Why So Blu?

Star Wars Novels on the Horizon

What was once a small collection of Star Wars novels that set the foundation for the Expanded Universe, has now grown into a seemingly endless library of material spawned from mere name-dropping in the films or additional backstory from the many Star Wars video games. Two such novels due to be released in the coming months are Revan and Darth Plagueis.

One of the most successful Star Wars video games of all time is a PC and Xbox favorite; Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Sometimes simply known as KOTOR, the RPG-style game featured a story taking place thousands of years before the first Star Wars film.  It was a time when the Sith were as numerous as the Jedi, and where the Jedi had Coruscant, the Sith had Korriban.  The Mandalorians were war-mongering the galaxy until one Jedi stepped up to cease victories of both opponents, only to take the side of one.  The Jedi Revan was the character you played as in KOTOR, collecting friends, making enemies and building your lightsaber along the way.  Though a lot of questions were unanswered (and even more so in the game’s sequel), be prepared to become enlightened with the upcoming release of Drew Karpyshyn’s novel on the character, titled Star Wars: The Old Republic – Revan.  Karpyshyn commandeered the Darth Bane trilogy of novels, which personally are my favorite fictional stories of all time.  With Karphyshyn’s masterful literary tactics in delivering a story, we can expect Revan to expound on the Knights of the Old Republic figurehead while providing a solid tale at the same rate.  Revan comes out November 15th.

In Revenge of the Sith, you may remember Palpatine’s coercive discussion at the opera with one very impressionable Anakin Skywalker.  The corrupt Palpatine spoke of a story about a man known as Darth Plagueis the Wise.  Plagueis allegedly had the ability to avert the natural causes of death, prolonging his life to unknown measures until his apprentice murdered him.  As fans of the franchise, we knew all too well that Palpatine was either providing a well-crafted fallacy, or more likely, the actual story whereas Palpatine was the bloodthirsty apprentice.  This little bit of dialogue fascinated hardcore fans of the franchise and opened a whole new door to possibly explain how Palpatine became so masterful in the dark arts.  Our questions may soon be answered as author James Luceno brings us a novel exclusively on Palpatine’s probable teacher, titled Star Wars: Darth Plagueis.  No stranger to the Star Wars universe, Luceno has also penned big sellers like the The Dark Lord Trilogy, Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary, and Labrynth of Evil.  Darth Plagueis comes out December 27th.