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Matt Stover finally returns to Star Wars with the hilariously titled Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, a novel set during the Battle of Mindor-- apparently, one of the bloodiest battles of the civil war.

Linka: http://starwars.com/eu/lit/novel/news20070221.html

So, basically, we'll have Matt Stover writing Luke, Han, Leia, Lando, Chewie, the droids, Mandalorians, and Lord Shadowspawn.

And it will be awesome.

'bout time Lord Shadowspawn was fleshed out. Glad to see it's Stover on the job!

Lord....Shadowspawn? WTF?

Now I like the RotS Novel and Traitor. But these sound really really weird. Like it should be a kiddies' book or something.

If its expected by February 2008, that means he must be finished or almost finished writing Caine Blacknife. *Dances with joy.*

Shadowspawn's from the DE sourcebook, so... yeah. Hence the goofy name.

Anyway, the battle itself is only known from a little three-sentence blurb in the original and New Essential Chronology. Apparently it was long, brutal, and led to Luke's resignation of his commission.

Given how Strover portrayed the "war is hell theme" in Shatterpoint, it'll be interesting to see how he handles it with Luke this time around.

The Star Wars equivalent of Stalingrad? I recall the city's industries were quite shattered and it was a pyrrhic victory.

000 wrote:Shadowspawn's from the DE sourcebook, so... yeah. Hence the goofy name.

Goofy looking, too.

Anyway, the battle itself is only known from a little three-sentence blurb in the original and New Essential Chronology. Apparently it was long, brutal, and led to Luke's resignation of his commission.

You are correct, sir. The forces under Lord Shadowspawn fought to the last man, and none of them left the field of battle alive. Not even Shadowspawn, the general.

That title sucks. Sorry, but that's about the extent of what I have to say on this. I'm sure stover will rock the fuck out with it like all his other books, and hopefully he goes for the "epic" touch he had in ROTS as opposed to the story feel he had for Traitor and Shatterpoint, but man. That title... are they jealous of JKRowling or something?

Read the wookiepedia page about Shadowspawn. It states that Luke defeats him with the help of " Mandalore Fenn Shysa and his Mandalorian Protectors."

Oh great, like we need more Mandalorians after Karen Traviss.

Marvel Mandalorians > Traviss Mandalorians

They speak Basic, for one...

QuentinGeorge wrote:Marvel Mandalorians > Traviss Mandalorians

They speak Basic, for one...

I am curious as how Stover will write about Fenn Shysa's bunch. Will he go down the Traviss way? Will there be a retcon to at the very least reconcile how Shysa appeared in the Marvel series and the "Mandalorian Protectors" of current EU.

Here's hoping that Luke will be better written for than he was in some of the other EU material that was post RoTJ. At this point we should see some better development of his powers, although not quite what he was capable of in NJO. I think my biggest concern about the book is that not only do we have to worry about Mandalorians, but also Rogue Squadron. To me Stover is "on the bubble." Not in the same league as Zahn and Luceno but better than KJA, Travissty, and Hackpole. I felt the same way about Denning and Allston before Dark Nest and LoTF.

Having a good author pen a post-RoTJ EU book about a time period where much hasn't been written un very un-Lucasbooks. It might actually be good, which would startle me. I will definitely not be purchasing this book for myself.

Interesting to see something serious being written using a relatively obscure reference as background. Hopefully it will be well done. :)

Ender wrote:That title sucks. Sorry, but that's about the extent of what I have to say on this. I'm sure stover will rock the fuck out with it like all his other books, and hopefully he goes for the "epic" touch he had in ROTS as opposed to the story feel he had for Traitor and Shatterpoint, but man. That title... are they jealous of JKRowling or something?

You obviously never encountered the german titles of some of the novels:

Mace Windu und die Armee der Klone (Mace Windu and the Army of Clones) = Shatterpoint
Obi-Wan und die Biodroiden (Obi-Wan and the Bio-droids) = The CestusDeception
...

At least it doesn't have "dark" in it, although "shadows" comes very close.

I think we have a fifty-fifty-chance, that Stover will get the scope right, that Shadowspawn is just a code-name and that the Traviss-painted picture of te Mandalorians will get a dent (but a big one).

For then the lord spake, saying "Thou shalt change thy idiotic title, or the faithful shal lobbest the Holy Hand Grenade from on high, counting to 3. No more, no less...

The Book of Novels, Chapter 2, Verses 9-21

Any chance of Matt fixing the various EU disasters that have happened lately?

Its been awhile since we had an OT-era novel (or even pre-NJO) novel, but they usually seem to avoid the crap that's been arising from the far end of the series. For some reason

I mean, look at the prequel era novels. Alot of those were pretty good (even Hard Contact was pretty good - it was just Triple Zero that sucked ass. And Approaching Storm, which is more of a EP1 novel anyhow. My favorites were the Medstar books and Jedi Trial.)

I think the real problem is that in the NJO and beyond era they're starting to run into the same problems Trek did with Voyager and enterprise.. you're starting to rehash the same ideas and issues, and using alot of crappy nonsense to replace plot and storyline.

Rather than clogging the OT era any further (which is almost entirely panned out, I should add) or contributing to the gangrene that is becoming the LOTF era), they should start going backwards to the prequel eras much more. I'd love to see some novels in the ROTS era (we have precisely one, and its quite good.)

If they have to go beyond that, why not focus on something like the KOTOR era or some such?

Edit: As for the Title, it evokes memories of the horrified reactions ot the "ATtack of the Clones" title from Ep 2

The problems with the far end are that they are too removed from the movies (I thought they'd do better without being forced to ape the movies - no contrived Core Ship vs. Acclamator battles or anything else demonstrating their straitjacket) but they're just not creative. SW EU divorced from the movies just tends to fill up with fanboyism and bad SF chic. That, and they just won't let the heroes have peace and all the fighting be for something. The conflicts are established in other era, and thanks to KoToR the game, a large potential fanbase for stories in the old eras.