The Star Wars canon novel list
This list began life as a more traditional blog article to chronicle the new “Expanded Universe” of Star Wars canon novel releases that are considered “official” after the Disney purchase of Lucasfilm. The prolific existing EU was then relegated to “Legends” status, and only books that came out from that point onward were considered to be official Star Wars canon novel content.
“Going forward, Lucasfilm has begun mapping out the narrative future of Star Wars storytelling that will appear on film and television and in other media so that all projects will benefit from real-time collaboration and alignment. The future Star Wars novels from Disney Publishing Worldwide and Del Rey Books will now be part of the official Star Wars canon as reflected on upcoming TV and movie screens.”
That “future” is now, and it started on Sept. 2, 2014, with the publication of John Jackson Miller’s A New Dawn, considered to be the first “new” Star Wars canon novel. And it’s still going strong.
“With the establishment of the Lucasfilm Story Group and our even greater focus on unified storytelling, we expect our entire publishing program to be stronger and more meaningful than ever before,” said Jeanne Mosure, senior vice president and group publisher, Disney Publishing Worldwide. “We’re extremely excited to kick off this new strategy with Del Rey Books.”
The original article about this became unwieldy in a blog post format — hopefully, this page will better serve as a reference for those wishing to know what books “count” now and mesh seamlessly with the films, TV shows and games of the Star Wars canon universe today. Both pages will be updated as appropriate. You can explore the releases by release date in the table below — oldest releases first — or in the cover gallery below that, showing the books in order from most recent to oldest. This is the Way …
Ordered by release date, first to last
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Star Wars canon book cover gallery
Most recent releases displayed first
Star Wars book publishing news
Star Wars book news: Thrawn delay blues, Poe Dameron prequel, ‘Project Luminous’ looms 10 months agoThere’s a new Poe Dameron novel added to the Star Wars book publishing schedule, plus a Thrawn delay and the mysterious “Project Luminous” will finally be revealed in the next month …
So, Thrawn: The Ascendancy Trilogy Book 1: Chaos Rising has been delayed from its original publishing date of May 5 to Oct. 6 — but there’s going to be a cool special edition with a Chiss-blue spine! (Ed. — On Aug. 18, it was announced the blue pages would be available on all editions of the book.)
Also, to blunt the pain of the Thrawn delay a bit, know you now that the “Dramatis Personae” page of character names and affiliations, a staple of the expansive old “Expanded Universe” before Disney bought Lucasfilm and rebooted the book canon, is returning — and here’s why, straight from the Del Rey editor’s fingertips:
We also found out this week that we’re getting a young Poe Dameron and Zorii Bliss story, classified as YA fiction but c’mon.
And, whatever “Project Luminous” is (Ed. — now known as the “Light of the Jedi” series) — whether it’s an anthology, a series, a celebration of The Empire Strikes Back’s 40th anniversary as some have speculated, or something else entirely — we should know a lot more come Feb. 24:
Thrawn: Ascendancy trilogy of Star Wars books begins Sept. 1, 2020, with Chaos Rising 1 year agoThe first book in the Thrawn: Ascendancy trilogy of Star Wars novels by Timothy Zahn will debut Sept. 1 Oct. 6, 2020, and is titled Book I: Chaos Rising. The cover was revealed Tuesday:
The book will cover Thrawn’s time with his people, the Chiss Ascendancy, before his “exile” to the Empire.
The original release date of May 5, 2020, was previously reported for the novel, which “journeys beyond the edge of the map into the Unknown Regions” from whence Grand Admiral Thrawn emerged. Note the tagline in the tweet: “A long time ago, beyond a galaxy far, far away….” (emphasis added).
The release was later pushed back to Oct. 6:
