Star Wars Books Thread

[Allyn Gibson]

Interesting that he's teaming up with Vader in this one. Given the first novel indicated Thrawn had some sort of adventure with Anakin during the Clone Wars I would imagine that it should only take five minutes of interacting with Vader before Thrawn figures out he's Anakin.

I wonder if the story might riff on "Side Trip," Zahn and Stackpole's collaborative novella that features Thrawn, Vader, and the Noghri. Or at least take it as a starting point, much as Thrawn riffed on "Mist Encounter."

As for the William Shakespeare's Star Wars books, I admire them more than I like them. I admire the effort that went into them, but I've read better faux Shakespeare.

 

[Tuskin38]

Well Rukh, Thrawn's Noghri bodyguard is going to be a in the next season of Rebels.

Maybe it will explain that relation.

 

[JD]

StarWar.com has posted a couple interviews with the From a Certain Point of View writers.
Meg Cabot on Celebrating Aunt Beru in From a Certain Point of View
Nnedi Okorafor On Giving The Dianoga a Soul in From a Certain Point of View

 

[David cgc]

I'm nearing the end, I just finished the Biggs story. I felt it did a good job teasing out the sort of implicit, background tragedy of his story. He's a good case in point of how Star Wars being overwritten and then cut down in the editing room contributed to the feeling of a vast, endless universe that we were just seeing a part of. I mean, if you were going in saying "One of the rebel pilots is going to be an old friend of Luke's" you probably wouldn't have written it how it turned out. You would've hit the mention of Biggs at the beginning of the film harder, and had more of a scene of them meeting at the base at the end (or any of a scene of them at the end, if we're talking pre-'97).

I've talked about this before, but I think the last fifteen minutes of Star Wars could be used to teach a class on minor characters. You're introduced to a half-dozen or so speaking pilots who all have distinct voices, personalities, and relationships. Stock characters and tropes are deployed, but artfully, just enough so you can get a sense of how everyone fits together. To narrow it in further, look at the Y-Wing trench run. It's, like, a minute and a half, but you've Gold Leader, who's solid, businesslike, and by the book, but turns out to be too restrained by conventional thinking when he starts to panic when Vader closes in on him. Gold Five is older, completely unflappable, has better situational awareness (he's the one to figure out the turrets in the trench stopped firing because enemy fighters are coming up behind them), which gives you the obvious story thread for a story like this of explaining why he wasn't senior pilot. And Gold Two was there, as well (I suppose him being the sketchiest of the three pilots gave the most options for characterization, but he's not the one I would've written a short story about).

 

[Reverend]

^IIRC the stage direction in the screenplay describes the dynamic of those three as a roguish officer, an older seasoned veteran and a raw recruit of an age with Luke. It's a trope you often see in stories with soldiers or sailors where the officer/senior NCO/enlisted type dynamic is a natural fit, but it's just odd when translated to pilots where the most experienced flyer *isn't* the squadron leader. Maybe 'Pops' is usually assigned as a flight instructor for the new recruits, but was assigned to Gold Squadron because they needed only their most experienced bomber pilots for the run? I only just finished the book and I already can't remember if anything was said about Pops. Bit of a blur really.

So yeah, I really enjoyed that overall. Some less so and some I'm not sure what to make of (the mouse droid one leaps to mind!)
Random thoughts in no particular order: -

Spoiler: From a Certain Point of View

I've decided that Wil Wheaton is an evil minded little bastard since his story was the most depressing thing ever.
I love that Yoda was dead set on training Leia until Ben basically badgered him into training Luke instead.
The Fake Wedge story was very meta and brilliant.
I tend to agree that they spent way too much time in Mos Eisley, but I suppose that's where the major concentration of side characters are, so it can't be helped.
And yeah, the thing with the mouse droid: I know it was played for laughs but...come on, really? Yikes.
On and the final Whills story was nothing short of hilarious. "Wait, you're skipping over Darth Maul and Ahsoka but you're keeping C-3PO and the teddy bears?!"

 

[JD]

Bencio Del Toro's The Last Jedi character DJ will be getting his own comic in January.

 

[Tuskin38]

an excerpt of Ken Liu's The Legends of Luke Skywalker novel

http://ew.com/books/2017/10/20/star-wars-ken-liu-the-legends-of-luke-skywalker-novel-excerpt/

And an interview with the author

http://ew.com/books/2017/10/20/ken-liu-star-wars-the-legends-of-luke-skywalker-novel/

 

[JD]

That one sounds like it could be a lot of fun. I really like the idea of looking at the in universe stories people tell, instead of the more traditional stories we usually get in Star Wars books.

 

[Tuskin38]

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[JD]

The Legends of Luke Skywalker came out in paperback, Kindle, and Nook, but not Google Play. When I saw that it was out on Amazon I did a search on GP and it didn't come up at all. This is strange because every other Star Wars book, including Canto Bight, which doesn't come out until next month, and the TLJ novel, which is dated March 8 of next year, are both on there. Any idea why just this one book isn't?

 

[Tuskin38]

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[JD]

I don't remember hearing about this before, but I just discovered that IDW's Star Wars Adventures comic is going to be doing a second series based on Forces of Destiny. Comixology lists all of their release dates as January 31, 2018, so I go the correct dates off of Wookiepedia. The numbering also comes from Wookiepedia.

1. Princess Leia:
released Jan. 3
written by Elsa Charretier and Pierrick Colenet
art by Elsa Charretier


2. Rey
released Jan. 10
written by Jody Houser
art by Arrianna Florean

3. Hera
Released Jan. 24
written by Devin Grayson
art Eva Widerman

4. Ahsoka & Padme
released Jan. 31
written by Beth Revis
art by Valentina Pinto

5. Rose & Paige
released Jan. 17 (I have no idea why this one is 5 when it comes out between 2 and 3)
written by Delilah Dawson
art by Nicoletta Baldari

The trade paperback collecting the series is being released April 24th.

 

[The Wormhole]

So, the new Thrawn novel now has a cover up on Twitter

 

[WebLurker]

So, the new Thrawn novel now has a cover up on Twitter

Very interesting. Wonder when it'll take place.

 

[Tuskin38]

No time period for the "Present" day scenes yet, but it does say we will witness Thrawn's meeting with Anakin during the Clone Wars that was mentioned in the last book.

 

[Prax]

Why is there no novelization for Episode 8? I can't find any info or statements on it.

The novelizations for Episode's 1-6 were all released before their respective movies hit theaters. Episode 7 and Rogue One's novelizations were released the same day as the films.

Did they not write one? One of the first things I do when a Star Wars film comes out is read the novelization. I usually prefer it. What gives?

 

[Reverend]

Why is there no novelization for Episode 8? I can't find any info or statements on it.

The novelizations for Episode's 1-6 were all released before their respective movies hit theaters. Episode 7 and Rogue One's novelizations were released the same day as the films.

Did they not write one? One of the first things I do when a Star Wars film comes out is read the novelization. I usually prefer it. What gives?

IIRC it'll be out in March. I think the stated reason for the delay is that they wanted to keep the avenues through which spoilers can escape to a minimum.

 

[fireproof78]

IIRC it'll be out in March. I think the stated reason for the delay is that they wanted to keep the avenues through which spoilers can escape to a minimum.

Which is why I'm always surprised when a novel hits first.

 

[Prax]

IIRC it'll be out in March. I think the stated reason for the delay is that they wanted to keep the avenues through which spoilers can escape to a minimum.

That sucks

 

[Reverend]

Which is why I'm always surprised when a novel hits first.

Spoilers for a Star Wars movie is nothing new (hell I remember the novel for TPM coming out a fair bit before the movie!) but in the old days it was mostly limited to tabloid stories and spoiler/rumour sites & boards that were fairly easy to ignore. I think it's only in the last few years that social media and click bait has gotten to the point where it becomes difficult for even a casual, passive fan to avoid pretty major plot spoilers if any are out there.
It's not that surprising to see Disney & LF reacting to this change in media trends. One also assumes they either don't think it'll affect print sales all that much or the revenue is so relatively low from that quarter that there's not much to affect to begin with.

That sucks

It's not that much of a wait, and if nothing else it reduces the chances of continuity issues that get wiki editors so overexcited. For example (pretty sure this isn't really a spoiler?) in TLJ Poe meets Rey for the first time. But that got some continuity anoraks upset because apparently they already met in the TFA novelization, presumably based on a scene that was cut. That's the kind of thing that's just unavoidable if a novelization is done in parallel to production where the edit can change in any number of ways up to very shortly before release.
The print media industry is still something of a dinosaur and tends to not like to move very quickly. I think I read somewhere that when it comes to novels it's typically about a full year from the finalised manuscript to the physical copies landing on shelves. So 4-ish months seems surprisingly short.