Novelist and screenwriter Max Allan Collins has revealed his next project. The author of Road to Perdition (the basis for the 2002 film) will return with Fancy Anders Goes to War, a WWII-era mystery with a very famous murder victim at its center.

Fancy Anders Goes to War features the titular investigator struggling to solve the murder of propaganda icon Rosie the Riveter, a mission which takes on new urgency when President Franklin D. Roosevelt is targeted for assassination. This novella also features illustrations from James Bond artist Fay Dalton.

Here's the official description for the new book:

Fall 1942. When her Hollywood private detective daddy is called back to uniform, Fancy Anders is issued orders of her own: answer the phone, make referrals, and keep the place dusted. But the 24-year-old Barnard grad—whose hobbies include shooting, flying and jujitsu—isn’t having any.

At Amalgamated Aircraft, a young female worker chosen to pose for patriotic photos and posters has met with a suspicious “accidental death.” Fancy takes the victim’s place on the swing shift, fitting in well with co-workers very much not from high society circles. With the occasional reluctant help of LAPD homicide cop Rick Hinder, Fancy takes a hammer to the head of a saboteur, sniffs out an enemy within, and sets out to prevent an assassination attempt on President Roosevelt, scheduled to tour the plant and greet the women who work long, hard hours for the war effort.

“In years of working with artists in both novels and comics, few rival Fay for her artistry and faithful attention to the text,” said Collins in a statement. Also, she could easily play Fancy Anders in a movie, as long as she can restrain her pesky British accent."

Fancy Anders Goes to War will be released digitally on Tuesday, October 5. No print release has been confirmed yet. The book is the first of three collaborations between Collins and Dalton.

In other news, IGN recently spoke with Devil's reign writer Chip Zdarsky about why the Kingpin has become an Avengers-level threat. You can also check out our exclusive preview of Lugosi: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Dracula.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.

Ewan McGregor says filming has wrapped up on the upcoming Obi-Wan Kenobi series.

After winning an Emmy for his role in Netflix's Halston, Variety asked Ewan McGregor for any details on the upcoming Star Wars show. He confirmed that they are done filming, and said he thinks, "it will not disappoint."

"I think it will not disappoint," #Emmy winner Ewan McGregor of the upcoming #ObiWanKenobi series. https://t.co/mIawnJn2Ad pic.twitter.com/o2ePIy2Dww

— Variety (@Variety) September 20, 2021

"I think it's gonna be good. I had a really good time making it and worked with some really wonderful people," McGregor said. He added that new technology made it a different experience than when he filmed the prequel trilogy.

Obi-Wan is set to take place 10 years after the events of the prequel trilogy and follow McGregor's Obi-Wan as he hides on Tatooine after the fall of the Jedi Order. McGregor is the second actor to play Obi-Wan and Alec Guinness played the senior Jedi in the original trilogy.

McGregor teased Obi-Wan's costume in the show earlier this year, saying the Jedi Master's look will be, "slightly different than you might expect." Hayden Christensen is also returning to the Star Wars universe to reprise the role of Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader in the series.

Obi-Wan Kenobi is directed by Deborah Chow, who has experience directing The Mandalorian. Other Obi-Wan Kenobi cast members include Moses Ingram, Joel Edgerton, Bonnie Piesse, Kumail Nanjiani, Indira Varma, Rupert Friend, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Sung Kang, Simone Kessell, and Benny Safdie. The series is set to premiere sometime in 2022.

For more, read how Christensen's return can resolve a major Star Wars mystery. Or, check out the full list of the 2021 Emmy Winners, including multiple awards for Ted Lasso, The Crown, and more.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

There are a lot of great new deals this Monday. Save 25% off the Arcade1Up Pac-Man arcade video game cabinet (you can even get a discount on the Pac-Man stools), score 6 months of HBO Max for only $7.49 per month, and save $40 when you preorder the newest Apple iPad Mini with the A15 Bionic processor. In other deal news, Amazon has kicked off its B2G1 FREE board game sale, and for today only you can score Rockstar and Mountain Dew Game Fuel energy drinks at a hefty discount. These deals and more below.

Arcade1Up Pac-Man Arcade Cabinet

The classic Arcade1Up Pac-Man cabinet dropped to a new historical price low today, plus you're getting free shipping from Walmart. The Pac-Man arcade cabinet is a 3:4 scale replica that measures 4 feet tall. A themed riser is also included that raises the cabinet by an extra 1 foot, so you can choose to play comfortably while sitting or standing. The included games are Pac-Man, Pac-Land, Pac-Man Plus, Super Pac-Man, Pac-Mania, Galaxian, Galaga, Dig Dug, Dig Dug 2, and Mappy Rompers. The entire package comes flat packed, but it is very easy to assemble and should take you less than one hour.

Arcade1Up Pac-Man Stools

Pick up a pair of officially licensed Arcade1Up Pac-Man adjustable stools to round out the classic arcade experience. These stools normally cost $79.99 each, but with this 2-pack you're paying about $51 per stool. They're extendable from 21.5" to 29.5".

New 2021 Apple iPad Mini on Sale

The recently announced 2021 Apple iPad Mini goes up for sale on September 24, but you don't need to wait that long to get a discount. Amazon is already offering $40 off this iPad Mini when you preorder it from their site. If you need a tablet that has a much easier-to-transport footprint than your typical iPad, the iPad Mini is definitely the one to get. The newest iPad Mini features an 8.3" Liquid Retina display with Tru Tone, powerful A15 Bionic chip, WiFi 6, USB Type-C charging, and more.

50% Off 6 Months of Ad-Free HBO Max

HBO Max is taking 50% off your first 6 months of its ad-free streaming service. That drops the price to only $7.49/mo. HBO Max hosts some of the biggest recent releases like Malignant, Suicide Squad 2, Mortal Kombat, Godzilla vs Kong, Zack Snyder's Justice League, Tenet, and more. You'll look forward to watching Dune on October 22 and Matrix 4 on December 22 with your HBO Max subscription as well. You also have access to some great TV shows like Lovecraft Country, Friends, Rick & Morty, and South Park. This is one of the best streaming services around and at this price it's a steal.

Amazon Buy 2 Get 1 Free Board Game Sale

Amazon has brought back its excellent B2G1 FREE board game sale. There are plenty of choices here, including highly rated games like Pandemic, Dungeons & Dragons Starter Set, Splendor, Ticket to Ride, One Night Ultimate Werewolf, and much much more. Add the three eligible board games to your cart and check out. You'll see the discount at the last step of checkout right before you pay.

Rockstar and Mountain Dew Game Fuel Energy Drinks

1 Day Only Deals!

This deal is always popular with the IGN crowd whenever it comes along. Rockstar energy drinks usually cost about $2-$3 apiece at your local convenience store. On sale you might be lucky to find them for about $1.50. For today only, this deal lets you cop a 12-pack for only $1.05 apiece. Get it to under $1 per can if you add a total of five items to your current Amazon Subscribe & Save order. Other flavor options also available:

ASUS ROG Strix RTX 2060 SUPER Gaming PC for $999

This gaming desktop packs a lot of punch for a rig that costs just under $1000. The RTX 2060 SUPER is a very capable video card; it's pretty much on par with the RTX 2070 and can easily handle games at up to 1440p resolution. It's paired with an AMD Ryzen 7 processor, 16GB of memory, and dual SSD and HDD storage.

Back in Stock (Including 1TB Model): WD Black SN850 M.2 SSD with Heatsink

The Western Digital official storefront has all models of the SN850 SSD with heatsink in stock right now, and that includes the extremely hard to find 1TB model. This is currently the most popular (and probably the best) SSD to get for your PS5 storage upgrade. It's blazing fast drive with transfer speeds rated at up to 7,000 MB/s and a PCIe Gen4 interface and it comes preinstalled with a heatsink. It's also confirmed by Western Digital themselves to be compatible with the PS5.

Dell XPS Intel Core i7 RTX 3060 Ti PC for $1369

Enjoy high end PC gaming on a budget. There is one of the best deals we've seen for an RTX 3060 Ti equipped PC and handily beats out a similar deal we saw on Labor Day by over $100. The RTX 3060 Ti is a very powerful video card; it's better than the previous generation's RTX 2080! It's a big upgrade from the 3060 non-Ti model and the one to get if you're going to play games at resolutions of 1440p or higher. This particular deal is found on the Dell Small Business site, but anyone can purchase there just like on Dell's regular site; you can treat Dell Small Business as exactly the same as Dell Home.

Video Game Deals

More Daily Deals for September 20

The PS5 recently got a big firmware update that, among other things, added the ability to expand system storage. Now some experts are saying the new software also improves the performance of select games.

In the latest Digital Foundry Direct Weekly show, the crew broke down the differences between the PS5's performance on the new and old firmware. "In very select scenarios, it does seem as though [all] PlayStation 5s are running faster than they were before with this new firmware," Digital Foundry's Richard Leadbetter said.

He went on to explain that the performance differences are very minor. The new firmware was causing select games, Control and Devil May Cry 5, to run about 2 to 3% faster than the old firmware. This led to an increase in framerate, only by about 1 to 2 FPS.

The discovery came about when Digital Foundry was testing the recent PlayStation 5 hardware revision that features a different cooling assembly, an improved stand, and other minor improvements. By the end of testing, they didn't find any meaningful differences between the revision and the launch edition of the PS5.

However, during testing, they started to notice the old PlayStation 5 was running slightly better than the new one. Upon further investigation, they realized the old PS5 was running updated firmware, while the newer hardware was running older firmware. After updating all test units to the latest hardware, which is now available to the public, Digital Foundry realized it was the software update that led to the performance change.

This performance boost impacts the launch versions of the PS5, and the new hardware revision. The enhanced performance likely isn't noticeable to the naked eye, but it is fascinating to think about software updates further optimizing console performance.

For more, check out all of the changes that came to the PlayStation 5 with its latest update, including expandable storage, quality of life improvements, and more. Or, check out our thoughts on the PlayStation 5's newest masterpiece in our Deathloop review.

Logan Plant is a freelance writer for IGN. You can find him on Twitter @LoganJPlant.

Disney's Star Wars sequels certainly have their fans, but Marcia Lucas doesn't count herself among them. The Oscar-winning editor behind the original trilogy (and ex-wife to George Lucas) makes her thoughts on the sequels very clear in a scathing foreword to the book Howard Kazanjian: A Producer's Life.

In the foreword, Lucas slams Lucasfilm President Kathleen Kennedy and The Force Awakens director J.J. Abrams, arguing "they don't have a clue about Star Wars" and criticizing the decision to kill off franchise icons Han Solo and Luke Skywalker.

"They don't get it," Lucas writes. "And J.J. Abrams is writing these stories — when I saw the movie where they kill Han Solo, I was furious… Absolutely, positively there was no rhyme or reason to it. I thought, You don't get the Jedi story. You don't get the magic of Star Wars. You're getting rid of Han Solo? And then at the end of this last one, they have Luke disintegrate. They killed Han Solo. They killed Luke Skywalker. And they don't have Princess Leia anymore. And they're spitting out movies every year."

Lucas seems to have little love for Daisy Ridley's Rey either, pointing to the many unanswered questions surrounding the character and her background pre-Episode IX (when this foreword appears to have been commissioned).

"And they think it's important to appeal to a woman's audience, so now their main character is this female, who's supposed to have Jedi powers, but we don't know how she got Jedi powers, or who she is. It sucks. The storylines are terrible. Terrible. Just awful."

And perhaps to set the record straight, Lucas also directs her wrath at her ex-husband's prequel trilogy, revealing her disappointment in Episode I literally brought her to tears in 1999.

"I remember going out to the parking lot, sitting in my car and crying," Lucas writes. "I cried. I cried because I didn't think it was very good. And I thought [George] had such a rich vein to mine, a rich palette to tell stories with… There were things I didn't like about the casting, and things I didn't like about the story, and things I didn't like — it was a lot of eye candy. CG."

Lucas is probably best known for her work editing the original three Star Wars movies. She won the Academy Award for Best Film Editing in 1977 for Star Wars, having previously been nominated for 1973's American Graffiti. Lucas also won a BAFTA for her work on 1976's Taxi Driver.

Lucas' contribution to the Star Wars franchise is the subject of the YouTube mini-documentary "How Star Wars Was Saved in the Edit," which reveals just how pivotal a role she played in shaping her then-husband's rough cut into a global blockbuster.

Abrams seemingly acknowledged the lingering controversy surrounding the Star Wars sequels in 2020, admitting he's "learned the hard way" to always go into new projects with a clear plan.

As for what's next for the franchise, we recently learned the upcoming anime anthology Star Wars Visions will be the first project set after the events of The Rise of Skywaker, though it's unclear whether the series is meant to be part of the official canon.

Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.