Author: Jay Shah

A New Dawn: The Staff Reacts

Posted on September 12, 2014by , , and

jjm-newdawnevent

When a book is as hotly anticipated as A New Dawn, just one review might not be good enough. Several of us at Eleven-ThirtyEight were able to make our way through it over the last couple weeks, and in order to give everyone a chance to speak their mind, myself, Ben Wahrman, Jay Shah, and Rocky Blonshine got together last weekend for some informal Aggressive Negotiations.

It’s been a while, so if you’re unfamiliar with this series, all you need to know is that it’s basically a low-key chat session with only loose moderation, and no holds barred—no censorship, no editing, no typo repair. Enjoy!

 

 

Mike: Let’s start with general impressions of the book itself. Was it pretty much what everyone was hoping for?

Ben: pretty much, yeah

Rocky: even better.

Ben: i loved Kenobi, and this was about on that level, but different

Mike: i’m not as over-the-moon about it as i was Kenobi, but it was definitely classic JJM

Jay: More or less. I wanted confirmation that EU would still be used, especially background information. And I was hoping that it would make the characters from Rebels seem interesting.

Rocky: I was so scared that this book wouldn’t feel like the EU we know and love, but it had a lot of the feel of classic EU stuff. Read More

John Jackson Miller on A New Dawn, Elevators, and Being Awesome

Posted on September 1, 2014by Interviews

anewdawnbookIt’s Labor Day here in the states, but Jay Shah had a new interview with John Jackson Miller, author of tomorrow’s new dawn in Star Wars publishing conveniently titled A New Dawn, hot off the presses—and with no regularly-scheduled posts on Tuesdays, I thought it’d be more prudent to let ‘er rip. And don’t miss Jay’s reaction to A New Dawn from a couple weeks ago..

Enjoy! – Mike Cooper, EIC

 

 

Eleven-ThirtyEight: How did writing A New Dawn differ from writing the Knights of the Old Republic comics? Aside from the differences in medium between novels and comic books, were there different challenges in writing a story about an upcoming product as opposed to a preëxisting story?

John Jackson Miller: With the KOTOR comics, colliding with new things that were planned in other media wasn’t that much of a problem: KOTOR I and II were already out, and the only real thing I was seeking to avoid was giving away the secret behind the start of the Mandalorian Wars. (I didn’t know what that was being saved for, but it eventually came up in the REVAN novel.) The challenge instead there was making sure that my stories synched up with the backstory developed in the games — and that was often quite daunting, as there was no clearing-house that had the entire script from every possible conversation you could have in the game. There were a couple of times were I had to adapt to lines of dialogue I simply hadn’t seen. Read More

A New Dawn shines a light on the future of Star Wars

Posted on August 18, 2014by Imperial Court Circular

In our previous review, we discussed how Honor Among Thieves provides a blueprint for the future of the EU. Since then, there has been a rather unprecedented change in the nature of the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Now redubbed “Legends,” the old EU is functionally an alternate universe continuity which serves as a large resource for the new ongoing Star Wars canon to draw inspiration from or even fully import background concepts and ideas. All upcoming Star Wars novels will be part of this new canon, vetted by the Lucasfilm Story Group in order to ensure cohesion between the novels, comics, television series, and films to a greater extent than the often ramshackle cohesion between the old EU and the films. A New Dawn (AND), written by Star Wars novel and comic veteran and fan-favorite John Jackson Miller (JJM), is the first adult novel to be released under the auspices of the Story Group.

Instead of a standard review, we’re going to take a look how AND uses and implements the old EU, and how it departs from it. To get the reviewing part out of the way though – it’s a fun Star Wars story with an original cast of characters and a fascinating villain. These factors are important to why it’s a fun story, but they’re also important in (hopefully) hinting at the style of future novels as well as the Rebels television series. Executive Producer Dave Filoni has already stated his preference for Rebels to focus on its particular cast of characters because the galaxy is large enough to show exciting adventures without needing to resort to film characters as a narrative crutch. If AND is any indication, such a thing is not only possible but also preferable.

Read More

The Pitch – Marvel Star Wars, The Next Generation

Posted on July 4, 2014by , , , , , and

lumiya-whip

In our first “The Pitch” piece way back in November, we submitted some ideas for new Star Wars novels we’d like to see. At the time, the only books known to be forthcoming were Maul: Lockdown and Honor Among Thieves, and with the canon situation unresolved, no one really knew what to expect from Star Wars novels in 2014 and beyond—or whether there’d even be any.

Shortly afterward, the announcement came down that the Star Wars comics license would be transferring from Dark Horse to Marvel at the end of 2014. Now, six months later, we’re in much the same position with comics as we were back then with novels—the last of DHC’s new offerings will be along next month, and as yet there’s been no information of any kind on what Marvel will be releasing next year (though with San Diego Comic-Con in a few weeks, I suspect we won’t be in the dark much longer).

So this time, I asked the others to pitch their own Marvel comic series. This being our first Pitch article post-reboot, I also made it clear that ideas didn’t need to fall in line with the existing Expanded Universe. Here’s what we came up with. Read More

According to My Design – The Staff Re-Revisits Infinities

Posted on May 23, 2014by , , , , and

obi-pit kenobi

Shortly before continuity exploded, the staff of Eleven-ThirtyEight gathered to ponder some of our own “what if” ideas for the Original Trilogy, in honor of the classic Star Wars Infinities comics of the early aughts. I’m now proud to present round two, in which we push further than Infinities ever did, by which of course I mean go backwards, into the great goldmine of ill-considered decisions that is the Prequel Trilogy.

You may notice a new name below, so let me also take this moment to welcome Rocky Blonshine, she of our recent feature article on the Rule of Two, and now our newest full staff member here at ETE! Welcome aboard, Rocky—you break it, you bought it.

Jay: After watching Revenge of the Sith, we’d all wondered how it was possible that Obi-Wan could jump over Maul without injury while the same maneuver pretty much destroyed Anakin. As everyone knows, possessing the high ground gives you a +5 attack bonus. Suppose, then, that Kenobi was the one diced in half at the end of The Phantom Menace instead of Darth Maul — what changes? Read More