With a whole new series of books and comics on the way, a new book has been announced that will provide the first (canon) link between Return Of The Jedi and The Force Awakens, with Blackbirds and Atlanta Burns author Chuck Wendig being picked to write Star Wars: Aftermath, which will be published by Del Rey.
The official website has this to say by way of scene-setting: “The second Death Star has been destroyed. Rumours are flying that the Emperor and his enforcer, Darth Vader, are dead. A new government is forming to replace the Empire. But the galaxy is a big place, and the fallout of this cataclysm will affect different worlds in different ways. Does everyone accept the fall of Imperial rule? Has everyone even heard the life-altering news? What rushes in to fill the vacuum the Empire has left? And who will try to stop them?”
Speaking on the website, Wending had this to say about the prospect of writing Star Wars history: “My earliest – and still one of my best – movie-going experiences as a kid was being a four year-old watching The Empire Strikes Back at a drive-in theater with my sister… Those movies opened up a world for me, and my love of storytelling comes from them and from the galaxy of smaller, connected stories, too… I have a son who will in a few short months be my age when I saw Empire, so to be involved with the Star Wars universe just as the new film is coming out – it feels like not only something akin to kismet, but a great and powerful privilege.”
From our perspective it’s an exciting proposition too. The recently released books have not only varied in quality (from James Luceno’s excellent Tarkin to Kevin Hearne’s disappointing Heir To The Jedi), but they have essentially been filler. Aftermath will provide something truly and definitively new, and we look forward to seeing it.
Star Wars: Aftermath will be released on 4 September, published by Del Rey. For up-to-date Star Wars news, grab the latest issue of SciFiNow.
