A few months ago, Disney and Lucasfilm decided that the decades-in-the-making expanded universe of Star Wars ancillary products such as novels, video games, cartoons and cereal boxes would be declared non-canon so JJ Abrams' new sequel trilogy didn't need to pay attention to any of that stuff. But now, the very first iteration of the new and improved EU is out!
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John Jackson Miller's (several Mass Effect comics) new novel A New Dawn focuses on two characters from the upcoming animated series Star Wars: Rebels, ex-Jedi Kanan Jarrus and Twi'lek starship captain Hera Syndulla, and how they came to meet.
The upcoming line-up for Star Wars Nu-U (as I'm dubbing it as of now) novels includes:
Tarkin by James Luceno (11/4/2014)
Heir To The Jedi by Kevin Hearne (January 2015)
Lords Of The Sith by Paul Kemp (March 2015)
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Interesting to note that Tarkin and Lords of the Sith feature characters no longer (as far as we officially know) featuring in the upcoming movies, whereas Heir To The Jedi (nice Timothy Zahn shout-out) has Luke on the cover front and center. Could we learn something new about his emotional state at the start of Episode VII?
Now, read an excerpt of A New Dawn, courtesy of EW, or listen to the embedded audiobook fragment down below, read by actual Rebels Hera Syndulla voice actress Vanessa Marshall.