YOU GUYS IT FINALLY HAPPENED WE KNOW WHAT PROJECT LUMINOUS IS!!! (Don’t you love it when one of the hosts of the Book Wars Pod gets big lit news?! I DO.)

Straight from the horse’s (Star Wars Dot Com’s) mouth:

Later this year, Lucasfilm will launch an epic new era of Star Wars storytelling that will be explored through multiple voices in adult and young adult novels, children’s books, and comics from a variety of publishers including Disney Lucasfilm Press, Del Rey, IDW Publishing, and Marvel.

Hopefully you’re familiar with the great canon storytelling in Star Wars, and if you’re not this will be an amazing entry-point. Again, StarWars.com:

Star Wars: The High Republic, which has previously been referred to as “Project Luminous”, will be set in an era when the Galactic Republic and the Jedi Order are at their zenith, about 200 years before the events of Star Wars: The Phantom Menace. This period on the Star Wars timeline will not overlap any of the filmed features or series currently planned for production, giving creators and partners a vast amount of room to tell Star Wars stories with new adventures and original characters.

HOW AWESOME IS THIS GOING TO BE?! We think really, really awesome. We’re so excited to discuss some “new” in-universe stuff on BWP and especially to talk about The High Republic: Light of the Jedi, described as  “a massive interconnected story that’s told across various formats by various publishers,” which, if you’ve listened to the Pod before, is Extremely Our Jam. Click through for all the book-y goodness. There’s a lot of it!

More book news: E.K. Johnston has a new YA novel about everyone’s* favorite queen (*my), Padmé Amidala that will be released on June 2nd. Having read and absolutely loved Queen’s Shadow, I’m ready for more of Johnston masterfully writing Padmé. Check out an excerpt here  on The Hollywood Reporter.

In Non-Book News, we have to pass congratulations onto the teams who gave us Star Wars: Jedi: Fallen Order–they were nominated for Best Narrative and Audio Achievement at the BAFTA Games!

That’s it for news this week! Go read a Star Wars book–it’s good for you.

We’ve got a grab bag of news in this week’s Holonet Blast, from movies to TV to literature to toys!

This biggest news of the week is undoubtedly the return of The Clone Wars. The final season has begun streaming on Disney+ with “The Bad Batch”, and will be dropping one episode per week.

Clone Wars not your thing? No worries! At New York Toy Fair there was a slew of new product reveals, including items from TCW and also The Mandalorian. Will there be Baby Yoda–I mean, The Child–merchandise? You betcha, including an ADORABLE animatronic plush that I might need to buy for my son. Yes, my son. DEFINITELY not me.

In other toy news, earlier in the week Entertainment Weekly revealed a new wave of action figures marking the 40th anniversary of The Empire Strikes Back. Sadly, there was no Veers.

Finally, if you’re like me and impatiently waiting for the home release of The Rise of Skywalker, you’re in luck! The movie will be released on digital March 17 and on physical media March 31.

The digital release coincides with the release of the novelization by Rae Carson. Want to whet your appetite? The official site posted an excerpt featuring Kylo Ren on Mustafar.

Finally, Marvel is also getting in on the adaptation fun. The Rise of Skywalker comic will begin in June, and will be written by Jody Houser with art by Will Sliney. 

That’s it for the news this post! But the news for the week isn’t over. Stay tuned late this evening for the reveal of PROJECT LUMINOUS.

Welcome back to another edition of the Holonet Blast where we’ve got some news from opposite sides of the galaxy for you!

First up, Del Rey revealed the cover for Alphabet Squadron: Shadow Fall via io9. Just like the first cover feature Yrica Quell, this one puts Chass na Chadic in the blue and purple spotlight. Along with the cover, Del Rey also gave us an excerpt from the book which is due out in June.

If you’re a fan with some extra cash who really loves immersive Star Wars experiences, this next piece of news might be of interest to you. The Disney Parks blog revealed that Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser will start taking reservations later this year. The all-immersive two day, two night experience is set to open in 2021 and is attached to Galaxy’s Edge in Disney World in Orlando. It looks like it has the potential to be mind blowing.

And that’s it for this week! If anyone needs me, I’ll be swinging around my lightsaber and pretending to be a Jedi. Like one does.

News!

Happy Monday, y’all. Not a huge news week, but definitely some stuff we’re looking forward to–like the return of (MY BELOVED) Star Wars: The Clone Wars (I would die for Fives, please don’t get it twisted). Check out the trailer in that tweet and look for it streaming on Disney+ beginning February 21st.

In unsurprising news most of us found out about via Twitter, John Williams has another Grammy, bringing his total up to 25! (But who’s counting?) This time it’s in the Best Instrumental Composition for Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge Symphonic Suite. It’s available to stream places, so if you’re like me and haven’t been able to actually make it to Galaxy’s Edge, you can still hear the award-winning suite and pretend you’re in Orlando… er, I mean on Batuu. (Either sounds great in the middle of winter, if you ask me.)

Over in Disneyland (where you can also hear the Symphonic Suite mentioned above), there are some exciting things going on in Galaxy’s Edge. Click through to see the recently opened Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance attraction, hear about building your own droids to take home, and read all about Star Wars Nite coming on the first night of Star Wars Celebration, August 27th. (Can’t imagine having any trouble getting my hands on those tickets…)

And to round things out, we have BOOK NEWS!

Star Wars: Poe Dameron: Free Fall, is officially slated for Aug. 4, 2020. Written by Alex Segura of the Peter Fernandez mystery series, and with cover art by Alice X. Zhang, the YA novel will wind back the clock to before Poe was a hot-headed pilot to a time when he was just a hot-headed teenager.

We’re excited to get this one on the list to read over at Book Wars Pod–especially given our issues with Poe’s checkered past (newly-introduced via The Rise of Skywalker) being painted with a bit of an overly-broad brush.

That’s it for this week. MTFBWY and all that jazz–happy February.