The official blog at StarWars.com has updated with a report on the Star Wars publishing panel at Comic-Con in San Diego.

There's a survey of the upcoming Star Wars books from DelRey, some interesting background information from the superb The Making of Star Wars by J.W. Rinzler, and an overview of the Indiana Jones tie-ins, involving some familiar names: Jim Luceno is to pen the junior novellization and Dorling Kindersley Ultimate guide, while John Jackson Miller is doing the Dark Horse Comics adaptation.

We were also told on the schedule that there'd be an "exclusive announcement" by Keith Clayton about an upcoming DelRey Star Wars publication here, but this Ewok isn't quite sure what it is. Most of this is stuff that's been reported from official sources already.

It's unlikely to be Steve Sansweet's The Star Wars Vault, a comprehensive guide to Star Wars collecting that includes such rareties as the original "R2-D2" (Reel 2, Dialogue 2 of the American Graffiti audio track) and a sing-along CD of the Life Day Song from the Holiday Special. That book was mentioned directly in the same Comic-Con schedule, and it's being published by HarperCollins, who're not a part of Random House.

The only other things that are absolutely brand-new are: MAD About Star Wars, a survey of Star Wars material in MAD Magazine, which is apparently due this October; and a new edition of The Star Wars Encyclopedia, by Steve Sansweet and Pablo Hidalgo, due next autumn.

Since MAD about Star Wars got a special presentation, it may be this that was the announcemnet referred to in the schedule: I don't know how much weight we can put on the fact that this was done by its author, Jonathan Bresman from MAD, rather that by Keith Clayton, as the schedule implied.

The other updates covered by Clayton all seem to be things we've heard of already, albeit with a few possible differences of emphasis. The next two 'Legacy of the Force' novels, Troy Denning's Inferno and Aaron Allston's Fury, are said here to be due in September and December (though previous reports had suggested the end of August and November), with the other two books (Karen Traviss's Revelation and Denning's concluding Invincible) following next year.

We're also told about Steve Perry and Michael Reaves's hardcover novel Death Star in October, Karen Traviss's Republic Commando: Hard Contact in November, and her fourth Republic Commando novel, which is scheduled for next June.

The novellization of The Force Unleashed is due in March, and we're now told will it be co-authored by Sean Williams and game scriptwriter Haden Blackman. Michael Reaves returns again with Jedi Twilight, the first of the Coruscant Nights trilogy, in summer '08, and The Star Wars Atlas by Jason Fry and Dan Wallace is officially announced for June.

It's possible that the Atlas is the big announcement, as I'm not sure there's been a big, official announcement about it yet. However, Sue Rostoni, the LucasBooks editor, mentioned this on the StarWars.com forums back on 1st June, and, as we reported in April, it was originally revealed back in February, when Jason Fry appeared at the New York Comic-Con: you can see the relevant DelRey newsletter here.

Puzzlingly, Drew Karpyshyn's Darth Bane: Rule of Two is mentioned for "December" at the very end of the list—this somewhat implies December '08, when everything we'd heard was that it was due for this December.

UPDATE: a couple of people have pointed out that the updated version of The Star Wars Encyclopedia was actually announced more than a year ago, and MAD About Star Wars has also been known about for quite some time.

Both are noted on the upcoming releases page at Eddie van der Heijden's Once Upon A Galaxy website: MAD About Star Wars has been on Amazon.com for a couple of months, and Steve Sansweet previewed the new Encyclopedia back in the May/June '06 issue of Star Wars Insider....

There are a few minor adjustments in the schedule: for example, True Colors was originally announced for August, and is now apparently due in November. We'll bring you more once we know it, but these don't really seem that major.

UPDATE 2: as a couple of people have observed, there's one huge gap in the published list of upcoming Star Wars novels: they don't mention Matthew Woodring Stover's hardcover novel, Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, which is due for a February '08 release, as we reported back in February, based on an announcement at StarWars.com. As far as we're aware, this is simply an oversight.

Needless to say, TF.N will continue to bring you more news as we get it.

Also, as someone pointed out to me, the Coruscant Knights series is a trilogy, not a duology as was said in the initial version of this page.

UPDATE 3: as Jeff Fergusson at reminded us over on TF.N's message-boards, the date for Luke Skywaker and the Shadows of Mindor has been pushed back to October '08: it was announced by Sue Rostoni in an update to her blog in March (with explanatory endnotes in a seperate post, which I can only assume is a cute postmodernist homage to Abel Pe?a...).

Shadows of Mindor was apparently moved back when The Force Unleashed was repositioned from October '07 to March next year. Sue's blog also, incidentally, says that the three volumes of the Coruscant Nights trilogy are due in July, September and November '08.

One thing that hasn't been announced yet, of course, is the hardcover novel scheduled for February 2009. It's possible that DelRey had hoped to reveal this at Comic-Con, but if this was the plan, it doesn't seem to have happened, and we've heard nothing firm on this book yet.

Alternatively, it could simply be that they planned to tell us that they'd had their contract for Star Wars books renewed for the next few years—but we've had no official word about what's happening with the contract, either.

UPDATE 4: as a couple of people have pointed out, the February '09 hardcover was replaced by Darth Bane: Rule of Two, as announced announced by Sue Rostoni at StarWars.com last month, and is no longer on the schedule. I knew this. This is what happens when you try to correct your mistakes just before you go to bed....

This also, incientally, means that barring cancellations, the main DelRey novel schedule is currently full up. It is possible that additional novels will appear, however, because tie-ins for the computer games (like The Force Unleashed and the Republic Commando series) are on a seperate contract.

With that in mind, I think I can tell you one little bit of bad news that came through yesterday. I'd heard some rumblings about an additional game tie-in novel, but now this apparently hasn't got the go-ahead. That's a huge disappointment, as far as I'm concerned, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to bring you more details on this story later.

If you were at Comic-Con, and/or you have a clearer idea what the "exclusive announcement" was, you can e-mail me at paul@theforce.net.

Alternatively, you can also see what other fans are saying in the discussion thread on this news on TF.N's own message-boards. Thanks to forum regulars rouge77 and Rogue_Follower for pointing out the StarWars.com story in that thread!