Word began trickling out over Twitter last week that Disney will be drastically redefining the state of the Star Wars lore, eliminating the bifurcated mainline/EU arrangement and in its place constructing a single official canon. All things that are part of the canon are "real," as far as Star Wars is concerned; all things not in the canon are "not real." This eliminates the quasi-real EU tier—going forward, things will either exist officially, or not at all. This is an excellent decision, and one that a certain other science fiction franchise whose name also includes the word "Star" made long ago. For Star Trek, the tie-in novels and other ephemera have always been non-canonical. At times, this has been a good thing, because some of the novels have been truly terrible, although at other times it's prevented Star Trek from going down what might have been some truly wonderful paths