Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
I briefly mentioned Del Rey’s new Essential Legends Collection – trade paperback reprints of the greatest hits – back in May, when Heir to the Empire turned 30. Of course Heir was part of the first wave, but today, Del Rey has announced that the remainder of Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn Trilogy is coming to the format this fall.
Continue reading “Mara Jade finally appears on a reprint cover”
A nice video that shows many of the trailer/commercial shots that weren’t in the final film.
→ /Film takes a look at Darth Vader’s Mustafar digs, including the history, the ground-laying done in Rebels, and the hints that we may see it again fairly soon.
→ At The Verge, Andrew Liptak calls Mike Stackpole’s X-wing novels the “spiritual ancestor” of Rogue One.
→ And speaking of things revived from the murky Star Wars past, Force Material is all over the Whills, who’ve been around (vaguely) since the very beginning.
→ Rogue One has helped push Disney over the $7B global box office mark in 2016 – the first movie studio to do so.
→ DK has several behind-the-scenes photos | Alternate pun-filled titles for Michael Giacchino’s score | Gareth Edwards on the cameras and technology behind the film.
Yuletide, the annual rare-fandoms fanfic gift exchange, had a rule change this year that suddenly made it relevant to our interests – they allowed requests from lesser-ficed parts of large fandoms like Star Wars. So, for the first time, we’re seeing Star Wars fanfics among the offerings. 32 of them, in fact, including a whooping 13 X-Wing fics. Other requests included the Thrawn trilogy and The Old Republic.
EU-based fanfic has never been exactly rare, but it does tend to focus on the big ‘ships (ahem) so if you’ve been looking for something a little different, check out the listings. The authors are all currently anonymous, but will be revealed on January 1st, per Yuletide tradition.
Celebration VI Lots of schedule-posting has been going around. Leland Chee has his at the StarWars.com blog, while the official CVI site has the Barnes & Noble booth signing schedule. Troy Denning, Drew Karpyshyn, Jason Fry, and John Jackson Miller have their schedules up as well.
The blogside. Miller wrote a nice post on Star Wars things you probably don’t remember for the TOS blog, including a version of Heir to the Empire that came with an overwrap. Meanwhile, Pete Morrison goes into Encyclopedia Brown mode to deduct what Jason Fry is working on now.
Interview. Linda Hansen-Raj talks to Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro at the Fangirl blog.
Reviews. A couple more looks at Mercy Kill from Brian at Tosche Station and Kirkus. And James reviews the Bruce Lee vs Darth Maul smackdown of The Clone Wars: The Sith Hunters digest.
Mercy Kill. Everyone loves this book! The reviews continue to be overwhelmingly positive. Here’s the latest batch: EUCantina, Roqoo Depot Fangirl, Knights Archive and Tosche Station (twice!)
Celebration VI. Pablo Hidalgo counts down his Thursday slate on the Behind the Scenes Stage. And there’s another edition for EU fans on Friday: Holocron 101. One problem: It directly conflicts with the Del Rey panel.
Interviews. Mark at Jedi News chats with new author Tim Lebbon, who’s writing the Dawn of the Jedi novel Into the Void for next year. Meanwhile, John Jackson Miller chatted with fans on Facebook last week. There’s another chat this afternoon with Leland Chee.
Street date shuffle. The release of Reaves and Bohnoff’s The Last Jedi has moved up by a month on the Random House catalog. It’s now scheduled for February 26, making it likely to be the first release of 2013.
Comics. James reviews Knight Errant: Escape #3 and Lost Tribe of the Sith: Spiral #1 at Big Shiny Robot.
Last week, comic book writer Gail Simone considered the prequels, Celebration VI preparations were in full swing and Mercy Kill feelings were had. See it all below the cut.
Continue reading “Gail Simone and the Solos: Last week’s best #StarWars and #SWEU tweets”
Tomorrow is the day… Aaron Allston’s X-Wing: Mercy Kill will finally be in stores. Entertainment Weekly has yet another excerpt.
We linked several of the early reviews on Friday, but the weekend brought one more by Big Shiny Robot’s Bryan Young. “The book kept my heart pounding and a smile on my face, which is the best I could ask for from a Star Wars book,” he writes… So far, so good!
Meanwhile, Wednesday will be good to comics fans, with both Knight Errant: Escape #3 and Lost Tribe Of The Sith: Spiral #1 due in the shops.
Del Rey’s Suvudu blog posted the first fifty pages of X-Wing: Mercy Kill today, letting you get a jump-start on the book.
Meanwhile, there are several early non-spoiler reviews already up. Knights Archive’s Bry Dean says “Aaron Allston built a great new adventure like only he can do, utilizing known characters in a way that was familiar, yet fresh.”
Peter Morrison at Lightsaber Rattling “particularly enjoyed” the book. He goes into a lot more detail on both new and returning members the X-Wing cast (though he doesn’t spoil the plot!) saying that “the characters are allowed to shine.”
Star Wars Report’s Aaron Goins is completely new to the X-Wing books. He does caution that you may want to read the old stuff, but praises Allston’s characters… Though he did find the humor a bit much at times. Still, he says “I was not expecting to like this book nearly as much as I did. It was the characters and storytelling that won me over. ”
Mercy Kill will be out on Tuesday.
With the release date less than a week away, the sixth mini-excerpt from Aaron Allston’s Mercy Kill is mini indeed:
“Besides . . .” Myri suddenly sounded cheerful. “Did you hear what Trey said? You’re going to Si’klaata Cluster. That’s Hutt space. I can stay here, wallow in the mud, and eat worms all day, and I’ll still be in a cleaner, nicer place than you two will.”
Mercy Kill, a hardcover, will be out next Tuesday.
No comics this week, but today is the day to pick up the X-Wing 9-book bundle. You get all of the classic X-Wing books from Mike Stackpole and Aaron Allston, in ebook format, for $56.99. (It would cost about $70 to buy them individually, digitally or paperback, going by list price.)
The ebook deal is in conjunction with next week’s release of Allston’s X-Wing: Mercy Kill, the first new book in the series since 1999.