The Mandalorian Season 2 and The High Republic draw near, plus free Star Wars fiction

Time again for STAR WARS WEEKLY, the SYFY WIRE series that rounds up the most important news of the week from a galaxy far, far away. 

Think of us as your own personal Star Wars Holocron.

THE MANDALORIAN WRITERS REVEALED

The Writer’s Guild of America (WGA) posted a listing of all the writers involved in the second season of The Mandalorian. It looks like show creator Jon Favreau himself will be taking the brunt of the writing duties. He's credited with the first four episodes, the sixth episode, and the eighth episode. That leaves Dave Filoni as the scribe for the fifth episode and Rick Famuyiwa with the seventh episode. 

If I were to guess, I would say that the fifth episode would be when we’d expect to discover the truth behind the reports about Ahsoka Tano and Boba Fett's presence in the sophomore season. Filoni also wrote and directed the fifth episode of last season, which ended with a hint that someone was wearing Boba Fett's armor. With the poetry of Star Wars and the rhyming structure it sometimes takes, it wouldn’t surprise me if this episode is where we see the “Boba Fett” storyline reappear. And, if Ahsoka Tano is really making the leap to live-action, would Jon Favreau trust anyone other than Filoni, her creator, to do it?

To be clear, this is all just a well-informed guess on my part. We’ll find out soon enough on our own. The Mandalorian begins its second season on Disney+ on Oct. 30.

FICTION RETURNS TO STAR WARS INSIDER

A surprising announcement came yesterday at New York Comic Con's panel on The High Republic, Star Wars' upcoming storytelling initiative. Fiction will be returning to the pages of Star Wars Insider starting with the December issue.

Fiction has been absent from the pages of Star Wars Insider for the last few years, and it’s been sorely missed, so it’s great to see it coming back and to see it tie into this massive High Republic endeavor. Charles Soule will be kicking things off with a new story set during the High Republic era.

Then, they announced more books in The High Republic family, with Cavan Scott taking the second adult book in the series, Justina Ireland handling the next young-adult novel, and Daniel Jose Older stepping into a middle-grade slot.

If you want to watch the whole NYCC panel on The High Republic, you can do so here:

FREE STAR WARS FICTION!

October is Star Wars Reads month — a time when libraries and book stores hold events around the joys of reading and offer people of all ages the chance to explore the rich literary universe of the Star Wars galaxy. You can learn more about Star Wars Reads here.

In order to help celebrate this event, Disney is offering a free ebook for any Star Wars fans who are looking for something to read.

If you want to download a copy, you have until the end of Friday, Oct. 9 to download Zoraida Cordova’s wonderful novel Galaxy’s Edge: A Crash of Fate. It’s a charming romance set on Batuu, the setting of Disney’s Galaxy’s Edge attractions. Not only will it bring you closer to the lore of Black Spire Outpost, but it will also give you just a great time. But download the book fast, this ends today.

STAR WARS SQUADRONS POST-LAUNCH

It seems as though we’re getting only what we pay for with Star Wars Squadrons. The game as it has been released is all that's ever coming. EA made clear that there will be no post-launch content as we saw with Battlefront II, something that made that game richer and more playable as days went on.

There go my dreams of flying in the VR cockpit of a Naboo Royal N-1 Starfighter. Or even the Millennium Falcon. There’s hope that if Squadrons does well, though, we might get a new game that would let us fly many, many more ships in the Star Wars universe. 

And maybe they could give us a Star Trek: Bridge Crew-like VR experience on the bridge of a Star Destroyer or Rebel Frigate while they’re at it.

That would be great, too.

But, alas, we have nothing to look forward to other than the dogfights we’ve already got.

Star Wars Squadrons is out now.

BUILDING THE RAZOR CREST

ILM released a video documenting the making of the Mandalorian’s ship, the Razor Crest. It’s as good as any of the behind the scenes documentaries that Lucasfilm and their related companies put out in regards to Star Wars, and they’ve set the gold standard for this sort of content. 

 Until next week, may the Force be with you!