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Lucasfilm Publishing Out In Force at San Diego Comic-Con

Published Sat, 21 Jul 2018 08:00:49 -0500

Erin Wilhelm wrote from San Diego Comic-Con,

The good folks at Lucasfilm Publishing love to bring popular authors of both prose and comic book tie-in stories, and this year was no exception. The panel included an impressive twelve authors (including multiple New York Times best-sellers), one audio book voice actor, and one moderator. With that many authors on the panel, we knew we were in for a lot of announcements.

Moderated by Michael Siglain from Lucasfilm Publishing, the panelists were: Marc Thompson (voice actor for Luscasfilm audio books), Tom Angleberger (The Mighty Chewbacca), Rae Carson (Most Wanted), Daniel José Older (Last Shot), Adam Rex (Are You Scared, Darth Vader?), Timothy Zahn (Thrawn Alliances), Katie Cook (ABC-3PO), Jody Houser (Thrawn comic), Justina Ireland (Lando's Luck), E.K. Johnston (Ahsoka), Charles Soule (Vader comic), Amy Ratcliffe (Women of the Galaxy), and Cavan Scott (Star Wars Adventures).

To open the panel, Marc Thompson treated the crowd to a passage from Zahn's new book in the wildly popular Thrawn series called Thrawn Alliances, read complete with the voices of Emperor Palpatine, Darth Vader, and Grand Admiral Thrawn.

All of the authors discussed how interesting and challenging it can be to write Star Wars tie-in material. The fans are well informed, meaning the authors need to be as well. Additionally, they are often hired to write prequel or sequel novels to movies that have not yet come out, and for characters that have not yet been cast, trying to be true to material that has not yet been released. But overall, the writers were incredibly excited to be part of the Star Wars universe (and Jody Houser was geeking out a little about meeting Timothy Zahn).

The real reason the authors (and let's be honest, the rest of us) were there was to talk about upcoming releases. Timothy Zahn's new book Thrawn Alliances, which will be two parallel stories, one of Vader and Thrawn working together, one of Thrawn and Anakin working together during the Clone Wars, will be released on Tuesday July 24, 2018.

Katie Cook has written a book for small children about identifying emotions called "Search Your Feelings." The book uses well known characters and situations to display different emotions. Cook says she entices kids to like Star Wars by making her pictures as cute as humanly possible.

Justina Ireland discussed her new book Lando's Luck about the adventures of Lando Calrissian when the Millennium Falcon belonged to him and includes an "African space princess". The book will be the first in a four part series, all by different authors, tracking the life of the Falcon and its pilots called The Flight of the Falcon.

Amy Ratcliffe introduced her upcoming book titled Women of the Galaxy, which will be a compilation of art depicting 75 different female characters in Star Wars, including more than 100 previously unseen images. The forward to the book will be penned by Kathleen Kennedy.

E.K. Johnston, New York Times Best-selling author of Ahsoka, announced that she will be writing a new book that focuses of Padmé Amidala's transition from Queen to Senator called Queen's Shadow.

Caban Scott announced a five-issue children's comic series called Tales From Vader's Castle, which is a collection of scary stories told by a ship's crew that crash lands on Mustafar.

As reported live earlier, Charles Soule announced details regarding an upcoming seven-part series of Vader called Fortress Vader. Starting with issue 19 which will be out on August 8th, the arc reveals how Vader comes to live in a castle on a volcano planet.

Also reported earlier, Jody Houser announced that she will be writing an eight-issue arc called Age of Republic (illustrated by Luke Ross). Houser's series will be part of a larger maxi-series of 30 issues covering Age of Rebellion (authored by Greg Pak) and Age of Resistance (authored by Tom Taylor).

In addition to new works by authors on the panel, Lucasfilm Publishing also promoted several titles linked to Solo: A Star Wars Story. The novelization of Solo: A Star Wars Story, written by Mur Lafferty will be released on September 4, 2018. And the comics version of Solo, written by Robbie Thompson and illustrated by Phil Noto, will be released on November 20, 2018. Lastly, a comic featuring Solo character Beckett and written by Gerry Duggan will be released in August 2018.

And finally, much to the joy and enthusiasm of the crowd in the room, it was announced that prolific Star Wars writer Claudia Gray will pen a novel about the adventures of Qui-gon Jin and Obi-wan Kenobi called Master and Apprentice. No release date was announced.