Artwork courtesy of Joshua Stolte
Welcome back to the Star Wars HoloNet Digest, a weekly feature where I bring you a recap of the latest news from the world of Star Wars. Whether it’s an Episode VII announcement or a noteworthy author interview, you’ll find it here. Let’s check the HoloNet and see what happened in the past week.
The big news that broke yesterday is that Star Wars Rebels' ensemble cast of heroes will include a Jedi on the run named Kanan, who will be voiced by actor Freddie Prinze, Jr. USA Today revealed the character in an exclusive story that also featured a video with commentary about Kanan. Prinze, executive producers Dave Filoni and Greg Weisman, and other Rebels crew members weighed in on the significant burden that Kanan carries after surviving Order 66 and emerging into the newly Imperialized world. I am very excited to see how Kanan's character develops over the course of the series. If there's one thing we learned from our time with Ahsoka, it's that new characters offer fresh lenses through which to view familiar galactic events. Now that we're moving into largely uncharted territory, it will be even more interesting to see how Kanan handles himself and works with his fellow crew of the starship Ghost. In addition to the USA Today reveal of Kanan, you should also check out this story about how creative types like Simon Kinberg -- who is both a consultant on Episode VII and an executive producer on Rebels -- are working to tie together all the new elements of the saga.
Speaking of Rebels, you may have noticed a propaganda campaign last week that sought to remind the citizens of the galaxy to support the Empire using six new patriotic art pieces. We at TheForce.Net were pleased to receive one of the art cards, joining IGN, Entertainment Tonight, Mashable, Empire, and Omelete to disseminate some Star Wars Rebels-themed poster art. In addition to appearing online, the art pieces were also mailed in the form of small cards to 2,500 lucky Star Wars fans. You can check out pictures of the Imperial mailer here.
Did you enjoy the new music in Star Wars: The Clone Wars? You have composer Kevin Kiner to thank for that. If you’re disappointed that the series is off the air, you can revive your memories of the show by re-listening to some of Kiner’s original scoring work on his website. The composer posted over fifty of the musical cues he produced for the series, including “Hondo’s Services” from Season 5 and “A True Trooper” from Season 3.
The next Star Wars book on Del Rey’s calendar is Honor Among Thieves by James S.A. Corey. In the last two weeks, Del Rey has released two micro-excerpts from the novel. Check those out here and here. In other literature news, Del Rey hosted a Facebook Q&A with Maul: Lockdown author Joe Schreiber today, so head over there and read the post to see all of the questions and Schreiber's answers. You can find a transcript of the post on Suvudu as well. Schreiber is also the author of the EU novels Death Troopers and Red Harvest.
Lastly, there’s good news for fans of Jeffrey Brown’s Star Wars children’s books. The author of Darth Vader and Son and Vader's Little Princess is writing a book of Star Wars bedtime stories called Goodnight Darth Vader. StarWars.com revealed the book’s cover art on Monday. No release date has been announced.
Eric Geller is a college student majoring in political science whose interests include technology, journalism, and of course Star Wars. He co-hosts The ForceCast podcast and manages social media for Star Wars fan sites TheForce.Net and Rebelscum.com. He is originally from the Washington, D.C. area.