Star Wars: Imperial Commando – 501st
Author: Karen Traviss
Released: 05/11/2009

Following on from Star Wars Republic Commando Order 66 the Clone Wars are over, but the clone deserters’ personal battle against the Empire has only just begun.

With death warrants on their heads, and a hated Imperial garrison on Mandalore, Kal Skirata’s clan of clone veterans, Mando mercenaries, misfit refugees, and a renegade Jedi find all their worst nightmares have followed them home. The search for a cure for the clones’ premature aging grows more desperate, and Etain’s son must be protected at all costs.

Darman and Niner are still stranded in the Imperial legion, and fight to survive in a very different army. But as Mandalore prepares to resist Palpatine’s new order, Skirata is forced to give safe haven to those he hates most, and some he thought were dead. Clan Skirata thinks things can’t possibly get any worse – until their ragtag private army faces the reality of fighting the Empire. Their most lethal enemies are now their own brothers.

Karen Traviss was also planning on writing a sequel to Imperial Commando 501st, but the novel has been reassigned to another author due to Traviss having issues with the publisher and Star Wars canon.

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Star Wars Lego: The Visual Dictionary
Author: Jason Fry
Released: 1 Oct 2009

Ten years ago in a galaxy not far away Lego and Star Wars came together! To celebrate this decade, DK Publishing released the Lego Star Wars Visual Dictionary, a guide to the ingenious designs that translate Star Wars characters, vehicles and environments into Lego creations.

The book is not merely a catalog of Star Wars Lego products, though every set to date is included. It does follow along the lines of other Visual Dictionaries, in that it attempts to explain things from the universe it occupies. So this takes the point of view from within the Lego Star Wars universe of sorts. This is best expressed through themed spreads within the book that often explore a character or faction and its evolution across multiple Lego sets.

If you are a fan of Star Wars Lego then this is the Holy Bible.

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Star Wars: Death Troopers
Author: Joe Schreiber
Released: 13 Oct 2009

When the Imperial prison barge Purge–temporary home to five hundred of the galaxy’s most ruthless killers, rebels, scoundrels, and thieves–breaks down in a distant, uninhabited part of space, its only hope appears to lie with a Star Destroyer found drifting, derelict, and seemingly abandoned. But when a boarding party from the Purge is sent to scavenge for parts, only half of them come back–bringing with them a horrific disease so lethal that within hours nearly all aboard the Purge die in ways too hideous to imagine.

And death is only the beginning.

The Purge’s half-dozen survivors–two teenage brothers, a sadistic captain of the guards, a couple of rogue smugglers, and the chief medical officer, the lone woman on board–will do whatever it takes to stay alive. But nothing can prepare them for what lies waiting aboard the Star Destroyer amid its vast creaking emptiness that isn’t really empty at all. For the dead are rising: soulless, unstoppable, and unspeakably hungry.

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Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi – Abyss
Author: Troy Denning
Released: 03/09/2009

Following on from Star Wars Fate of the Jedi Omen Luke Skywalker continues his quest to find the reasons behind Jacen Solo’s dark downfall and to win redemption for the Jedi Order. Sojourning among the mysterious Aing-Tii monks has left Luke and his son Ben with no real answers, only the suspicion that the revelations they seek lie in the forbidden reaches of the distant Maw Cluster. There, hidden from the galaxy in a labyrinth of black holes, dwell the Mind Walkers: those whose power to transcend their bodies and be one with the Force is as seductive and intoxicating as it is potentially fatal. But it may be Luke’s only path to the truth.

Meanwhile, on Coruscant, the war of wills between Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala and the Jedi Order is escalating. Outraged over the carbonite freezing of young Jedi Knights Valin and Jysella Horn after their inexplicable mental breakdowns, the Jedi are determined to defy Daala’s martial tactics, override Council Master Kenth Hamner’s wavering leadership, and deal on their own terms with the epidemic of madness preying on their ranks.

As Han and Leia Solo, along with their daughter Jaina, join the fight to protect more stricken Knights from arrest, Jedi healers race to find a cure for the rapidly spreading affliction. But none of them realize the blaster barrel is already swinging in their direction–and Chief Daala is about to pull the trigger.

Nor do Luke and Ben, deep in the Maw Cluster and pushing their Force abilities beyond known limits, realize how close they are–to the Sith strike squad bent on exterminating the Skywalkers, to a nexus of dark-side energy unprecedented in its power and its hunger, and to an explosive confrontation between opposing wielders of the Force from which only one Master–good or evil–can emerge alive.

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Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi – Omen
Author: Christie Golden
Released: 02/07/2009

Following on from Star Wars Fate of the Jedi Outcast the Jedi Order is in crisis. The late Jacen Solo’s shocking transformation into murderous Sith Lord Darth Caedus has cast a damning pall over those who wield the Force for good: Two Jedi Knights have succumbed to an inexplicable and dangerous psychosis, criminal charges have driven Luke Skywalker into self-imposed exile, and power-hungry Chief of State Natasi Daala is exploiting anti-Jedi sentiment to undermine the Order’s influence within the Galactic Alliance.

Forbidden to intervene in Jedi affairs, Luke is on a desperate mission to uncover the truth behind Jacen’s fall to the dark side–and to learn what’s turning peaceful Jedi into raving lunatics. But finding answers will mean venturing into the mind-bending space of the Kathol Rift and bargaining with an alien species as likely to destroy outsiders as deal with them. Still, there is no other choice and no time to lose, as the catastrophic events on Coruscant continue to escalate.

Stricken by the same violent dementia that infected her brother, Valin, Jedi Knight Jysella Horn faces an equally grim fate after her capture by Natasi Daala’s police. And when Han and Leia Solo narrowly foil another deranged Jedi bent on deadly destruction, even acting Jedi Grand Master Kenth Hamner appears willing to bow to Daala’s iron will–at the expense of the Jedi Order.

But an even greater threat is looming. Millennia in the past, a Sith starship crashed on an unknown low-tech planet, leaving the survivors stranded. Over the generations, their numbers have grown, the ways of the dark side have been nurtured, and the time is fast approaching when this lost tribe of Sith will once more take to the stars to reclaim their legendary destiny as rulers of the galaxy. Only one thing stands in their way, a name whispered to them through the Force: Skywalker.

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