Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
Welcome back to another edition of Cosplay Monday where we seek out awesome costumes to help brighten your Monday morning. This week, we’re going back to two of our favorites: Avatar and Genderswapped costumes! And look! It’s in one costume! Check out this great guy!Korra costume by Rae with photography by Paper Tiger Productions. Not only does he look great but he’s absolutely got Korra’s attitude down pat. Well done!
Welcome back to another edition of Cosplay Monday where we feature wonderful costumes to help take your mind off the start of another work week. This week, we’re featuring a wonderful Knight of the Old Republic cosplayer from the recent MCM Expo in London. Check out Staraya‘s awesome looking Bastila Shan! The detail work on the top is wonderfully done. You can check out other pictures of the costume and read about how she made it over on her DeviantArt linked above.
Welcome back to another edition of Cosplay Monday where we strive to brighten your Monday morning with one of the cool costumes floating around the interweb. This week, we’re veering away from Star Wars and highlighting a Disney costume. Awhile ago, Shoomlah over on DeviantArt began researching and drawing the Disney Princesses in historically accurate costumes. (Or at least as close to historically accurate as can be managed with some of them.) The project turned out to be incredibly popular and now tsu-yaa over on tumblr has brought her Snow White design to life. The amount of attention paid to detail on this gorgeous dress is incredibly and she looks stunning! You can check out her tumblr for most pictures.
European fangirls can rejoice because Ashley Eckstein and Her Universe will be at Celebration Europe in July! This is the very first time that Her Universe will have a presence in Europe and the Celebration store will have a selection of the products.
Celebration Europe will also have their very own Her Universe exclusives that are likely to sell fast.
…Eckstein is bringing 200 of her exclusive Return of the Jedi 30th anniversary necklaces to Germany. Each necklace comes with an autograph certificate by Eckstein. They will be first come, first serve. […] Highlights include an exclusive design by Clone Wars Supervising Director Dave Filoni featuring Ahsoka Tano and Anakin Skywalker, limited to only 200, as well as a Celebration Europe exclusive Darth Vader dress using art Eckstein has loved from Japanese tea towels.
Check out pictures of some of the new Her Universe products that will be available at Celebration Europe beneath the cut!
Welcome back to Cosplay Monday where we make the start of your work week better by providing you with some excellent cosplay. This week, we’re highlighting the kickbutt Twi’lek Jedi, Aayla Secura! Check out the fabulous job that Clare, aka thenewmsmarvel on tumblr, did with this costume! Not only does her costume look amazing but she absolutely sells the character she’s portraying. Job well done!
Ania Solo’s accidental adventure continues as things just keep getting worse. Legacy: Prisoner of the Floating World #3 was released on Wednesday and Corinna Bechko and Gabriel Hardman continue to deliver a solidly good book.
This review contains mild spoilers for the issue.
Well friends, at last we have come to the end of our journey and what a long strange trip it’s been. A weird thing happened this morning. I woke up and for the first time in a very long time, there wasn’t a Star Wars book on my nightstand waiting for me. I love the Expanded Universe but I am so incredibly relieved. Over the past seven months, I’ve read 130 different books. If my math is correct, that averages out to about a book and a half a day. That’s a lot of Star Wars. Guess how happy I am to be done. Just guess.
So what have I learned from this experience? First, that if your editor ever challenges you to do a project like this? Run very far away. There is not enough alcohol in the galaxy. Second, you commenters and readers seem to respond more when I snark closely followed by when I gush. More importantly though, I learned and confirmed for myself that there are far more good books than there are horrifically bad ones. My sanity was hanging on by a thread and my liver was desperate for a reprieve at some points but I sincerely enjoyed reading so many of these books, even some of the cracktastic ones like Courtship of Princess Leia.
I’ve also learned that no matter how much everyone tries to peer pressure you, livestreaming yourself reading The Crystal Star with a six-pack of hard cider at the ready only leads to bad things. We will never again discuss my Han Solo voice.
I’ve reaffirmed for myself that Aaron Allston and Matthew Stover are my favorite Star Wars authors followed closely by Mike Stackpole and Timothy Zahn and I’ve gained an appreciation for James Luceno that I didn’t realize that I had before. I will also be sitting here impatiently awaiting the day that we get more X-Wing novels from both Allston and Stackpole, the story about how Mara and Mirax got arrested, a political Padme novel from Luceno, a short story about Mace Windu and Nick Rostu set after Shatterpoint, the We, Jedi book about the Horn siblings, some sort of closure about the Skiarta clan, and a new Revan book. Yeah, I know. Those last two are never going to happen. No but really, Del Rey: More X-Wing novels. Pleeeeeeeease?
Honestly though, I just want to reiterate that there are a ton of good and enjoyable books out there. The next time you’re wondering what to read, branch out and try a book out of your Star Wars comfort zone. You might be pleasantly surprised by what you find. I might’ve snarked a lot along the way but I love Star Wars and I can honestly say that there are probably only a dozen or so books that I have an active dislike for and that’s a pretty good ratio!
As promised, I’m going to answer some of the questions that you asked me on Twitter!
Well. It’s done. I’ve finished reading these books and I’m ridiculously relieved to be through with Fate of the Jedi. To be completely honest, even though there are a lot of things in Legacy of the Force that upset me, I’d rather read a series like that than this one. I hated the character derailment that some of them were subjected to but I prefer that series as a whole to reading about anything with Abeloth ever again. No more tentacles please. There were a lot more high points in that series than this one. To top it off, I just never felt as invested in these books. There was both too much and too little going on. I know that sounds impossible but I don’t know how else to describe it. Basically, the majority of the series made me do this:
At least there was Mercy Kill waiting for me at the end. Observe my Wraith Squadron related tears of joy.
Warning: There are some NSFW words on some of these gifs
Vortex
My sentiment about having to read this book again can be summed up in one word: Ugh.
This book is bad. It’s not Jedi bug sex bad because I didn’t cringe and resort to drinking but it is bad. I literally just finished it and tossed it down and said “Stupid. So stupid.” Was half the galaxy replaced by Skrulls? Honestly, I’m running out of reasons for why so many people acted the way they did. Everyone makes bad decisions that in turn make me want to bash my head against a wall. I can’t even rage like I usually do. It’s just all so gosh darn frustrating. We’ll go down the list.
First and foremost is everything involving Kenth Hamner. I have yet to understand why “The Villainization of Kenth Hamner” had to occur and I think it’s ridiculous. While I don’t think that he (or anyone in the order really) is looking at the situation from an entirely rational point of view, I also don’t think that anything that happened with his storyline was logical. I especially disagree with how he dies.
That brings me to point two which is Saba. I liked Saba when she was originally introduced. I really did. I feel like I’m not dealing with entirely the same character anymore. It’s nice that she doesn’t take any pleasure in killing Kenth but it doesn’t change that she did and the last time I checked? You don’t reward someone for that by making her the new Grand Master. Seriously, Cilghal and Corran? Seriously? Kyp Durron or Kyle Katarn would’ve been better choices. I’ll agree about wanting someone who’s more of a warrior in charge but I certainly don’t think that staging a kriffing COUP is going to help things. There’s general distrust of the Jedi Order because they’re too powerful and act only as they see fit. Clearly the best way to counter this is to remove the Chief of State from office. EXCEPT NO. NO IT IS NOT.
On the other side of the galaxy, we’ve got Skrull!Luke Skywalker. Everything about this Luke feels wrong. I don’t know what else to say except that this isn’t the Luke Skywalker we know from the films and previous books. I’d also really like to know when his storyline went from ‘Retrace Jacen Solo’s Force Odyssey’ to ‘Retrace Luke Skywalker’s Love Life’. Oh and hey! We can throw in some Sith while we’re at it. 😐
Fourth, I still don’t get Abeloth. If I could never read again about her tentacles and giant mouth that eats people or whatever, I’d be happy. She is ridiculous. Everything about this storyline is ridiculous and I want it to end. I’m so done with all of this.
This next one doesn’t anger me as much as it annoys me. I honestly don’t get the point of including this slave uprising storyline. I know it gets used more later and does tie into the overarching story but it feels overall like wasted page space to me. Sorry.
Finally, who thought this Barabel nest thing was a good idea especially when it comes to ending a book? No, don’t answer that. It was rhetorical. On a scale from 1-10, this ranks an 8 on the Unnecessary Scale.
Well. Here we are. Reading Fate of the Jedi again. I had actually just gotten around to reading the series in its entirety the month before I started this project and I can’t really say that I was looking forward to reading it again so soon especially given how long I delayed reading it in the first place. This series was first published in March 2009. By then, I was a poor college student and the prospect of reading and buying series published entirely in hardcover was not very appealing to me especially after Invincible. At some point, I picked up the first book because it was Allston, liked it well enough, but wasn’t overly inclined to run out and read all the others. In the summer of 2011, I finally convinced myself to read the first four books… and then got side tracked by a New Jedi Order reread and didn’t return to them until fall 2012. Basically, this is a very long winded way for me to say that this series never really managed to grab my attention and draw me in like some of the others. Unfortunately.
I blame Abeloth.
Outcast
Well, they Allston-ed me again. It’s nice to see that the previous galactic war had consequences and that they are carrying over here. However, I still cannot figure out why the heck anyone would put Daala in charge. It makes zero sense to me.
The good news is that this book has a lot of my favorite Allston moves. We get a pilot reunion over on Kessel and thankfully, Wedge seems to still be retired. We also get the Darkmeld group which I positively LOVE and not just because Winter finally get to reappear. It’s a rather excellent mix of people. I also loved that we get Jag referencing his relationship to Wedge because that’s brought into play far too infrequently. The relationship between Jaina and Jag is also very well written and it’s nice to see them together and functional again. Also, every time Jag corrects someone about it being the ‘Galactic Empire’ instead of ‘Imperial Remnant’, I crack up.
In typical Allston fashion, the Horn siblings (and family) finally get to take center stage only for their lives to end up seriously sucking. Valin Horn, stop being crazy.
The other high point of this book has to be the father/son relationship between Ben and Luke. I love getting to see Ben’s ridiculous sense of humor (Grand Master Whango Mittpool!) and how well they work together. The whole plot line of retracing Jacen’s steps and trying to figure out what happened is actually rather intriguing although I think his problem was named Lumiya. Regardless, it will be neat to see these other Force using orders. But really, it’s just great watching these two play off one another especially with their different strengths and weaknesses.
This weekend brought us more in the way of Episode VII news and rumors so here are a few pieces of news you might’ve missed.
First, Episode VII has a costume designer and it is not Trisha Biggar who worked on the Prequel Trilogy. (Farewell gorgeous and elaborate dresses!) Michael Kaplan confirmed with Clothes On Film that he will be the costume designer for Episode VII. Kaplan has previously worked with JJ Abrams, mostly recently for Star Trek: Into Darkness, and is considered to be a regular collaborator with the director.
Next, we turn to the land of rumors. According to Latino Review, actor Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) is supposedly in the running for a part in Episode VII. The report does not specify what staring role Rhys Meyers could be up for and only that he is supposedly in talks. Rhys Meyers is best known for playing Henry VIII on Showtime’s The Tudors and will be in the forthcoming Dracula show this fall. As with all rumors, we’d like to remind you that this is not confirmed and should not be treated as fact.
(via Club Jade)
Finally, although Kathleen Kennedy has said that Episode VII won’t be surrounded with the same sort of secrecy that Star Trek: Into Darkness was, producer Bryan Burk’s comments in an interview with /Film indicate that there still might be a fair amount of secrecy:
I guess what I’m saying is it’s always that balance. It’s a hard thing. If I were to right now tell you all of the things that were going to happen in Star Wars in detail, the left side of your brain would say ’Awesome,’ you guys would have this exclusive and know all of this stuff. But the right side is going to sit down one day and see the movie for the first time and you’d have all of that kind of spoiled, so it’s that balance of wanting to know everything and not wanting to know everything at the same time.
It’s like a magic trick and there’s nobody who wants to know how all of the magic tricks are done more than me. Then the second I learn how they are done, it’s like “Oh” and it kind of goes away.
So we might all be playing the ‘wait and see’ game in regards to spoilers or facts about Episode VII. You can read the rest of Burk’s comments along with Damon Lindelof’s at the linked interview above.