John Jackson Miller’s ‘Lost Tribe of the Sith’ Collection Gets New Release Date

And a format change.

Also announced are the inclusion of brand new maps. Look for the Lost Tribe collection to hit bookshelves on July 24th.

‘Essential Guide to Warfare’ Giveaway Winners

Who wants a free copy of EG to Warfare? All of you, I imagine! Unfortunately, only two of you will be getting them. The following two people! Who were randomly selected from a hat.*

*Red Dixie cup

  • From the Twitter pool:  @Aelinwen
  • From the Facebook pool: Daniel Laws

Congratulations winners! E-mail your address to staff.toschestation@gmail.com and we’ll send you your copy.

Thanks to everyone who entered and helped us make the first week here at Tosche Station a success. Keep your eyes open, I imagine we’ll have more contests in the future.

Catch Nanci and Brian on the Star Wars Book Report Podcast

A little while ago, my Tosche Station Radio co-host Nanci and myself did a guest spot with the Star Wars Book Report. If memory serves, we talked about fan fiction, fun at conventions, and our thoughts on the post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe.Hop on over there to listen to us go off-the-rails on someone else’s podcast!

SW Book Report Episode 49

A Brief History of Terrible Star Wars Games

With the outrage over Dancing Han Solo*, one would think there has never been a bad Star  Wars game to grace the market. Lucasfilm has sold out for a quick buck, you say. Oh you silly fans. If that’s the measure for selling out (whatever that means), Lucasfilm sold out years ago. Star Wars has a long and storied history of shoddy video game tie-ins pushed out the door to make some scratch.

*I don’t care what any of you say, Dancing!Han is the best thing to happen to the fandom in the last decade.

Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire: Death by Colons was a horrible mashup of bad full-motion video, clunky game mechanics, on-the-rails dullness, and difficulty curves designed by a sadist. If the horrid acting didn’t make you cringe to the point of turning it off, the bizarre spikes in difficulty at random moments would make you rage quit. Rebel Assault II hearkens back to a day when every game developer on the planet thought that unskilled actors and a green screen were the key to creating a big hit. Rather than, you know, actual gameplay value.

Continue reading →

Win A Copy of the Essential Guide to Warfare

To celebrate the official launch of Tosche Station, we’re giving away two copies of Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare. How can you claim one for yourself? Simple!

Opportunity the First: Follow the Tosche Station Twitter account and retweet this message

Opportunity the Second: Give us a Like on Facebook.

We will randomly select one winner from each pool to receive a copy, so enter in both places to increase your odds of winning a book that I really enjoyed.

The contest will run through Thursday with a winner announced Friday. Good luck!

Karen Miller ‘Star Wars Insider’ Short Story Features Antilles Spawn

Hit it, @DelReyStarWars

That high-pitched sound your dog just picked up on was probably me. Between this short story and Mercy Kill, it’s going to be a good year for the Antilles sisters in EU literature.

Facebook Chat With Jason Fry, Paul Urquhart, and Erich Schoeneweiss

Yesterday the writers behind the Essential Guide to Warfare stopped by Star Wars Books official Facebook page to answer questions from fans. Among the hard hitting questions: was there a classic Disney influence on the book?

Johann Mitzscherlich: It may seem obviously, but is the name “Skere Kaan” (where you first introduced his forename) to the tiger Shere Khan from The Jungle Book.

Jason Fry: Yep, Skere Kaan is a Jungle Book nod. That was Paul. Made me smile.

I’m always game for clever little nods to things outside of the Star Wars universe. Reading over a Han Solo profile, I spotted an Animal House reference. Austin over at EUCantina noticed a Kent Brockman reference in the book.

For a lengthy recap of the chat, head on over to Club Jade.

Jason Fry Releases Second Batch of ‘Essential Guide to Warfare’ End Notes

Yesterday, Jason Fry posted a series of end notes from EG to Warfare. Today he drops more!

Blasters: The mechanics of blasters have been explained rather differently in a couple of Star Wars sources, and Paul Urquhart did a lot of heavy lifting helping me sort through the differences. My question about how a stun setting would work led to some breathtakingly geeky emails between myself, Leland Chee, Pablo Hidalgo, Dave Filoni, Tony Rowe and Robert Clarke. Yes, my job kicks ass.

For even more bits of awesomeness, check out the rest of the notes he’s posted on his Tumblr.