Title: The Legends of Luke Skywalker
Author: Ken Liu
Release Date: October 31, 2017
Publisher: Disney Lucasfilm Press
Pages: 432
Formats: Hardcover, eBook, audiobook
Amazon | Audible | B&N | TBD | Goodreads
It’s a great time to be a Star Wars fan. With new movies, books, comics, and more being released every day I can tell you that I am personally in fangirl heaven. Each new story is an opportunity for new, unique voices to make their mark on the Star Wars universe. Tomorrow, October 31st, Ken Liu gets his chance with the release of his latest novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker.
One of the ‘Journey to Star Wars: The Last Jedi‘ tie-ins, the book helps set the stage for the new movie not just through clever tie-ins but by reminding us all of what Luke Skywalker really means to that world. He’s both a hero and a myth as we see in from Finn and Rey’s reactions in The Force Awakens.
We had a chance to talk with Ken Liu about about the Star Wars films, The Legends of Luke Skywalker, and more. Check out our full Q&A below!
Q&A With Ken Liu
What was your first introduction to Star Wars? Have you always been a fan of the franchise?
The novelization of The Empire Strikes Back, by Donald F. Glut. That was the first SF novel I ever read, and I instantly fell in love with the galaxy far, far away. I think I spent more time reading Star Wars books in college than I did studying for some of my classes.
Which film is your favorite? Why would you pick that one?
It’s impossible to pick just one favorite. Every film has exhibited Lucas’s vision of “effervescent giddiness” in different ways. Right now I think about Rogue One a lot because I love the way it stretched the tone of Star Wars films in new directions.
The Legends of Luke Skywalker isn’t your only contribution to the Star Wars universe. You also had a short story included in the ‘From a Certain Point of View’ anthology. What has it been like writing new stories set in the Star Wars universe?
It’s been a blast. I love the idea of collaborative storytelling, which is what writing in Star Wars is all about. I get to play in this massive galaxy created by so many legendary artists and storytellers before me, adding my little piece to the fabric of spacetime in this grand, mythical world.
What drew you to this particular project?
A lot of my fiction is concerned with the idea of mythmaking and how history becomes legend. Exploring these concepts inside the Star Wars universe is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and I’m so glad I got to do it.
What did you enjoy most about writing these ‘legends’ about Luke Skywalker?
I loved imagining different narrators and their motivations for telling and retelling these legends. Stories are how we make sense of the utter randomness of life itself, and telling stories about our heroes has the power to shape the way we craft the narrative of our own lives. I really enjoyed getting deeper into the minds of the narrators as the story of Luke is filtered through their perspectives.
Giveaway
As part of the tour, Rockstar Book Tours is hosting a giveaway to give readers a chance to check out The Legends of Luke Skywalker for themselves! Three winners will receive a finished copy of the book. Unfortunately, it’s only open to US residents.
Enter now!
Synopsis
As a cargo ship rockets across the galaxy to Canto Bight, the deckhands on board trade stories about legendary Jedi Knight Luke Skywalker. But are the stories of iconic and mysterious Luke Skywalker true, or merely tall tales passed from one corner of the galaxy to another? Is Skywalker really a famous Jedi hero, an elaborate charlatan, or even part droid? The deckhands will have to decide for themselves when they hear The Legends of Luke Skywalker.
A collection of myths and tall-tales about the legendary Jedi Luke Skywalker, written by Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy award-winning author Ken Liu.
About the Author
Ken Liu is an author of speculative fiction, as well as a translator, lawyer, and programmer. A winner of the Nebula, Hugo, and World Fantasy awards, he has been published in The Magazine of Fantasy & Science Fiction, Asimov’s, Analog, Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, and Strange Horizons, among other places.
Ken’s debut novel, The Grace of Kings (2015), is the first volume in a silkpunk epic fantasy series, The Dandelion Dynasty. It won the Locus Best First Novel Award and was a Nebula finalist. He subsequently published the second volume in the series, The Wall of Storms (2016) as well as a collection of short stories, The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories (2016). He also wrote the Star Wars novel, The Legends of Luke Skywalker (2017).
In addition to his original fiction, Ken also translated numerous literary and genre works from Chinese to English. His translation of The Three-Body Problem, by Liu Cixin, won the Hugo Award for Best Novel in 2015, the first translated novel ever to receive that honor. He also translated the third volume in Liu Cixin’s series, Death’s End (2016) and edited the first English-language anthology of contemporary Chinese science fiction, Invisible Planets (2016).
He lives with his family near Boston, Massachusetts.
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Tour Schedule
Week One:
10/23/2017- Page Turners Blog– Spotlight
10/24/2017- Twinning for Books– Spotlight
10/25/2017- Mama Reads Blog– Spotlight
10/26/2017- Tales of the Ravenous Reader– Interview
10/27/2017- Eli to the nth– Spotlight
Week Two:
10/30/2017- Nerdophiles– Interview
10/31/2017- Fiction Fare– Spotlight
11/1/2017- Mundie Moms– Spotlight
11/2/2017- BookHounds YA– Review
11/3/2017- Margie’s Must Reads– Guest Post
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