Expanding Universe

I am eagerly awaiting a crop of new Star Wars books, slated to be released between now and the new movie.

Battlefront II: Inferno Squad, Christie Golden (July 25)
Coming really soon! Christie Golden wrote one of the only recent Star Wars books I did not buy, Dark Disciple (2015). That was a tale written from a "lost" Clone Wars cartoon episode wherein Quinlan Vos (eh) teams up with Asajj Ventress (ok) to defeat Count Dooku. Didn't sound like enough for me to go out and get that one.

This book, however, purports to be a continuation of the video game tie-in that brought us the wonderful Battlefront: Twilight Company (Alexander Freed, 2015). If Inferno Squad is anything like Twilight Company, I will be very pleased.

Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Leia, Princess of Alderaan, Claudia Gray (Sept 1)
I'm a big fan of Claudia Gray's Lost Stars (2015) young adult offering; less a fan of her later work, the Leia tale Bloodline (2016). Very interested to see how she handles Leia in this one.

Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi: Phasma, Delilah S. Dawson (Sep 1)

This is the book I am most "blah" about. Captain Phasma doesn't really do it for me. Not a huge fan of the over-rated chrome armor or of The Force Awakens era, the First Order, etc.

From a Certain Point of View, various (Oct 3) [anthology]
This one Nate mentioned some time ago, I think. This is a collection of short stories. Very cool. 40 stories for the 40th anniversary. Hopefully they're as great as the now-Legends Tales From... series. Could be very fun.

Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi: the Legends of Luke Skywalker, Ken Liu (Oct 31)
Sounds good to me. I am always ready to read about our buddy Luke.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi novelization, author unknown (date unknown; likely early 2018)

No idea about this one, yet, but of course it will be on the horizon, eventually.

Meet the Fleet, part 26

   

Flashback to Wave IX. I was skeptical at first about wanting to include the ARC-170 in my collection, but FFG did a great job making them look believably beat-up and scrounged. The Rebels have no doubt been rough on these old warhorses, and it shows.

The ship is a beast, the down-turned nose reminds me a bit of a vulture somehow.

In an interesting design choice, they only have 4 unique pilots for this ship in the game...underlining the notion that this is not a widespread vehicle in the Rebel fleet. There aren't any full squadrons of ARC-170s, for instance, if the clues are to be believed. As to who those pilots are, its a bit surprising: Norra Wexley, Shara Bey, Thane Kyrell, and Braylen Stramm.

Norra Wexley, from the terrible Aftermath books, who flew a Y-wing into the second Death Star.

Shara Bey, from the Shattered Empire comics, who flew an A-wing at Endor.

Thane Kyrell, from the great Lost Stars book, a great early Empire TIE fighter pilot and then X-wing pilot, from Hoth to Endor to Jakku.

Braylen Stramm, from Star Wars Insider's Blade Squadron mini-series (the first new official canon fiction after the Disney Legends reboot!), who flew a B-wing at the Battle of Endor as a Deputy Wing Leader.

Why FFG choose to shoe-horn all of these pilots from different craft into this outdated vessel is unknown to me. I guess they have a list of pilots they'd like to include, and a list of ships they want to develop, and the two lists are independent of each other.

I hope that Bey, Kyrell, and Stramm find their way into their "regular" ships at some point in the future. I don't care what happens to Norra Wexley or Mr. Bones.