Just seen on Twitter: “TK-COW shares victory with the Jobe Family and BOTH are declared Grand Prize Winners courtesy of Chick-fil-A. Thank you to ALL of you who put up with the heavy promotion and incessant pleas for votes in those last few days! Families in facing starvation in New Mexico will be a little less hungry because of the time you took to vote. Rock on!”

Joe from Del Rey wanted to let everybody how excited he is about this new book. Heck, I haven’t looked forward to a book this much since Timothy Zahn’s Allegiance. Death Troopersisn’t due until October 13, 2009, but you can get in on the madness right now!

Here’s what’s going on –
One ñ Joe Schreiber tour dates. Youíll find the full promotional tour Joe will be doing for Death Troopers and No Doors, No Windows at the bottom of this post.

Two ñ Canít make it or donít live near any of the cities on the tour and want a signed copy of the book? That can be arranged. Joe will be signing copies of both Death Troopers and No Doors, No Windows over at the SignedPage.com, a great site that specializes in selling signed editions of new titles.

Three ñ There are still a few days to get your Death Troopers fan trailer in. 9 Days to be exact. Iím not sure if youíre aware of the contest, but all the details are over at the Death Troopers site,www.deathtroopers.com

Four ñ Speaking of trailers, check out the Death Troopers trailer that a group of Star Wars fans at Del Rey made earlier this summer. Here it is on YouTube. Weíd love you forever if you would put it on your site!

Five ñ Thereís tons more stuff we have planned, so stay tuned.

ON TOUR WITH JOE SCHREIBER
LOS ANGELES, CA – Tuesday, October 13
Barnes & Noble, 7881 Edinger Avenue, Huntington Beach ⎯7:00pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

SACRAMENTO, CA – Thursday, October 15
Borders Books & Music, 2765 E Bidwell Street, Folsom ⎯7:00pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

SEATTLE, WA – Friday, October 16
University Bookstore, 4326 University Way NE ⎯7:00pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

PORTLAND, OR – Saturday, October 17
Powellís, Cedar Hills Crossing, 3415 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., Beaverton ⎯7:00pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

CHICAGO, IL – Monday, October 19
Borders Books & Music, 1500 16th Street, Oak Brook ⎯7:00pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

INDIANAPOLIS, IN – Tuesday, October 20
Barnes & Noble, 14709 US Hwy 31 North, Carmel⎯7:00pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

PHILADELPHIA, PA – Saturday, October 24
Borders Books & Music, 1149 Lancaster Ave, Bryn Mawr ⎯2:00pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

LANSING, MI – Sunday, November 1
Horizon Books, 319 E. Mitchell Street, Petoskey ⎯2:00pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

PORTAGE, MI – Monday, November 2
Portage District Library, 300 Library Lane, Portage ⎯6:30pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

TULSA, OK – Tuesday, November 15
Barnes & Noble, 8620 East 71st Street, ⎯7:00pm
Talk, Q&A, Signing

NOTE: The following messages were recovered from the Imperial Prison Barge Purge, after its discovery in the Unknown Regions.

With the exception of certain elements that have been redacted upon the request of specific parties or individuals, these letters and notations are presented here unedited, with their original spelling and syntax intact, in the interest of galactic scholarship.

The messages have been distributed to the following sites:
www.deathtroopers.com, www.starwars.com, www.swactionnews.com, www.njoe.com,www.rebelscum.com, www.theforce.net, clubjade.net/

From Dr. Cody to her father:

Dear Dad:

I don’t have much time but I wanted to get this down while I had a chance. Things here have changed dramatically. In the last two hours my medbay has been overrun with sick inmates, guards and troopers, many of whom have already died while in my care. My medical droid and I have no idea what type of infection we’re dealing with, only that it’s extremely aggressive and traditional treatment seems completely ineffective.

Worse, our isolation and quarantine countermeasures have no effect. Although I haven’t found any sign of contamination in myself yet, I can’t help but think it may be inevitable.

There is sickness and despair everywhere, confusion and complete breakdown of order on every level. I just saw a stormtrooper in the hallway take off his helmet and put his blaster to his head. He was crying when he did it.

Even now I don’t regret what I’ve done here and continue to try my best to help. I will try to write again if I get the chance but now must go.

Z

From Bissley Kloth, Warden, to Sgt. Hazar Yupcavage, Regional Director, Imperial Corrections Service:

Dear Sir:

Iím writing to inform you to the best of my abilities of the regrettable circumstances recently besetting the Imperial Barge Purge.

These are the facts. At 0945 this morning, our main engine thrusters became nonfunctional. We were able to dispatch a maintenance crew to a derelict Star Destroyer for replacement parts, and initially the mission seemed like it was a success.

What happened next was less clear. It appears as though the engineering crew may have been exposed to some type of infectious process. When questioned in medbay, the only thing that any of them were able to tell us is the word Blackwing. Database searches under this word yield no results except for one arcane reference to [REDACTED] in the [REDACTED].

In the interest of maintaining order I have followed standard operation procedure and quarantined the non-infected crew and myself in the appropriate facilities. We have sent distress signals to any and all nearby Imperial craft and have no intention of evacuating the barge unless it is absolutely necessary.

Thank you in advance for your understanding,

Warden Bissley Kloth

==========
NOTE: The following messages were recovered from the Imperial Prison BargePurge, after its discovery in the Unknown Regions.

With the exception of certain elements that have been redacted upon the request of specific parties or individuals, these letters and notations are presented here unedited, with their original spelling and syntax intact, in the interest of galactic scholarship.

The messages have been distributed to the following sites:
www.deathtroopers.com, www.starwars.com, http://www.swactionnews.com,www.njoe.com, www.rebelscum.com, www.theforce.net, http://clubjade.net/

Today’s Photo Archive update features the latest toys from the Legacy Collection! The final update for today is the Build-A-Droid figure for this assortment. One of the more memorable combatants in the Rattatak arena from the 6th episode of the Clone Wars micro-series, L8-L9 brought it’s fiery plasmacannon arms before being destroyed by Asajj Ventress.

Today’s Photo Archive update features the latest toys from the Legacy Collection! From the memorable podracing scene in The Phantom Menacecomes the latest podracer action figure…the Nosaurian Clegg Holdfast, who didn’t win the race, but was there to witness the story of a lifetime!

Today’s Photo Archive update features the latest toys from the Legacy Collection! The real threat in The Phantom Menace was none other than the secret Dark Lord of the Sith, depicted here in this Darth Sidious Hologramfigure, complete with mechno-chair to walk around the hallways of Theed.

Today’s Photo Archive update features the latest toys from the Legacy Collection! This next figure from The Phantom Menace is a character so obscure, he never even made it to any rumor lists! Kudos to Hasbro for keepingRum Sleg off the radar, and also for delivering one of the coolest-looking figures this year. Just check out Rum’s unique look when you remove the helmet!

As part of Hasbro’s tri-weekly Q&A session, Rebelscum passed on 3 of your burning questions and now we’ve got the answers for you.

Rebelscum: I love what you have done in the Paploo & NoApaak Ewok 2 pack. From what I read in the collecting community, all of the Ewok packs sell through very well. My question/request has to do with your selection process for the Ewoks in these packs. It seems like you are packing main Ewoks with background Ewoks. If you continue to do this down the line, could you please throw us lover’s of the Ewok movies a bone on some figures? You could easily make packs like Wicket and Deej, Logray and Kaink, Teebo and Chukha-Trok. All of them would be an instant hit and sell just as well as any other Ewok pack, plus it would be a way to get these figures to the die hard fans.

Hasbro: The Ewok packs have been indeed doing well, and this gives usconfidence to keep them going in the lineup every year in one form or another. We do have all of the Ewoks mentioned on our short list, and given time all of them should see the light of day. It may take a few years, however.

Rebelscum: Have you ever thought of doing a two-pack line for the Cantina (like the Order 66/Build a Droid/Geo Arena packs)?

Hasbro: The Cantina patrons are very nice when it comes to collecting interest and this would not be a sound strategy for us. We have done multi-figure packs built around the Cantina in the past, but these were a disappointment and so we look for new and different ideas for the 2-pack lineup.

Rebelscum: My question (and I’m sure a majority of us are curious) pertains to the recently revealed DS2 Luke figure. From a previous Q&A, it was our understanding this figure was *all new*, and as the multitude of images from SDCC have shown, that’s not the case. Why, with all the fan anticipation, demands, Fan’s choice voting, etc. would this figure not be done with the utmost care and detailing? (Snowspeeder Luke is fantastic while DS2 Luke leaves MUCH to be desired) For those dispelled by this version, when can we expect to see a justified release of Death Star 2 Luke (no flap down, all the bells and whistles, SMALLER, CONCEALED JOINTS, etc.)

Hasbro: The version you saw at Comic Con was not the final production version, which we expect will have a tighter fit, so the joints are not noticeable. You are correct that this version of Luke is built on some existing parts, which helped us reach our tooling goals for the basic figure line. Not all figures can be newly tooled, and we thought we had a great starting place with using the existing limbs we selected. This version of Luke comes with an interchangeable chest piece so you can display him both ways, important since we don’t have another DS2 version of Luke planned.

Got any burning Star Wars questions you need answered straight from the source? If so, post your questions in this thread in our forums, and with any luck, you’ll get your answers next time!

Today’s Photo Archive update features the latest toys from the Legacy Collection! The next figure from The Phantom Menace is the latest gown inQueen Amidala‘s wardrobe. Worn during two sequences in the film, this figure is a must-have for Amidala fans everywhere