Lucasfilm Unveils New Lightsaber Book, and Provides Updates on Upcoming Star Wars Projects

During its presentation today at the virtual San Diego Comic-Con, Lucasfilm convened a panel of its authors to discuss some of what to expect from its upcoming Star Wars books and comics.

The authors included in this year’s panel included Tom Angleberger, Preeti Chhibber, Justina Ireland, George Mann, Greg Pak, Rebecca Roanhorse, Alex Segura, Alyssa Wong, and Timothy Zahn, and was moderated by Starwars.com’s Kristin Baver and Lucasfilm Publishing senior editor Robert Simpson.

Here’s what we learned:

The panel kicked off with Preeti Chhibber, who wrote the picture book A Jedi You Will Be, and who has a story in the upcoming Clone Wars anthology, Stories of Light and Dark. She detailed how she worked to figure out how to write in Yoda’s voice, noting that it was harder than it looked.
Greg Pak spoke about his Darth Vader comic series, and how he approached depicting the villain in an era that’s remained unexplored. He noted that Vader himself is a traumatized figure, and that there are echos of his interactions with Luke and Padme. In the next arc, he noted that Vader’s going on a new quest, and that “there are key elements that tie into Episode 9.”
A number of the authors—Tom Angleberger, Rebecca Roanhorse, and Preeti Chhibber spoke about their contributions to the upcoming Clone Wars anthology, outlining how they approached their respective characters.
Alex Segura’s next book is Poe Dameron: Free Fall, a YA novel about Poe’s childhood. He explained that it’s a coming of age story and a heist novel, and that it’ll explain some of the things that were hinted at in Rise of Skywalker.
Alyssa Wong spoke about her Doctor Aphra comic series, noting that she loves the character, and that she’s particularly attracted to complicated characters who are “selfish and messy.” Aphra, she notes, is a character who’s out for herself, and “in some way, that’s a very pure motivation.” Going in, Wong says that she wants the upcoming comics to be accessible—Aphra will have a new crew as she hunts for some ancient artifacts, and that it should be easy for newcomers to jump right in.
Timothy Zahn spoke about returning to write Thrawn. “I’ve been writing him so long, I don’t have to remember how he functions and thinks—[it’s] meeting up with him again.” His next book is the first of the Thrawn Ascendancy trilogy, Chaos Rising, which he says he’ll be able to really explore the Chiss like we’ve never seen before. The focus will be on Thrawn, but there’ll be new characters and new threats.
George Mann spoke about his upcoming book, a new version of Myths & Fables, which will be available at Galaxy’s Edge. This particular edition will be special: it’ll look like an artifact from the world and it’ll come with some new stories and art. He’ll also have a followup, Dark Legends, which is a darker take on the stories from the galaxy.
Justina Ireland spoke about her upcoming High Republic novel, A Test of Courage, which is due out in January 2021. She couldn’t say much about the upcoming series, but highlighted one of the characters, Avon Starros, an eleven-year-old troublemaker who’s intensely curious about the world and the Force. She also explained that it was a lot of fun to explore an entirely new time period in the galaxy. She also noted that there’ll be some more reveals coming this summer.
Finally, Robert Simpson noted that one book that he’s excited to see is one that he’s co-edited, Star Wars: The Lightsaber Collection. It’s going to be a comprehensive book of every lightsaber hilt throughout all nine movies, [and] all of the TV series.”
Another upcoming book is The Art of Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge, which will collect the theme park’s concept art. That’ll be written by Amy Ratcliffe, and it’ll be out later this year.

Lucasfilm Unveils New Lightsaber Book, and Provides Updates on Upcoming Star Wars Projects

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