NYCC: New STAR WARS: JOURNEY TO THE FORCE AWAKENS Book Titles Announced

While fans are still combing through the recently first wave of new Star Wars books that explore the time period between Return Of The Jedi and the upcoming The Force Awakens films, LucasFilm took the time at New York Comic Con this weekend to announce the next wave of titles in their “Journey to The Force Awakens” initiative.

Michael Siglain of LucasFilm moderated the panel with authors Jason Fry, Greg Rucka, Claudia Gray, Chuck Wendig, Adam Bray and Pablo Hidalgo in attendance.

Hidalgo, also a member of LucasFilm’s Story Group which monitors and maintains continuity across the Star Wars franchise’s myriad movies, comics, novel and video games, explained that once the storyline for the upcoming The Force Awakens was set, the story group began mapping out the three decades of changes that the Star wars galaxy went through in the interim. Working with suggestions from Star Wars creator George Lucas, screenwriter Michael Arndt, and Episode VII writer/director Rian Johnson, Hidalgo stated that he crafted a document detailing the upheaval the galaxy went through, culminating what he described as the “seismic event” known as the Battle of Jakku, which has featured in some of the first wave of “Journey to The Force Awakens” books and will be referenced as back story in the upcoming movie.

The next round of books will continue that world building. The novel trilogy exploring the months after the Battle of Endor seen in Return Of The Jedi that started with author Chuck Wendig’s Star Wars: Aftermath, will continue with Aftermath: Life Debt and Aftermath: Empire’s End. Life Debt is set for release next summer with Empire’s End set for 2017.

Also, ahem, in case you did not see… #starwarsaftermath pic.twitter.com/stM8hYlCG9

— Chuck Wendig (@ChuckWendig) October 10, 2015

Moving up the timeline to about six years before the events of The Force Awakens will be Star Wars: New Republic: Bloodlines from writer Claudia Gray. It is expected next spring.

But not all new tales will be novel length. November and December will see the release of two short stories from Delilah Dawson and Alan Dean Foster respectively and will feature some of the alien characters that will be seen in Vanity Fair magazine’s recent pictorial about The Force Awakens. A short story collection from Landry Walker will be released on December 1 which will feature tales about those aliens and will span across a number of genres. Titles of the short stories include “High Noon on Jakku” (western), “The Crimson Corsair and the Lost Treasure of Count Dooku” (pirate story), “All Creatures Great and Small” (fable) and “Face of Evil” (horror).