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featured a small number of scenes from the Polish trailer. These tantalising glimpses of The Clone Wars animation can only further the appetite fans have for it.
Star Wars Books were first to post the title of Kirsten Mayer's children's book The Clone Wars: Battle at Teth (a small spoiler in the title if considered in conjunction with the leaked trailer). The title was later confirmed by the official website. Star Wars Books were also the first to post the cover for Karen Traviss's forthcoming fourth and final Republic Commando novel, Order 66. Early in April Star Wars Books published an editorial based upon the research of former TheForce.net staffer Mike Cooper, who had been analysing fans familiarity between book and plot lines, in which we argued that stories which feature the Big Three were more popular than those that did not.
Other news included Randy Stradley's announcement that there would be two new comic series' to tie-in with The Clone Wars animation; the discovery of a listing on Amazon.com for a Rebellion era comics Omnibus by Affiliate Jedi News (yet to be confirmed by Dark Horse); the welcome return of original short stories for Hyperspace members at StarWars.com; a new series of youth novels from Scholastic next year to replace the Last of the Jedi series which ends in June; and a plethora of book covers were released: The Complete Star Wars Encyclopaedia (first reported by Club Jade), Order 66 by Star Wars Books and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor by TheForce.net.
Possibly the most inexplicable book news item was the discovery of a possible Millennium Falcon novel report at TheForce.net, a possible Han and Lando story. But following the release of the Death Star novel last year, are we to accept another novel that focuses on the story of an inanimate object in the Star Wars universe that cannot be an original storyline since the history of the Falcon is fairly well documented in books and comics?
Of course April isn't April without April Fools day: Club Jade surpassing everyone else with Upcoming: From the secret files of LucasBooks, a fantastic spoof suggesting that Del Rey and LucasBooks were "taking the war out of Star Wars" by creating stories such as "Young Jedi in Love: the story of Jacen Solo, torn between his love for Hapan princess Tenel Ka and his lifelong dream of running an animal sanctuary". Coupled with a fantastic cover art mock-up, they richly deserved the lead mention on the official Star Wars blog.
Beyond book news were health scares for Star Wars actors Kenny Baker, who suffered an asthma attack whilst travelling between conventions in the US; and for Ewan McGregor, who recently had a cancerous mole removed from below his right eye. Both actors have recovered although Kenny says it is unlikely he will travel beyond Europe after his scare. And LucasArts finally confirmed that The Force Unleashed's videogame release would be 16th September, almost a year behind schedule!
April ended with an unexpected free gift from Del Rey and LucasBooks when they made the first Legacy of the Force book, Betrayal, available as a free digital download. Not without coincidence, Affiliate The EU Cantina had reported that the first eight Legacy novels would be available as e-Books by the end of April, as early as the 9th, but it was still a nice surprise to be able to get the first book free on the day the e-Books were released.