Look for this to appear in the main Comic-Con article come Monday, but I figure there's no harm in blogging about it now...

Star Wars: Legacy of the Force
The new era of Star Wars novels is upon avid readers of the expanded universe, and a packed room of fans came to ask questions from the trio of authors tasked to tell the tale. Aaron Allston, Troy Denning and Karen Traviss were joined by Del Rey Editor Shelly Shapiro and LucasBooks Editor Sue Rostoni for a question-and-answer panel.

The panel began with an announcement of the title of the sixth book of the series. Although toying that it had been officially called "That Book," Troy Denning disclosed that he was in the process of writing the outline for -- wait for it -- Inferno. With this addition, the current Legacy of the Force roster looks like this:

Book 1: Betrayal by Aaron Allston (hardcover, out now)
Book 2: Bloodlines by Karen Traviss (paperback, Sep 06)
Book 3: Tempest by Troy Denning (paperback, Dec 06)
Book 4: Exile by Aaron Allston (paperback, March 07)
Book 5: Sacrifice by Karen Traviss (hardcover, June 07)
Book 6: Inferno by Troy Denning (paperback, Sep 07)
Book 7 by Aaron Allston (paperback, Nov 07)
Book 8 by Karen Traviss (paperback, Mar 08
Book 9 by Troy Denning (hardcover, Jun 08)

"We were thinking about Ewok Inferno, but it just didn't fly," added Allston.

Sue Rostoni assuaged any fears that the Legacy of the Force series would be the last hurrah for the original trilogy heroes. "I don't think we've enough," she said, "and I don't think Lucasfilm is planning on ending things." She added that there are no definite plans, only because LucasBooks tends to handle storylines on a contract-by-contract basis, and until the next publishing contract is solidified, the content of future book projects have yet to be nailed down.

Shea, a fan dressed as Jaina Solo was eager to hear of Jaina's role in the future, and whether or not Jag Fel would figure into her life. "Can you give any of Jaina-Jag fans hope?" she asked.

"The problem with defining Jaina's role in the series is that Jaina's role is evolving, so she is going to be doing a lot of different stuff," said Allston. "You'll see a lot of Jaina."

Though the question of Jag was deftly evaded with the skill of an X-wing pilot, Rostoni did add with a smile, "Don't give up hope."

Regarding collaboration with the team behind the Star Wars Legacy comic series, Allston noted that there wasn't much creative interaction, though he did mention that he had talked with Jan Duursema to exchange ideas. "We did look at each other's outlines to make sure we didn't step on anybody's toes," added Denning.

Concerning the consistency of characterization versus the individual styles of authors, Allston noted, "You have to remember that real life people aren't 100% consistent. You're not exactly the same person today as you were yesterday. We don't have to write the character identically in order to be consistent. For instance, in Bloodlines, Karen has a much better ear for Leia at her snarkiest than I do. You will read Karen's Leia and it will be Leia at her most cutting."

"Remember that what an author does is watch what the characters are doing," explained Traviss. "If you talk to people about somebody that you both know, you'll have very different views about the same person. What you see is the different shades of the character there."

On the subject of character, Traviss noted that writing from Jacen's point-of-view proved challenging. "Watching what Jacen does - and that's as far as I'll go -- as he goes through his character arc is quite a challenge, but actually getting inside his head and seeing how he justifies what he does is actually quite scary. Because when you're in his head, it makes absolutely perfect sense, and that is really frightening."

With Jacen featured boldly on the cover of Betrayal and Tenel Ka on the cover of Tempest, the series is blazing new ground in cover art, shying away from the tried and true trio of classic heroes from the original films. "We discussed it, Sue and I and the art director, and we decided it was time," said Shapiro. "These characters are getting more recognizable, and we didn't want all the books to look alike by putting the same three characters on the novels. We're going for a different look and so we're featuring different characters."

Rostoni did reveal that the classic heroes will appear in the covers of the Legacy of the Force series eventually. "The first three books in the series have single characters, while the second set of three have two characters on each, and the last three goes back to one character each," she said.

When asked how Lumiya, a relatively forgotten character from the expanded universe of the mid-1980s, was chosen to be the catalyst for Jacen's transformation, Allston revealed that it was not set that way from the beginning. "When we actually started planning out the series, we hadn't settled on who the character influencing Jacen would be. When we were writing some of the earliest outlines, we described the character as 'the wizard,' without a specific name. We had some various ideas as to who it might be. Later on, we decided it was Lumiya because she fit in a variety of reasons. One of the reasons was that she was beloved by the readers of the Marvel series who have had to ask for years, decades, whatever happened to her?"

"We know it's a huge galaxy, so we don't want to make it too small by recycling characters," said Rostoni. "But on the other hand, if we have a role that needs to be filled and we have a character out there that fits it, we like to bring that in so that those people who are familiar with the character get that jolt of recognition, and those that aren't are introduced to them."

Karen Traviss was able to shed some light on some future non-Legacy of the Jedi projects, including the upcoming Boba Fett e-novella, set during the start of The New Jedi Order era. "Why did the Mandalorians side with the Yuuzhan Vong? What were they thinking? They're not stupid, they had to have their reasons, and that was the gap I wanted to fill. It's actually not what it seems. And the title, A Practical Man, is a reference to an obscure song that I'm not very sure few people would have heard in the UK. It's about sticking to what you believe."

Also on the way are two more Republic Commando novels, with the next one slated for the summer of 2007.

ph