Journey To The Force Awakens Books Unveiled.

Lost StarsShortly before the San Diego Comic Con comes a few overviews of the books leading up to the long-awaited release of The Force Awakens, complete with all-new details. Look ahead for a list of Star Wars novels and “just for fun” stuff that will be ready by September…

 

 

Let’s start off with the narratives. (Not all of these stories take place after Return Of The Jedi, but many will still be tied to The Force Awakens. Text comes from the official Star Wars website.)

 

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Star Wars: Aftermath (Del Rey), written by Chuck Wendig
 
As the Empire reels from its critical defeats at the Battle of Endor, the Rebel Alliance — now a fledgling New Republic — presses its advantage by hunting down the enemy’s scattered forces before they can regroup and retaliate. But above the remote planet Akiva, an ominous show of the enemy’s strength is unfolding. Out on a lone reconnaissance mission, pilot Wedge Antilles watches Imperial Star Destroyers gather like birds of prey circling for a kill, but is taken captive before he can report back to the New Republic leaders.
 
Meanwhile, on the planet’s surface, former Rebel fighter Norra Wexley has returned to her native world — war weary, ready to reunite with her estranged son, and eager to build a new life in some distant place. But when Norra intercepts Wedge Antilles’s urgent distress call, she realizes her time as a freedom fighter is not yet over. What she doesn’t know is just how close the enemy is—or how decisive and dangerous her new mission will be.
 
Determined to preserve the Empire’s power, the surviving Imperial elite are converging on Akiva for a top-secret emergency summit — to consolidate their forces and rally for a counterstrike. But they haven’t reckoned on the Norra and her newfound allies — her technical genius son, a Zabrak bounty hunter, and a reprobate Imperial defector — who are prepared to do whatever they must to end the Empire’s oppressive reign once and for all.

 

Lost Stars

Star Wars: Lost Stars (Disney-Lucasfilm Press), Young Adult novel written by Claudia Gray
 
The reign of the Galactic Empire has reached the Outer Rim planet of Jelucan, where aristocratic Thane Kyrell and rural villager Ciena Ree bond over their love of flying. Enrolling at the Imperial Academy together to become fighter pilots for the glorious Empire is nothing less than a dream come true for the both of them. But Thane sours on the dream when he sees firsthand the horrific tactics the Empire uses to maintain its ironclad rule.
 
Bitter and disillusioned, Thane joins the fledgling Rebellion — putting Ciena in an unbearable position to choose between her loyalty to the Empire and her love for the man she’s known since childhood.
 
Now on opposite sides of the war, will these friends turned foes find a way to be together, or will duty tear them — and the galaxy — apart?

 

The Weapon of the Jedi

Star Wars: The Weapon of a Jedi — A Luke Skywalker Adventure (Disney-Lucasfilm Press), written by Jason Fry
 
Luke Skywalker returns in an all-new adventure!
 
In this story, set between Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke finds himself drawn to a mysterious planet, where he must use the Force to save a young girl — and survive in a dangerous duel against a strange new villain.

 

Moving Target

Star Wars: Moving Target — A Princess Leia Adventure (Disney-Lucasfilm Press), written by Cecil Castellucci and Jason Fry
 
Princess Leia returns in an all-new adventure!
 
In this story, set between Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, Princess Leia must lead a ragtag group of rebels on a treacherous decoy mission against the evil Galactic Empire.

 

Smuggler's Run

Star Wars: Smuggler’s Run — A Han Solo & Chewbacca Adventure (Disney-Lucasfilm Press), written by Greg Rucka
 
Han Solo and Chewbacca return in an all-new adventure!
 
In this story, set between Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Han and Chewie must fly the Millennium Falcon on a top-secret mission for the Rebellion, while evading ruthless bounty hunters and a relentless Imperial agent.

 

ShatteredEmpireVariant

Star Wars: Shattered Empire (5-issue Marvel comic book series), written by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Marco Checchetto
 
The second Death Star has been destroyed. The Emperor is dead. The galaxy celebrates. What happens next? Written by Greg Rucka and illustrated by Marco Checchetto, Shattered Empire will help tell the story of what happened following the collapse of the Empire.

 

 

And now, the entertainment booklets.

 

Ships of the Galaxy

Star Wars: Ships of the Galaxy (Studio Fun)
 
Featuring starships old and new, this clever book uncovers amazing facts and little-known trivia about your favorite ships in the galaxy. From the Jedi starfighters and Star Destroyers to the one and only Millennium Falcon, each craft is explored in fun detail — and some even include comprehensive diagrams. An exclusive foldout in the back of the book reveals special blueprints of ships from The Force Awakens!

 

Droid Factory

Star Wars: Droid Factory (Studio Fun)
 
Some roll on wheels, others walk on legs — some can even fly! They’re droids, and in the Star Wars galaxy they can do almost anything. With the Droid Factory, you’ll learn all sorts of fun facts about many different Star Wars droids and even build a few. Includes a paperback filled with cool images and droid data, instructions and press-outs to construct models of C-3PO, R2-D2, and BB-8, and two wind-up bases to make R2-D2 and BB-8 move! Also includes poster and collectible Star Wars stickers!

 

TFA-Look-and-Find

Star Wars: Look and Find (Phoenix International Publication, Inc.)
 
Travel across the galaxy and explore scenes from the Star Wars saga. Search for more than 100 Star Wars find ‘ems, and includes Look and Find scenes and aliens from Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

 

DK_SW Absolutely Everything_FINAL.jpg

Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know (DK Publishing), written by Cole Horton
 
What takes 1,000 years to digest its victims? Which monks keep their disembodied brains floating in jars? Why must Nightsisters take the Test of Fury? Who cleans the floors of the Death Star? Find out the answers in this new book — and tons more — including answers to some questions in Star Wars: The Force Awakens!

 

 

Keep in mind that there are 20 titles in total, meaning that there will still be ten more releases in this line in addition to what they’ve talked about here.

 

 

Source: StarWars.com

 

+ posts

Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

Grant Davis (Pomojema)

Grant has been a fan of Star Wars for as long as he can remember, having seen every movie on the big screen. When he’s not hard at work with his college studies, he keeps himself busy by reporting on all kinds of Star Wars news for SWNN and general movie news on the sister site, Movie News Net. He served as a frequent commentator on SWNN’s The Resistance Broadcast.

48 thoughts on “Journey To The Force Awakens Books Unveiled.

  • July 9, 2015 at 11:50 am
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    That cover with the star destroyer crashing on Tat… JAKKU 🙂 That’s my book!

    • July 9, 2015 at 3:11 pm
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      /Wont be Jakku, planet listed in description.

      • July 9, 2015 at 3:14 pm
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        /book not limited to one planet.

      • July 9, 2015 at 3:57 pm
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        Fans always complain about universe shrinking. Yet they also want a new planet to be an old planet, and for everything to take place there.

    • July 9, 2015 at 4:49 pm
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      Is it possible that Jakku is a massive hoax and its actually Tatooine? Remember, Khan won’t be in Star Trek 2.

      • July 9, 2015 at 10:16 pm
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        No. Jakku is definitely a new planet, it is definitely appearing in other materials before TFA is released including Star Wars: Battlefront.

        JJ doesn’t rule the roost at Lucasfilm, y’all need to understand he’s only a hired hand here, not the final say of anything.

    • July 10, 2015 at 4:11 am
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      jakkuine

  • July 9, 2015 at 12:05 pm
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    Have big hopes for Aftermath. Think that will be a great read. Will try the adventures of Luke, Han and Leia simply hoping to find some good clues to TFA

  • July 9, 2015 at 12:23 pm
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    I hope they’ll cram some EU knowledge into “Absolutely Everything You Need To Know” – salvage some stuff to make canon the things that would otherwise be abandoned…

    • July 9, 2015 at 4:05 pm
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      I doubt they will. Fresh start remember?

    • July 9, 2015 at 4:42 pm
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      They probably will, sounds like they’re sort of adopting the New Republic so some of the old EU could probably fit in.

    • July 10, 2015 at 6:24 am
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      There was a preview on Amazon, and there were lightsaber forms and their names, so it looks like at least a little.

  • July 9, 2015 at 1:34 pm
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    While I’m not nearly as excited for Lost Stars as Aftermath (which sounds amazing!) or some of the others, it definitely has my favorite cover of the bunch. Really nice. I’d totally get a poster of that.

  • July 9, 2015 at 1:37 pm
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    I’m really looking forward to Aftermath and Shattered Empire. We’re going to need something set quite a bit after ROTJ to really know what happens leading up to ep 7 though.

  • July 9, 2015 at 1:46 pm
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    Starwars is for me an epic fantasy saga. So in Return of the Jedi I frelt the Empire was defeated, it works like that in most fantasy stories. I am a bit dissapointed that the story ‘just ‘continues instead of a new story. I rather see a new Republic facing a total new enemy..Now its beginnig to feel like our own history, world war 1, 2, the cold war etc etc etc..But maybe that is wat it is and I interpreted the whole thing wrong.

    • July 10, 2015 at 4:13 am
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      yeah empire, sith, it always has to be the same otherwise “it’s not Star Wars”.

  • July 9, 2015 at 2:24 pm
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    It’s good to hear that Wedge will be a player after ROTJ. This book sounds promising and I like that it’s being told through the eyes of a new character. However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t expecting a full synopsis to include the likes of the originals. What are Han, Leia, and Luke doing after ROTJ? Maybe they will be included in some way. Not what I was expecting – but it still looks like a good read. As for the children’s novels…I’m glad I have a 6 yr old to read stories to at night. Justifies me buying a kid’s book just to get my fix. 🙂

  • July 9, 2015 at 2:48 pm
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    Ok I get it. Diversity. But does every single new hero have to be female? They’re beating us over the head with this.

    • July 9, 2015 at 2:57 pm
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      Wedge is a girl???

    • July 9, 2015 at 2:59 pm
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      Kanan and Ezra in arguably the most canonical thing outside of the movies?

    • July 9, 2015 at 3:02 pm
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      Just to piss you off even more, I hope the majority of the main heroes going forward are female.

    • July 9, 2015 at 3:59 pm
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      It’s really only ‘beating over the head’ for people who have a problem with it.

    • July 9, 2015 at 6:52 pm
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      Women make up half the human population. It’s about time we heard more Star Wars stories involving them.

  • July 9, 2015 at 3:05 pm
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    Oh… Wedge? The guy who’s only real achievement in the movies is managing to stay alive, and doesn’t really do anything? To whom Luke even says ‘get out of here Wedge, theres nothing more you can do’? Okay, well that’s… huh… kind of boring… *excitement level decreased*

    • July 9, 2015 at 3:22 pm
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      He was one of four survivors at Yavin IV and torched a number of TIEs during the battle, even saving Luke once in the process.

      He and Lando flew through the middle of the second Death Star while being tailed by Imperial fighters, then lit it up by taking out the reactor, then flying back through the space stations super structure to survive the epic blast.

      He’s a fan favorite for being a bad ass X-Wing pilot, and his now legendary stories from decades past in the Rogue Squadron books are some of the more popular stories told.

      So yeah, your synopsis is a little weak and seems trollish.

      • July 9, 2015 at 4:07 pm
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        Right, but Lando was the hero in that scene, Wedge was just tagging along to be a familiar face for the audience, as with Luke, and I only read the first two rogue squadron books and that was years ago, but weren’t they about a rookie pilot, not Wedge? Taking out a few TIEs is surely an expectation for all rebel pilots? Bad-ass seems a strong overstatement… But if you like him that’s cool, not trolling, just a difference of opinion (those exist!!)

        • July 9, 2015 at 4:40 pm
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          Why is each scene limited to one hero?

        • July 9, 2015 at 5:23 pm
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          Corran Horn wasn’t really a rookie, and though Corran was the “main” character, Wedge was definitely the #2 most important character.

          I don’t think I’d care about Wedge at all if it weren’t for that series, lol.

      • July 10, 2015 at 12:23 am
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        School’em!!! I would have if you didn’t. How can Wedge be reduced to a nobody in history’s only movie series where every entity on the screen in every episode has a dedicated following. Hell, even the Imperial mouse droid has a group of fans who will argue its intelligence compared to Artoo’s. My point? Only that a womprat can have its 15 minutes in this galaxy far, far away

    • July 9, 2015 at 6:55 pm
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      As cool as Wedge was, I kind of wish Biggs had lived instead. Maybe then we could’ve seen Garrick Hagon return to TFA. 🙂

      • July 10, 2015 at 4:16 am
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        Biggs was skeevy and smarmy and Lando wore that look much better. Always hated the blissfully deleted scenes where Luke is practically fellating him.

  • July 9, 2015 at 3:19 pm
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    “In this story, set between Star Wars: A New Hope and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Luke finds himself drawn to a mysterious planet, where he must use the Force to save a young girl — and survive in a dangerous duel against a strange new villain.”

    If I remember correctly they said earlier, that this will be Luke’s first lightsaber duel. Could this ‘strange new villain’ turn out to be Maul?

    • July 9, 2015 at 4:01 pm
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      I love your speculation as I have been jonesing for some Darth Maul… however, let’s go back to the Phanton Menace duel and Darth Maul from the Clone Wars in our mind’s eye for a second…then let’s move forward in time to Luke in TESB facing Vader, who seems to be holding back because he is trying to capture Luke, not kill him. Now imagine Darth Maul, a skilled warrior who has trained for battle his whole life and is skilled in the force, and Luke, a farm boy who just recently held a lightsaber in his hand for the first time, in a lightsaber duel. Who wins this fight? Unless forces other than Luke come to save the day, ala Han saving his butt at the Death Star…Darth Maul owns Luke in that fight. Plus I think for poetic reasons, Kenobi should be the one to take him down pre-ANH. I love Luke and think he will be awesome in sequels, but I think that point in the timeline is too soon for a duel of that magnitude. I just can’t see it happening, but interesting speculation nonetheless.

      • July 9, 2015 at 5:13 pm
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        Followup on the idea of Darth Maul VS Luke

        Suppose Darth Maul is a 3rd party?

        I suspect that Darth Maul might NOT be sympathetic to the Empire at this point,
        I could totally see Maul as a belligerent, self-absorbed taunter, standing by giving Luke an earful as they both are about to be killed by the same enemy. That would be interesting…

        To be honest, I always interpreted that Sidious WANTED Darth Maul to get killed, hence sending him against Qui Gon [possibly the single biggest threat to the Sith at the time] FIRST shows a bit of disregard for Maul’s safety, as Maul wasn’t actually that skilled in the force [he failed to respond to Qui Gon’s ship-escape, and failed to forsee Obiwan’s jump-and-slice, suggesting a relatively ametuer skill-level]

        I have never seen the Maul arcs in CW or EU, so I have no knowledge whatsoever of where his character is at emotionally — so this is just my interpretation — in my mind always imagined that post-bifurcate-Maul would have a love-hate relationship with Sidious, both being loyal to the cause, but also feeling betrayed at Sidious’ immediate turn to Dooku.
        Making Maul a mostly un-influencial player, but mutually antagonistic to both sides.

  • July 9, 2015 at 3:53 pm
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    I was hoping AFTERMATH would show what Luke, Lando, Leia, Han et al had been up to since ROTJ, and what had happened to the galaxy in the interim.

    I wasn’t expecting – nor hoping – for a Wedge story featuring a coterie of new, unestablished characters I care nothing about. I am truly disappointed as of now, and have actually cancelled my pre-order of the book as a result.

    • July 9, 2015 at 4:40 pm
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      Really!? This is just a brief description of the beginning of the book. And even if the mail plot is this, we still don’t know if and when our main heroes will come into the picture and be part of the main plot (heck, there could even be a sub-plot going on with our main heroes with multiple chapters possibly dedicated to them).

      What I’m trying to get at is that it’s too early to tell how the story and substories will shape out in Aftermath, and what other characters the book will depict. It’s too early to tell how the ending of the book will be like, and it’s too early to tell the level of detail that the book will have.

      I’m sorry to hear that based on this brief and narrow view that you now have of this book – because of a few descriptions of what the nain story will be about – caused you to cancel your pre-order. Maybe you’ll reconsider your decision at a later date, especially if you see reviews and fellow peers raving about it. All this being said, to each their own.

      • July 9, 2015 at 7:58 pm
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        I’ll certain reconsider when the reviews and more information arises. As of now, I do not view it as the ‘must-read’ that I’d hoped for.

        If any of the other classic SW characters played significant roles in the story, I cannot see they would be left out of the synopsis as they would be the reason many many fans would be eager to buy and read the book.

        If I am wrong of course, I can buy the book without hurry, but as it stands, it seems to have not merited my pre-order anticipation and excitement.

  • July 9, 2015 at 4:37 pm
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    I’ve been keeping up with the adult books so far (and they’ve been generally good) so I’ll defenitley read Aftermath. I’m really hoping for another Zahn novel eventually though …

  • July 9, 2015 at 4:55 pm
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    I’m glad to see that some of Aftermath will follow Wedge. I remember predicting that awhile back. He’s one of the great unsung heroes of the original trilogy and I’m glad to see him getting a chance to be a main character in a novel which sounds fantastic.

    I’m also really looking forward to Lost Stars. It’s kind of like Romeo + Juliet in space, but hopefully with a less tragic ending. Based on the book’s cover art (which looks really cool) I think the end of this novel may give details to the Battle of Jakku and tell us how those Star Destroyers crashed down onto the planet.

    The other novels seem interesting enough, I suppose, but I’ll probably read those only to find hints to The Force Awakens. I’m not a fan of Moving Target being set in between Empire and Jedi, though, because Shadows of the Empire was always my favorite EU novel and it’s the one thing I would’ve liked to see be made canon. Hopefully Moving Target is great, though.

  • July 9, 2015 at 5:03 pm
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    I know the classic trilogy started as a threesome, but since Empire Strikes Back it’s been a foursome. So could we get a Lando focused Novel? I think the story of how he tracked down Han and infiltrated Jabba’s palace would be perfect for a novelization.

    • July 9, 2015 at 5:37 pm
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      I just got all sad. One of the best books in “Legends” was about that very thing :-/

      Shadows of the Empire was awesome.

      I’d really only keep about 10 of the books from Legends if I could: Three original Zahn books, four original Rogue Squadron books, I, Jedi, and Shadows of the Empire. That makes nine – I guess the 10th would be a coin flip between the Kenobi book or Darth Plaguis (sp?).

      At any rate, I agree: I would love a Lando novel. I’m actually rather excited for this new Lando comic book series as well 🙂

  • July 9, 2015 at 6:03 pm
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    A strange new villain? Snoke.

  • July 9, 2015 at 7:03 pm
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    I bet wedge retires or dies in aftermath to explain his absence from the force awakens. He could just be off somewhere and not mentioned but I have a hunch he will settle down with this girl and her estranged son.

    Other books look less exciting but I will definitely read them for any drop of spoilers for TFA!

  • July 10, 2015 at 3:33 am
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    Too many damn books. I hate reading.

  • July 10, 2015 at 2:45 pm
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    Only Lost Stars and Aftermath covers are good, the rest is just underwhelming. Also, I’m afraid they have released all of this TOO LATE.

    Only people without jobs or school will have the time to read all of the material in this few months before the movie comes out.

    I have a job, and I’m really struggling to keep up with all of this -.-‘

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