Star Wars 2017 Del Rey Sampler: Excerpts from Upcoming and Current Titles

by Claudia Gray, Delilah S. Dawson, James Luceno

Can't wait for The Last Jedi? Lose yourself in a galaxy far, far away with this ebook sampler of excerpts from Del Rey's latest Star Wars novels--including a Rogue One adaptation and prequel.

Timothy Zahn returns with a revealing portrait of one of the most cunning and ruthless warriors in the history of the Galactic Empire. Chuck Wendig completes his epic trilogy bridging the gap between Episodes VI and VII. And Senator Leia Organa stars in her own novel set in the years before The Force Awakens.

Plus, don't miss five Star Wars short stories new to the 2017 "Scorched" by Delilah S. Dawson, "Blade Kuat" by David J. Williams & Mark S. Williams, "Voice of the Empire" by Mur Lafferty, "Turning Point" by Jason M. Hough, and "TK-462" by Sylvain Neuvel.

THRAWN by Timothy Zahn
In this definitive novel, readers will follow Thrawn's rise to power, uncovering the events that created one of the most iconic villains in Star Wars history.

BLOODLINE by Claudia Gray
Following the Battle of Endor, Leia Organa--now a respected senator--must protect the fledgling democracy from both outside dangers and treachery from within.

LIFE DEBT by Chuck Wendig
As the New Republic fights to restore peace to the galaxy, Norra Wexley leads a search and rescue mission to the Wookiee homeworld, where Chewbecca has been captured and Han Solo has disappeared.

CATALYST by James Luceno
In this prequel to Rogue A Star Wars Story, Jyn Erso's family must untangle a web of deception to save themselves--and the galaxy itself.

ROGUE ONE by Alexander Freed
A new hope rests in the hands of an unlikely band of allies--if only they can capture the plans to a machine of unimaginable destructive power. Go beyond the film with a novelization featuring new scenes and expanded material.

EMPIRE'S END by Chuck Wendig
As the final showdown between the New Republic and the Empire draws near, all eyes turn to a once-isolated Jakku.

Genres: Star Wars, Science Fiction

169 pages, Kindle Edition

First published June 20, 2017

About the author

Claudia Gray is not my real name. I didn't choose a pseudonym because my real name is unpleasant (it isn't), because I'd always dreamed of calling myself this (I haven't) or even because I'm hiding from the remnants of that international diamond-smuggling cartel I smashed in 2003 (Interpol has taken care of them). In short, I took a pseudonym for no real reason whatsoever. Sometimes this is actually the best reason to do things.

I live in New Orleans. So far, in life, I've been a disc jockey, a lawyer, a journalist and an extremely bad waitress, just to name a few. I especially like to spend time traveling, hiking, reading and listening to music. More than anything else, I enjoy writing.

Reviews

[Christopher · Rating 4 out of 5]

I give the original stories the four stars because the excerpts aren't enough to rate the book on. Plus some of the books I've already read so that's not fair to rate them twice. Especially rogue one since that book was terrible.

I read the book for the Sylvain Neuval story, conveniently the last one in the collection. If you liked that one - it was a very good short story -you should check out his Themis Files stories. And vice versa, since you can find this collection on Amazon for free.

[Steve Chaput · Rating 3 out of 5]

As with any anthology or sampler not everything it going to be of the same caliber. Some of the stories here are actual short stories published in the Star Wars Insider, while others are individual chapters (some not the first in the book) from upcoming SW novels.

A few authors like Timothy Zahn are familiar to SW fans from previous work, as is Chuck Wendig doing the Aftermath trilogy. Some of the others are not familiar to me, but I have to admit that I'm not reading a lot of SF the past few years. The exception being the Warhammer 40K novels.

Depending on how familiar you are with the SW universe, your mileage may vary. I've already marked down a couple of books I'll be adding to my "To Be Read" shelf.

[Mrklingon · Rating 4 out of 5]

An unexpected treat!

I've grabbed these samplers when they became available over the years, though rarely dug into them. More often than not, the novels "sampled" were ones I'd already read. Last week, after "Force Friday" I came across an article about "Mynock Monday" a sort of Freegan alternative - i.e. "how can you be a Star Wars fan on the cheap. They pointed out how these often included short stories along with the samples - and this was no exception. This book had some very nice stories from all across the GFFA eras. More than worth the price of admission.

FWIW: about Mynock Monday http://eleven-thirtyeight.com/2017/09...

[Seth Kennedy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Three stars mostly because this is a mixed bag of a handful of short stories (several of which were good) and novel excerpts (some piqued my interest, others not as much), so it's not a cohesive nor always satisfying reading experience. But the price was right, and I'm glad to see that Disney or LucasArts or whoever owns the rights to the universe plan to keep expanding it in print. I am still a touch bitter that all of the old EU stuff lost the "cannon" designation, though. But that's a different topic.

[M.A. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. There are some of the big name characters like Leia, Han Solo, C3PO, Emperor Palpatine, Chewbacca, etc. Then we are introduced to some characters that I never heard of before. It's a good sampler and an entertaining read.

[Wendy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved reading this.