission to help some rebel supporters. Leia is busy being a diplomat, trying to drum up support for the Rebel Alliance. And a band of 5 stormtroopers, on the run after refusing a direct order, finds itself in the strange position of doing good deeds…and perhaps even aiding the Rebellion. The paths of all of them will crisscross back and forth as they come closer and closer to meeting up with one another…but never quite managing to.
However, we do have something from an official source: Sue Rostoni posted an excerpt from Allegiance on the starwars.com boards today. Text beneath the cut, nothing all that spoilery, IMO.
I think I read a fanfic like this once
First look at the cover for Timothy Zahn’s Allegiance is very, ah, white and shiny. Apparently the plot has something to do with rogue stormtroopers, which we didn’t know before. We did know the setting was between A New Hope and Empire, and Luke, Han, Leia, and Mara Jade are all involved.
The book is out in hardcover early next year.
It came from the depths of the holonet!
Several transcripts from IRC chats with Star Wars luminaries – mostly authors – from the late 90’s: Bulloch, Zahn, Allston, Stackpole, Anderson, Crispin, Salvatore and more.
Three authors, one mp3
Requiem of the Outcast has done a a podcast interview with Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, and Mike Stackpole at StellarCon. Click on the ‘listen’ link to download the mp3 file.