Category Archives: Books

LFL and Publishers Holding ‘Star Wars Reads Day’

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A little earlier today, Nanci and I got an interesting press release in our inboxes from Lucasfilm, Del Rey, Dark Horse, and the other Star Wars IP publishing houses. This fall, you can participate in an event to celebrate literature and Star Wars.

Lucasfilm and its publishing partners announced today a national Star Wars Reads Day to be held this October 6, 2012. Star Wars Reads Day is a multi-publisher initiative that celebrates reading and Star Wars. On October 6, events will take place at hundreds of bookstores and libraries across the United States. Participating publishing partners include Abrams, Chronicle Books, Dark Horse, Del Rey, DK, Scholastic, Titan Magazines, and Workman.

Officially participating bookstores and libraries will receive a Star Wars event kit (free of charge). The kit includes: an exclusive Star Wars Reads promotional item (25-50 per event); raffle prizes; promotional giveaways; a packet of event ideas, reproducible activity sheets and trivia; and more. The events will have the PR and marketing support of the eight participating publishers and Lucasfilm.

If your store or library would like to participate in Star Wars Reads Day on October 6, please sign up athttp://us.dk.com/SWRDevent. Volunteer costumers can sign up at http://us.dk.com/SWRDvolunteer.

Follow Star Wars Reads Day on Facebook!

Promoting literacy and Star Wars? Now there’s something I can get behind.

Petition: Move ‘Scoundrels’ Release Date Up One Week

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We’re pretty excited about ‘Scoundrels,’ The Timothy Zahn-written Han Solo heist caper due out this year. After listening to three chapters of the story at Origins, I can say this is one of my most eagerly anticipated titles in years. It strikes me as a book that’s got a lot for  long-time Expanded Universe fans, but more importantly, an entry point for new readers and ones that have drifted away over the years.

So, yes, we’re pumped for this book. There’s just one little problem. It’s due to release on December 26th, 2012.

I’ve had some conversations with friends and other bloggers around the EU fandom, and for the most part we’re all in agreement. This is a book we would gift to other fans during the Holidays. It’s a book that fans would put on their gift list. It’s, really, the perfect Expanded Universe gift for that time of the year, but its release date misses that target.

We want to see books like Scoundrels succeed. Moving the date up just one week, we believe, would help bring in new and lapsed readers and would encourage longtime readers to pick up a copy.

So we’ve put together a petition asking Del Rey to slide the release date up just one week. We’d love to have a few days before the Holidays to pick up this book for friends and other fans. It’s just the book for any Star Wars fan and we want to make sure people read it.

Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter: Novel Review

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Here I come again with another post that has nothing to with Star Wars. For that matter, this post has nothing to do with Science Fiction, either. Really, this post is about a geeky book. You’ve heard of it and if you’re curious like I was, you might appreciate having a review of it.
Up front, I’d like to reiterate that this is a review of the book, not the movie. I have not seen the film and I’m likely to wait it out until the DVD hits. Either that or see the Asylum’s version, Abraham Lincoln Versus Zombies. Because, come on, if Honest Abe is going to fight one brand of the undead, why not take all comers?

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Review: Operation Montauk by Bryan Young

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Bryan Young’s most recent novel, Operation: Montauk, is a mash-up of dinosaurs, Nazis, and time travel. That’s putting it simply, of course, but if any of those three themes don’t catch your attention…well, what’s wrong with you?

In the vein of the original Star Wars, the story starts out in medias res. Jack Mallory, an American soldier fighting in World War II, is on a mission to travel back in time and kill Hitler before the war can begin. His mission goes awry and he wakes in a tropical jungle, being attacked by monstrous creatures—dinosaurs, he realizes they are. The rest of his team is killed and he escapes, assisted by Richmond, an industrial-age inventor, and Veronica, a technician from Mallory’s future. They bring him to Fort Robinson, the stronghold for several other stranded time travelers. Once there, Mallory and the others speculate why they were dumped millions of years in the past, while Mallory concerns himself with how to get back to his proper time and complete his mission.

Operation: Montauk is a short, fast read, with exciting action sequences and interesting characters. Throughout the novel, you learn more about the inhabitants of Fort Robinson, and one of my only complaints about this story is that I wanted more. I wanted to learn more about them, to learn how they all came to be stranded in prehistoric times. Albert the chimp is an especially fun addition to the cast. Veronica and Valentine were both interesting female characters, and I wanted more of them. I would gladly read a novel headlined by either character. In addition, Richmond was always intriguing, the wise old man of the cast. In contrast, I didn’t find Mallory’s character quite as compelling, but his mission and what he later encounters in the jungle are interesting.

I really enjoyed this novel’s take on time travel. So many times, time travel can get muddied or bogged down in false science, or just not make sense. By keeping the story confined to the dinosaur-laden past, and positing a theory as to why the time travelers have shipwrecked there, Bryan Young deftly sidesteps those potential problems. Smartly, the story doesn’t necessarily concern itself with the hows or whys of time travel, but rather what the characters do to save themselves from impending doom, which is much more interesting.

My other complaint about the novel, besides wanting more about the characters, is the ending. Once again, I want more! But I have a sneaking suspicion that’s exactly what Young intended with his choice of ending…

Overall, Operation: Montauk is a fun read and I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

 

X-Wing Retrospective Part 4: The Bacta War

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 So, now we’ve reached the end of the initial run of the X-Wing series.  The Bacta War is the capstone to Mike Stackpole’s work on start of the series and it represents, to me, some of the highest points of all four books.  The tone of these books is different than the books in the past have been and for very good reason.

After we were left with the end of The Krytos Trap, many of us were on edge, disbelieving what happened and completely ove awed by the possibilities.  Please be aware, once you cross this jump, you are deep into spoiler territory.

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Rethinking Romance

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I read a lot—at least by any average person’s standards. Sure, there are plenty of people in fandom who can put me to shame, but I showed Brian my pinboard a while ago, and he commented that I’d read more fic in the past year than he’s read in his life—and that was just the fic. And I read everything from modern literary fiction to fanfiction.

So, while I’m certainly not qualified to comment on a lot of things about literature and stories, I do feel comfortable talking about why I read, and why I think a lot of people do. It’s an escape, certainly—last night I was unhappy and I immediately went after charming short stories that I knew would cheer me up while distracting me from my own life—but it’s also a reflection of the human condition, pretentious as that sounds. Stories are interesting because the people in them are interesting, because they have lives and struggles and triumphs and failures.

And here’s the thing I think we forget sometimes: romance and love are huge parts of the human condition. People fall in love every day, at parties and jobs and while walking their dogs. They also fall in love during wars and natural disasters, and they will continue to fall in love after the world ends. Girls fall in love and boys fall in love; teenagers and thirtysomethings and senior citizens all fall in love; deaf people and blind people and smart people and ignorant people fall in love. Sometimes the love is requited and sometimes it isn’t.

(More under the jump)

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Take a look, it’s in a book

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I grew up reading, and one of my favorite television shows was, naturally, about reading–I watched Reading Rainbow for at least fifteen of its twenty-six year run, and remember certain books with a definite fondness–The Day Jimmy’s Boa Constrictor Ate the Wash, and one I became reacquainted with this weekend: When I was Young in the Mountains.

So for all of us who grew up reading (and who then recognized LeVar Burton when we saw him on Star Trek), fear not. Our children will not be deprived of Reading Rainbow, as Burton has been working since the end of Reading Rainbow in 2006 to create an app. At midnight, June 20th, the Reading Rainbow app will be available for the iPad.

Why am I posting this here? Well, because to my mind, reading has been pretty integral to being a geek.

And then there’s the part where a Reading Rainbow app is just cool.

Win A Copy of ‘Time Traveled Tales’

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Good news: Authors like Janine Spendlove, Mike Stackpole, Aaron Allston, Tim Zahn, and Bryan Young teamed up to put together a nifty anthology of short stories centered around time travel!

Bad news: The anthology was limited to a 500 quantity run and was exclusive to the Origins Game Convention, so you can’t buy it.

Good news (for one lucky person): I went and bought an extra copy to give away!

How can you claim it? Simple! Follow our Twitter account and retweet this message. We’ll select a winner at random.

 

Science Fiction Legend Ray Bradbury Dies

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Ray Bradbury, author of influential works such as Fahrenheit 451 and The Illustrated Man, passed away this morning at 91. Bradbury was a speculative fiction genius and visionary. Numerous short stories and books he created managed to find their way to television and the silver screen over the years.

In honor of his life and career, I’ll be heading home today to read a few passages from my favorite book he wrote, The Martian Chronicles.

A Memory of Light, the final volume of the Wheel of Time

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The US release

I know, this isn’t exactly what we do here normally, but I figure that as long as we’re a blog that puts you, the readers, in the know about geek culture and the biggest and best of novels and other media there is to experience, I simply have to point this out.

The final book of the Wheel of Time, A Memory of Light,  is dated for release on January 3rd, 2013.  The cover art has been released, pictured here.  The first section of the prologue is available to read at Dragonmount.  If you’re interested, you can find it here.

More after the jump.

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