Ever wondered just what Yoda was thinking when a young X-Wing pilot named Luke Skywalker interrupted his quiet, swampy exile on Dagobah and demanded training in the ancient Jedi arts? Or how Princess Leia coped with the emotional turmoil of becoming a Rebel resistance fighter? Wonder no more, for a new triptych of Star Wars novels is to revisit the storyline from the iconic original trilogy from the perspectives of three of its best known supporting characters.
Leia steps forward for the novel The Princess, The Scoundrel, and The Farm Boy, based on 1977’s Star Wars and written by author Alexandra Bracken. Yoda moves centre stage on So You Want to Be a Jedi?, based on 1980’s The Empire Strikes Back and penned by Adam Giowitz, and Vader’s innermost hopes and fears will be revealed in Beware the Power of the Dark Side!, which riffs on 1983’s Return of the Jedi and will be written by Tom Angleberger.
As you might imagine from the somewhat literal nature of the titles, the books are intended to help studio Disney bring the original Star Wars stories to a younger audience. However, unlike the recently-downgraded Star Wars Expanded Universe novels they will be considered canonical.
The novels are among more than 20 new Star Wars books being released ahead of the December release of The Force Awakens, JJ Abrams’s much-hyped big screen revival of the long-running space opera. Disney is also printing a series of comic books set during the original trilogy’s timeline, one of which caused controversy last week when it revealed that Han Solo may have been married during his romance with Leia.
It is not known if the newly-introduced Sana Solo will turn up in The Force Awakens or cause Leia to question her relationship with Han in The Princess, The Scoundrel, and The Farm Boy. However, the book does offer insight into the teenage princess’s decision to jettison her life of privilege in favour of joining the Rebel Alliance in its fight against Vader’s Evil Empire.
“Stealing top-secret plans from the Empire was a risk, but being dismissed as a twinkling ball of gas had only made her more determined,” reads the Leia-perspective novel. “The mission should have been simple. All they needed to do was intercept a transmission about a new battle station the Empire was rumoured to be building. But the system had been swarming with Imperials.
“They’d caught on to Leia’s bogus tale about her ship’s breaking down, but the cover had helped her stall long enough to download the technical plans for something code-named ‘Death Star.’ Despite the Rebels’ efforts to lose the Imperials in the jump to hyperspace, the hulking Star Destroyer had caught up to them. And Leia knew, the moment the ship identified itself as the Devastator, there would be no escape. It was Darth Vader’s ship.”
According to the official Star Wars site, the books represent “fresh interpretations — true to the films but filtered through each author’s vision”. A press release adds: “In each novel, the authors get inside the characters’ heads, tell us about the scenes between the scenes, and even teach us how to be a Jedi.”
