LucasArts and BioWare are forging a new Star Wars era of epic adventure with their forthcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game, Star Wars: The Old Republic. Set more than 3,500 years in the past of the far-away galaxy, the game occurs in a time when the Jedi and the Galactic Republic clashed with the Sith Empire. It is an era rich with storytelling opportunities not only for players, but for fans of Star Wars literature.

Already, online fans are aware of Threat of Peace, the serialized web-comic written by BioWare's Rob Chestney. This April, Dark Horse Comics begins collecting the comic into a 96-page trade paperback, Star Wars: The Old Republic Volume 1: Threat of Peace, with art by Alex Sanchez, and colors by Michael Atiyeh.

Threat of Peace author Rob Chestney is also slated to write a new, original The Old Republic short story for online publication here at StarWars.com.

Next July, Del Rey Books will publish in hardcover Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance, a novel by bestselling author Sean Williams. Now in the early planning stages is a second novel set in the Old Republic time frame, written by Paul Kemp, author of the forthcoming Crosscurrent.

A listing has shown up in the PubEasy ordering database for a novel titled Star Wars: The Old Republic by Sean Williams (isbn: 9870345511324) to be released July 27, 2010. [Source]

Upon prompting about a novel for non-gamers who would still like to enjoy the story behind Bioware's new MMO, The Old Republic, Sue Rostoni said on Starwars.com's message boards that, "A novel will come out sometime around the game release time and that's all that's been determined so far." [Source]