At Star Wars Celebration, a couple of new authors were confirmed to be slated to write books for Del Rey. These included Alexander Freed, who will be penning Battlefront, and Alan Dean Foster, a Star Wars literature veteran and the chosen one to novelize The Force Awakens.
There was another author at Star Wars Celebration this weekend, however, who, though he didn’t appear on any panels, did make some interesting comments on his Facebook account about creating a video for the Star Wars publishing crew.
"Got to play all day at #starwarscelebration down in Anaheim filming a video for @delreystarwars I can’t really express how much I love my job. I read hundreds of Star Wars books while growing up. Now I get to do this with the company that made them happen. #luckSOB"
Pierce Brown is the author of the Red Rising series, a dystopian trilogy with two installments already on book store shelves. I have read both the first book, Red Rising, and its sequel Golden Son (you can read my review of the latter here), and I can honestly and wholeheartedly say that Brown is a terrific writer. He managed to create a compelling futuristic setting that bears hints and homages to other franchises (including Star Wars), but still exists as its own unique beast. The characters don’t come across as pampered or put on a pedestal, rather the author takes care to push them to their limits of sanity and morality (and sometimes past those limits). Everything feels alive, fresh.
Part of this fresh aesthetic is due in large part to the fact that Brown is a discovery writer. This means that he doesn’t plan the whole story before he begins; he sort of lets it take off on its own, “discovering” the plot and characters’ fates as he’s writing it. The cool thing about this style of writing from a reader’s perspective is that you literally never know how the story is going to end up: who’s going to die, who’s going to survive by the skin of their teeth, what secrets are going to come crashing down. The story will start off in one place and end up on a totally different plane by the final pages. It makes for a pretty kickbutt read.
Imagining all of these elements being put to use in a Star Wars novel makes me almost giddy. The choice of such a bold author indicates boldness on the part of Del Rey, and an initiative like that tells me that there are some awesome Star Wars stories about to come down the pipeline.
Of course, I have to add that none of this is “officially” confirmed. I follow Pierce Brown on Twitter, and I happened to notice that he was at Celebration this past weekend. When he posted on Facebook that he had filmed a video with Del Rey, I was immediately on board with the possibility and the idea. I can only hope that this lead does, indeed, turn out to be a partnership on a new story between the author and Del Rey.
Hopefully, I will have an update for you on this subject ASAP, though it isn’t likely the Brown will be releasing anything through Del Rey until next year. The third book in the Red Rising series, Morning Star, is set to be released on January 5th, 2016, so the most we can expect until then is probably just an announcement of his involvement with Star Wars Books.