‘Star Wars: Aftermath’ Announced

Jennifer Heddle, senior editor at LucasBooks, took to StarWars.com to announce “Star Wars: Aftermath,” the first post-“Return of the Jedi” era book in the march toward December’s release of “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

Chuck Wendig has been tapped to pen the first book in what’s being called a trilogy that will bridge the 35 years between the films.

The description Heddle offers for the book is fairly vague, definitely more questions than answers.

The second Death Star has been destroyed. Rumors 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? Those are some of the themes we’ll be exploring in Aftermath, and as a lifelong Star Wars fan, just writing those words gives me chills. I can’t wait for our first canon glimpse into the state of the galaxy after the Battle of Endor.

Wendig talks from the official “Star Wars” website:

“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…My jaw dropped and I don’t think I’ve found it, yet. 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 — from the toys to the games to the books. In fact, one of the first novels I ever read was the novelization of A New Hope. 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.”

The book comes out September 4, 2015 and I won’t be able to get it into my hands soon enough.