Disney is teasing its Star Wars lands with a new novel

We’re still a year (or so) out from the grand opening of the Star Wars-themed lands that are coming first to Disneyland Resort in California and then to Walt Disney World Resort in Florida in 2019. Still, that isn’t stopping Disney from teasing its multi-billion dollar bet with a classic move of corporate synergy.

Earlier this week, Disney Publishing announced a new Star Wars novel called “Thrawn: Alliances” by author Timothy Zahn. Zahn, who got permission to write a novel with the Disney-owned characters, tells his sequel story where Darth Vader and the Grand Admiral head to the planet called Batuu.

Batuu is the name of the planet that Disney Imagineers announced would be the place where the remote trading outpost aka the actual Star Wars Lands, would be. In itself, it is a planet, so chances of having some action take place in the land you will be able to walk in at Disneyland is probable.

We’ll see if that is the case when the book drops this summer. And this isn’t the first time that Disney has teased us with Batuu. It already gave us a realistic CGI version of it at the end of Star Tours: The Adventures Continue when your Starspeeder lands safely in a Batuu landing zone.

Until then, the idea that Batuu can be found in another Disney product directed to Star Wars fans is a great strategy to build the hype with some of the most passionate fans on planet Earth.