Drew Karpyshyn's The Old Republic Novel #3: Title and Main Character Revealed: REVAN

Star Wars: The Old Republic: REVAN has been announced as the previously untitled and shrouded in mystery third TOR tie-in novel.  Announced both at the official Star Wars website (Starwars.com) and the official website for The Old Republic game (SWTOR.com), the announcement included a brief interview with author Drew Karpyshyn. 

For the full interview visit SWTOR.COM .

Summary of the Interview:

We learn that the novel will star Revan as both the primary protagonist and the primary point of view (POV) character.  We will also get a mix of old characters and new characters.  The characters familiar to Knights of The Old Republic (KOTOR) fans will include Canderous, T3-M4, the Exile and Bastila Shan.  It will also give us more information on the Sith Empire and it's Emperor.

This story itself will build off of the basic Revan information, i.e. that he his male and that he chose the light-side ending in KOTOR. 

The setting will be approximately 300 years before the events of the other TOR novels and will span a five year period of time beginning at the end of KOTOR and continuing past the events of KOTOR II. 

If you haven't yet read the Darth Bane novel trilogy: Darth Bane: Path of Destruction, Rule of Two, and Dynasty of Evil, then run out to your nearest bookseller and pick them up.  They are must read SWEU books that feature a compelling anti-hero in Bane.  They will also give you a nice taste of Karpyshyn's writing style.  One thing is for sure, Karpyshyn is intimately familair with the character of Revan from his work on the KOTOR games, so this combined with his work on the Bane series, makes me very confident that the fate of Revan could not be in better hands.

If like me you just needed a reason to dust of your KOTOR and KOTOR II games, now you have it.  Time for a little refresher course before Star Wars: The Old Republic: Revan drops later this year.  It is currently scheduled for October 18th, 2011, but that date is subject to change. 

For more on Drew Karpyshyn visit his website. 

SOURCE: SWTOR.COM

Clone Wars Season 4 News & Rumors: Season 4 Villain Speculation

Who is this mystery man?

On April 2nd I took the time to do some screen captures from the Clone Wars S4 Teaser Trailer that was shown at WonderCon and subsequently posted on StarWars.com. 

One of the images that stuck out to me was the above image.

To me this looks like a group of Clone Trooper prison guards (notice the shields) descending on a lift into the middle of a circular prison.  Notice the lighted circles around the walls.  My supposition is that each of these is a separate cell. 

From behind we see an alien character that I would assume is a Separatist prisoner.  Who is this guy? 

At this point, my best guess is that it may be General Whorm Loathsom, minus his pointy little hat.  The color of the character, general shape of the head, and sloping back/shoulders makes me think this could be an imprisoned Loathsom.

What do you think?

Lightsaber Rattling Discussed on EU Review Podcast #15 At Solosound.net

One of the fine podcasts in the Solosound family of podcasts, The EU Review hosted by Andrew Lupi and Nathan Butler was kind enough to take up two articles I posted a little while back exploring the the world of Star Wars adult novels and young adult novels to see how many books each author has written, and discover which authors where the most prolific.

Read the original articles yourself:  Young Adult Novel List and Adult Novel List.

Andrew and Nathan break down my lists and add their thoughts and commentary regarding the lists and the authors.

Download the latest episode of The EU Review, episode 15 and you will get this EU author discussion as well as a discussion on video games, The Old Republic tie-in material and Paul S. Kemp's recently released novel Deceived. 

LINK: THE EU REVIEW

Dark Horse Comics Digital App Launches on April 27th: No Star Wars Titles At Launch

Dark Horse Comics, the holder of the Star Wars comic license and publisher of an incredible lineup of Star Wars comics has announced that their digital comic application, called Dark Horse Digital will be released as a free  App for iOS devices (iPhone and iPad) on April 27th.  The comics will also be viewable in web browsers and through an Android release which will follow in the not to distant future. 

The full list of free comics that will be available as well as comics that will be available for purchase at launch is on Dark Horse's website.  It should be noted that there are no Star Wars titles currently scheduled to be available at launch. 

Dark Horse Editor Randy Stradley commented on the lack of Star Wars titles on the Dark Horse Forums:

The digital store will open in a week or two, but we're still working out details on a deal with Lucasfilm for digital Star Wars on platforms other than the iPhone.

Dark Horse is also holding a giveaway for an iPad 2 and $100 in digital store credit if you sign up for their newsletter.  Sign up HERE.

SOURCES: Dark Horse and Dark Horse Forums

Heir to the Empire: 20th Anniversary Edition Preview: Annotation #6: Gilad Pellaeon, An Honorable Imperial

Star Wars Books on Facebook has released the latest in a series of preview annotations for Timothy Zahn's Star Wars: Heir to the Empire: 20th Anniversary Edition.   Annotation #6 is all about my favorite Imperial Gilad Pellaeon. 

Pellaeon was a compelling character because he wasn't the typical "Imperial."  He isn't evil, he is a career military man with a strong sense of honor and duty.  The type of man you would want as a leader. Pellaeon was one of the absolute stars of the EU until his death at the hands of Tahiri Veila in Legacy of the Force: Revelation. 

Heir to the Empire Annotation #6:

"Pellaeon, by the way, was named after Pelleas, an idealistic young knight in the King Arthur mythos." -- Timothy Zahn

I think Pellaeon could be summed up nicely by paraphrasing a couple famous Gen. Douglas MacArthur quotes: 

"old soldiers never die; they just fade away."

"Duty, Honor, Country" — those three hallowed words reverently dictate what you ought to be, what you can be, what you will be. They are your rallying point to build courage when courage seems to fail, to regain faith when there seems to be little cause for faith, to create hope when hope becomes forlorn.

LINKS TO ANNOTATIONS: NUMBER 1 , NUMBER 2, NUMBER 3 , NUMBER 4 , NUMBER 5.
SOURCE: STAR WARS BOOKS ON FACEBOOK