Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
It’s no secret that we at Tosche Station dislike Mara Jade’s catsuit. The reasons are many: it’s a symbol of sexism and objectification of female characters; it’s not what she’s described as wearing in the Thrawn Trilogy; we hate seeing her in the same outfit all the damn time. My dislike–even hatred–of the catsuit comes down to one simple matter.
It’s not practical.
The Darwin Elevator, Jason M. Hough’s debut novel, features a large cast of characters, page-turning action sequences, alien technology, and a zombie-like plague. When I first heard the novel praised on Twitter, it seemed like something I should check out. Then I was lucky enough to win a signed copy by the author! What did I think?
I’ve seen The Darwin Elevator described as “popcorn science fiction”, and that’s definitely an apt way to put it. But that’s not to say the novel isn’t smart. Hough kept me guessing throughout the approximately 475 pages, and I never could figure out what was going to happen next. Most of the secondary characters, especially Tania Sharma and Samantha Rinn, are engaging and fun to read about. The main protagonist, Skyler Liuken, is adequate, but somewhat bland. I hope that changes in Books 2 and 3. And I wanted to punch the villain, Russell Blackfield, every time he appeared on the page.
This brings me to one thing I wasn’t entirely comfortable with: the rampant objectification of women. It’s not done in a glorifying way by any means, but rather to show how awful conditions in Darwin are, and how awful Blackfield is as a person. It certainly worked, considering how much I hated Blackfield by the end of the book. But some of it was a little over the top and cliche, and made me a bit too uncomfortable.
All that said, The Darwin Elevator kept me engaged throughout and I definitely want to pick up the second and third novels in the trilogy, collectively known as The Dire Earth Cycle. I give it a GO.
With The Making of Return of the Jedi, J.W. Rinzler rounds out his trilogy of “making of” books that have become essential to Star Wars fans and film aficionados alike. Does this installment live up to the high standards set by its predecessors, The Making of Star Wars and The Making of The Empire Strikes Back? Find out after the jump.
J.K. Rowling and Warner Bros. have brokered a deal for her to pen the film version of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, a “textbook” from the Harry Potter universe, originally published in 2001.
Rowling said in a statement, “‘Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them’ is neither a prequel nor a sequel to the Harry Potter series, but an extension of the wizarding world. The laws and customs of the hidden magical society will be familiar to anyone who has read the Harry Potter books or seen the films, but Newt’s story will start in New York, 70 years before Harry’s gets underway.”
This will be first movie of a new franchise, which will also include a video game and other products. Warner Bros. will also distribute a TV adaptation of Rowling’s novel The Casual Vacancy.
Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them will mark Rowling’s screenwriting debut.
The Star Wars Books Facebook page has released the full blurb for Empire and Rebellion: Honor Among Thieves, by James S.A. Corey.
When the mission is to extract a high-level rebel spy from the very heart of the Empire, Leia Organa knows the best man for the job is Han Solo—something the princess and the smuggler can finally agree on. After all, for a guy who broke into an Imperial cell block and helped destroy the Death Star, the assignment sounds simple enough.
But when Han locates the brash rebel agent, Scarlet Hark, she’s determined to stay behind enemy lines. A pirate plans to sell a cache of stolen secrets that the Empire would destroy entire worlds to protect—including the planet where Leia is currently meeting with rebel sympathizers. Scarlet wants to track down the thief and steal the bounty herself, and Han has no choice but to go along if he’s to keep everyone involved from getting themselves killed. From teeming city streets to a lethal jungle to a trap-filled alien temple, Han, Chewbacca, Leia, and their daring new comrade confront one ambush, double cross, and firestorm after another as they try to keep crucial intel out of Imperial hands.
But even with the crack support of Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing squadron, the Alliance heroes may be hopelessly outgunned in their final battle for the highest of stakes: the power to liberate the galaxy from tyranny or ensure the Empire’s reign of darkness forever.
They had me at “Luke Skywalker’s X-Wing squadron.”
The Han-centric novel is scheduled for release on March 4, 2014, in hardcover and ebook formats. The first book in the Empire and Rebellion series–Razor’s Edge by Martha Wells, starring Leia–releases on September 24.
The Kenobi concept art by Chris Scalf.
If you’re regular listeners of the podcast, you already know that the Tosche Station staff greatly enjoyed Kenobi, the latest Star Wars novel by John Jackson Miller. This post isn’t a proper review, but I’ll get this out of the way: I loved the book. It is by far my favorite novel of the year, and exceeded my expectations with flying colors. Despite my enjoyment, however, one of its plot points bothered me–not because of what happened, but because of my assumptions prior to it. And I immediately knew I had to write a blog post about it.
THE REST OF THIS POST CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR KENOBI. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK, AND DON’T SAY I DIDN’T WARN YOU.
Last week, a friend of mine attended FandomFest in Louisville, Kentucky. After hearing horror stories from her, and many other people who attended the con on sites like Tumblr, Twitter, and Facebook, I decided she needed to describe her experiences in her own words. This is not what cons are supposed to be like–yes, lines are a fact of life at cons, but not to this extreme. This experience has soured her on conventions in general, and I’m looking forward to attending Dragon Con with her and showing her not all large cons are like this. Hopefully FandomFest will shape up and next year’s con can be enjoyable for everyone.
Anyway, I’ll step aside and let her do the rest of the talking.
It’s official: at Celebration Europe closing ceremonies yesterday, it was announced that the next US-based Celebration will be held in Anaheim, California from April 16-19, 2015. Unsurprisingly, Celebration will return to the pre-movie schedule it held during the Prequel Trilogy. And yes, it’s already been noted that the official site has gotten rid of the numerical designations, calling it Star Wars Celebration Anaheim, but among us fans it’ll still be known as Celebration VII. 😉
Tickets go on sale August 7. Yes, as in next week. Don’t say Lucasfilm hasn’t given you a lot of time to prepare! Here at Tosche Station we’re unsure whether any of us will be able to attend–Spring 2015 is still a long ways away, and attending an Orlando Celebration is a lot easier than one across the county–but no matter happens what we’ll be keeping up to date on all the news about the convention. We’ll just be (extremely) green with envy.
Awhile back, I wrote a post on EUCantina about the prequelization of the post-Return of the Jedi era of the Expanded Universe. The article’s basic point was that in the early days of the EU, the authors had no official knowledge about the Jedi Order in the Old Republic. None of us did–all we had was our imaginations. We didn’t know that Jedi lived in a Temple on Coruscant, were taken from their families as babies, and trained from the time they were children. As such, Luke Skywalker’s Jedi Academy was full of adults from many different worlds, of different ages, and varying careers. Some of them even came from families of Jedi. Tionne was a historian, Corran was a pilot and a cop, Mara was a smuggler, Kirana Ti was a warrior, Streen was a hermit, etc. etc. No matter what your opinion of the Jedi Academy Trilogy, I have to give credit to Kevin J. Anderson for creating a diverse group of Jedi, personality and background wise (although in retrospect there could have been more non-humans and people of color). Even in other eras, like the Tales of the Jedi comics, being a Jedi seemed to be more “what you did” and less “who you were.”
Then the prequels came out, and everything changed.
About a year and a half ago, I wrote a blog post for EUCantina in which I analyzed the roles of women in the Expanded Universe, specifically in the post-Return of the Jedi era. The article was inspired by the cancellation of “Mandorla”, the Alex Irvine novel about Nomi Sunrider, from the Tales of the Jedi comics. I’d been wanting a book about Nomi for awhile, and was really disappointed to see it cancelled. And the disappointment stung on more than just a level of “I was really looking forward to that book.”
And then my brain began to turn. As far as I can recall, “Mandorla” was the only novel in recent memory to be focused on a female protagonist. We’ve had “Han” novels, “Bane” novels, “Revan” novels; where are the “Jaina” and “Padme” and “Leia” novels? Why cancel a novel that had a chance to expand on a strong female lead?
The article was generally well received, with a few exceptions, mostly from people claiming that the EU was already filled with lots of female characters. While that may have been true, the point of the article remained:
“But Star Wars has many female leads,” you might say. To which I reply: “but none are allowed to lead.”
The original article has since been lost to the internet ether, but I had my own draft copy elsewhere. With San Diego Comic Con happening and in anticipation of the Star Wars Books panel, I recently skimmed the article with the intention of reposting it here on Tosche Station for posterity’s sake. But as I kept reading, I realized something: in less than 18 months, Del Rey and LucasBooks has addressed nearly all of my major complaints in the article. And I knew I’d be remiss if I didn’t revisit the article and say THANK YOU.