Club Jade

Celebrate May the 4th with brand-new excerpts from two upcoming Star Wars novels. There’s the first chapter of Troy Denning’s Crucible (July 9) and 50 pages of Tim Lebbon’s Dawn of the Jedi: Into the Void (May 7.)

If you have a Kindle or a Kindle-compatible device, several Star Wars novels are on sale for $1.99, including Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire, the book that started the modern Expanded Universe as we know it!

Will Fringe’s John Noble be Episode VII’s villain? What can we (or J.J. Abrams) learn from previous directors’ Star Wars experiences? What does Timothy Zahn think is the key to writing a younger Han Solo? And is George Lucas going to cash out his Disney shares any minute now? All this and more in our latest Episode VII roundup…

Out this week: SCOUNDRELS! And some comics. But mostly Scoundrels. There are Zahn interviews and a couple of reviews at the link.

Cover and blurb for ‘Winner Take All,’ the Timothy Zahn short story that ties into Scoundrels.

Lando Calrissian’s no stranger to card tournaments, but this one has a truly electrifying atmosphere. That’s because the prize is a rare sculpture worth a whopping fifty million credits. If Lando’s not careful, he’s going to go bust, especially after meeting identical twins Bink and Tavia Kitik, master thieves who have reason to believe that the sculpture is a fake. The Kitiks are beautiful, dangerous, and determined to set things right—and they’ve convinced Lando to help them expose the scam. But what they’re up against is no simple double cross, nor even a twisted triple cross. It is a full-blown power play of colossal proportions. For an unseen mastermind holds all the cards and has a fail-proof solution for every problem: murder.

It’ll be out in digital formats on December 10.

womenofstarwars:

Born in 19 BBY on the destroyed planet of Emberlene, Shada D’ukal was a Mistryl Shadow Guard, a mercenary group hired out as bodyguards, assassins, commandos, or anti-piracy pickets. The Mistryl Shadow Guards were supposed to be serving their people, bringing in income to aid the desolate planet. D’ukal joined the Mistryls because she believed in the stated ideals of the Guards and wanted to help her people. She would eventually be disappointed with her position.

In 0 BBY D’ukal was part of a group that was approached by the Hammertong project to protect a prototype of the Death Star laser but the mission went wrong and she and a fellow agent were forced to pose as the Tonnika sisters on Tatooine in an attempt to get a freighter that could take part of the laser back to the Empire.

D’ukal eventually became the bodyguard of the smuggler chief Mazzic. She worked with him for eleven years. She was often dressed provocatively so that she was underestimated by Mazzic’s opponents who saw her as simply arm decoration for Mazzic. In 19 ABY D’ukal prevented the assassination of Mazzic by a fellow Mistryl and was forced to cut ties with the Shadow Guards, who she felt were betraying their ideals.

She originally went to Leia Organa Solo to try to join the New Republic. Instead, Organa Solo offered her services to Talon Karrde who just about to leave to find his former employer to try to find the Caamas Document, which named the Bothans involved with the destruction of Caamas years earlier and the partial knowledge of which had sparked conflict within the New Republic. Following the conflict, and Mara Jade’s retirement from the smuggling business due to her marriage, D’ukal became Karrde’s second-in-command. There were rumors that during the Yuuzhan Vong War, D’ukal passed on information on the Hammertong project that allowed Booster Terrick to mount a super laser on the Errant Venture. 

Star Wars out this week: Choices of One paperback on Tuesday and Blood Ties: Boba Fett is Dead #3 on Wednesday.

I sucked at taking pictures this year at Origins. Sorry!

1. Tim Zahn read three chapters of Scoundrels for one of his seminars. It sounds GREAT, and completely accessible to anyone who’s fallen behind on the EU.

2. A Club Jade party really isn’t a Club Jade party until Obi-wan gets naked. And yes, we were watching ANH. The suite’s TV was… not hooked up for HD, apparently. (Note for next year: Bring more movies.) His loincloth is leopard print duct tape, which is now, apparently, part of my suite kit. Maybe next year we’ll have a chorus line.

3. I’m not a dice person, but these dice were AMAZING. Laser-etched metal. The regular ones were pretty nice, too, they just don’t don’t have the same level of detail. If I had any use for dice I’d have bought some.

roqoodepot:

Choices of One, paperback edition. In stores June 26th. 

That cover is SUCH an improvement. SUCH.