Star Wars: Visions Spin-Off Novel Ronin Announced

Disney and Lucasfilm announced last year that the all-new series of shorts Star Wars: Visions would tell stories in the galaxy far, far away with an anime approach, with StarWars.com confirming today that Visions would be getting the upcoming spin-off novel Star Wars: Ronin: A Visions Novel, which would continue to embrace those storytelling sensibilities. The new novel is inspired by Kamikaze Douga's The Duel, helmed by director Takanobu Mizuno, and was written by Emma Mieko Candon. Both the novel and Visions will deliver sci-fi stories that are also inspired by Japanese folklore. Star Wars: Ronin: A Visions Novel hits shelves on October 12th. Pre-orders are live on Amazon now.

StarWars.com describes the book, "Star Wars: Ronin: A Visions Novel by Emma Mieko Candon, coming October 12th, will expand on the world of The Duel, telling the story of a former, unnamed Sith — known only as Ronin, i.e., a wandering samurai — as he travels the galaxy. According to James Waugh of the Lucasfilm Story Group and executive producer of Star Wars: Visions, there was just too much left to explore in Mizuno's vision (for lack of better term) to stop with one tale."

"Out of all the shorts, The Duel felt most rife for an ongoing story in a novel. Another one of Ronin's adventures. One of the things I always loved about the short was that it was clear there was a larger history at play. That this wasn't the first adventure this warrior had been through and it certainly won't be their last. What are those stories?" Waugh revealed to the outlet. "The team at Kamikaze Douga were very generous in obliging our interest in continuing the storytelling and had a ton of ideas to lend in the creative process. Visions allows us to explore Star Wars expressed in new ways. And this book is unlike anything we've done before."

Candon went on to detail the balance of blending the world of Star Wars with anime inspirations.

"In brief, jidaigeki [period dramas], Japanese monsters and folklore, and war trauma," Candon detailed of her inspiration. "The Duel is very much in conversation with period dramas a la [Akira] Kurosawa, while the latter two felt like natural Japanese extensions of the 'Star' and 'Wars' parts of Star Wars. Jidaigeki love samurai as protagonists because they're suspicious of samurai as a class, and our Ronin falls right into that trope. I had to ask how this man rejected (or was rejected by) his social role, and why he continues to cleave to it. Why does he still carry that tell-tale red blade? And why does he hunt his own?"

You can head to StarWars.com for more details on Star Wars: Ronin: A Visions Novel before it hits shelves on October 12th.

Are you looking forward to the new book? Let us know in the comments below or contact Patrick Cavanaugh directly on Twitter to talk all things Star Wars and horror!

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