This is it. This is the issue we’ve been dreading since this time last month. Kanan: The Last Padawan #2 by Greg Weisman and Pepe Larraz hits comic stores today. It’s the follow up to an issue that had all of us still talking at Celebration so how does this latest issue hold up?
Category Archives: SWEU
Rise of the Empire Short Story Authors Announced
At Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, Del Rey announced a new bind-up of A New Dawn and Tarkin called Rise of the Empire, that will feature three new short stories bridging together the two novels and providing further insight into the power of the Galactic Empire.
Today Del Rey revealed the cover as well as the authors for the three short stories: first time Star Wars author Melissa Scott, John Jackson Miller, and Jason Fry!
Rise of the Empire will go on sale October 6.
Go/No-Go: Lords of the Sith
Welcome back to Go/No-Go, Tosche Station’s regular feature where we offer our spoiler-free opinion as to whether or not you should spend your hard-earned money on a book, film, or other entertainment. Today on the launch pad: Star Wars: Lords of the Sith. It’s a book that features not just a happy road trip by two Sith Lords but also the first LGBT character in the new canon. But is the book worth your hard earned money? To mission control for the verdict!
Review: Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp
Growing rebellion on Ryloth prompts Palpatine and Vader to personally travel to the planet to deal with matters. Immediately upon arrival, their Star Destroyer is attacked by Cham Syndulla’s forces. Vader and Palpatine are forced to evacuate and crash land on Ryloth. Seeing this opportunity, Cham engages in a dangerous game to hunt down and kill the two heads of the Empire and finally free his people from Imperial oppression.
Thus is the setup for Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp.
Head below the cut for the spoiler-filled review!
Fabulous Prizes at Tosche Station Radio’s Live Podcast
In addition to giving you a chance to be a part of the podcast, we’ve got a few more reasons you might want to show up to the live recording of Tosche Station Radio at the Celebration podcast stage at 10:30AM on Sunday. Fabulous prizes!
By showing up, you’ll receive a raffle ticket and may just win one of these awesome giveaways:
- A hardback cover of Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp (win it before the street date!)
- A Hera action figure
- A copy of The Essential Guide to Warfare by Jason Fry
- A copy of The Essential Atlas by Dan Wallace and Jason Fry
- A copy of Kenobi by John Jackson Miller
- A copy of Honor Among Thieves by James S.A. Corey
- An amazing mystery prize!
Again, all you have to do win one of these prizes is show up at room 208A at 10:30AM on Sunday. We look forward to seeing you!
Go/No-Go – Star Wars Rebels: Servants of the Empire: Rebel in the Ranks
Servants of the Empire: Rebel in the Ranks is the second installment in the young reader tie-in series to Star Wars Rebels. The first book, Edge of the Galaxy, introduced us to Zare Leonis, his sister Dhara, and soon-to-be girlfriend Merei Spanjak in the year before Zare entered the Imperial Academy on Lothal. Rebel in the Ranks picks up the story with Zare as a new Imperial cadet and follows him as he tries to learn the truth about what happened to his sister. Along the way he meets another cadet who has no love for the Empire.
A New Approach to Recommending The EU
If you’re an Expanded Universe fan, chances are you’ve had to field the following question at least once: “Where should I start reading the Star Wars books?” Everyone has a different answer of course but the most common is usually “The Thrawn Trilogy. Duh.” As the first EU book, it’s accessible and doesn’t require more knowledge than the films and it’s simply a pretty darn good trilogy. The problem, however, is that I don’t think this works anymore.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve had two people ask me where they should start reading the books and I had to pause and reconsider the instinctive and age-old Thrawn Trilogy answer. We now live in a world where there is Star Wars canon and there is Legends with hundreds of books. For me, this changes that game completely.
Taking my probably belated realization into mind, I wanted to share with all of you my new method for deciding which EU books I should recommend to someone. It’s only been tested on two people so it’s hardly foolproof but it may be useful to some of you.
Separating the Art from the Artist: Why I’m Torn About Lords of the Sith
I don’t want to feel conflicted about this, but there’s no way around it.
It goes without saying that an LGBTQ+ character being introduced into the Star Wars story group era canon is unequivocally a good thing. Any step to diversify one of the most prolific and powerful pieces of entertainment in the world is welcome. Despite this obvious good news, I can’t help but be wary. Not because I don’t doubt there are good intentions by the story group and the folks at Del Rey, but because the author who is introducing this character has a pretty dubious history when it comes to speaking about diversity.
20 New Star Wars Books and Comics to Fill in Gap Between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens
Those of you thirsty for some information of the state of the Galaxy Far Far Away leading up to The Force Awakens are in luck. According to an exclusive report at Entertainment Weekly, there are at least twenty new Star Wars books and comics to be released later this year fleshing out the thirty-two years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, ranging all different publishers and target age demographics in a series called Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Content under that title will be released by various Disney imprints as well as at least seven outside companies and is confirmed to include adult novels, young adult novels, sticker books, and comics.
Details on most of the books involved are still under wraps and many of the books are still being worked on, but we do know some about of the upcoming material:
A few titles we can confirm are Del Rey’s Star Wars: Aftermath, which sounds like it may serve as an epilogue to the original trilogy – and perhaps a prologue to the new one. Meanwhile, Marvel Comics will put out one prequel called Star Wars: Journey to the Force Awakens and another preview story told from C-3PO’s perspective. For vehicle enthusiasts, Studio Fun International will print Star Wars: Ships of the Galaxy.
The report also let’s us know some of the authors involved for a series of young adult novels focusing on the characters of original trilogy, to be released by Disney-Lucasfilm Press:
Cecil Castellucci (author of Tin Star) will write Moving Target, an adventure following Princess Leia; Jason Fry, who earlier wrote Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy, will be the author of The Weapon of a Jedi, about Luke Skywalker; Claudia Gray, author of the Evernight series of fantasy books, will write a book titled Lost Stars; and Greg Rucka, a comic book scribe and writer of the Atticus Kodiak novels, will pen Smuggler’s Run, a Han Solo tale.
There will also be a new series of novels retelling the original trilogy from various perspectives, though there’s no word yet on whose points of view we’ll see.
Star Wars canon to introduce first LGBT character
Bryan Young at Big Shiny Robot has the scoop: Paul S. Kemp’s Lords of the Sith will feature the first LGBT character of the new story group era.
Moff Mors is an Imperial who has made some very serious mistakes but she is an incredibly capable leader and spends much of the book working hard to prevent absolute failure. She also happens to be a lesbian.
Awesome. What’s more, Bryan sat down with Del Rey’s Editor-at-Large Shelly Shapiro to talk diversity in Star Wars and Star Wars literature in a recent Full of Sith episode.
This is certainly the first character in canon,” Shapiro says. “But there was a gay Mandalorian couple, so it’s not brand new. It’s not something I really think about, it just makes sense. There’s a lot of diversity–there should be diversity in “Star Wars.”
Emphasis added. Well put, Ms. Shapiro.
Be sure to head to the Big Shiny Robot link above for more information.