Review: Darth Vader (2017) #13-17

In the “Burning Seas” arc of Charles Soule’s Darth Vader comic series, we take a bit of a time jump from the series so far: while issues #1-12 focused on the days immediately following the rise of the Empire, issue #13 opens three years after those events (so, around 16 BBY, for those keeping track). The Empire is consolidated, the military has built up, and the Emperor’s sinister servant, Darth Vader, has come into his own as the regime’s chief enforcer.

Whereas the series so has shown us the internal struggles of becoming Darth Vader, this arc focuses much more on external events – namely, the pacification of Mon Cala, the water world home to some of the future Rebellion’s greatest heroes. Indeed, these issues are full of familiar faces: Not-yet-Grand Moff Tarkin and his capital ship Sovereign (previously seen in the Tarkin novel) are pitted in a battle of wills (and weapons) against King Lee-Char of Mon Cala (who you may remember from The Clone Wars), Admiral Raddus (Rogue One), and then-Commander Gial Ackbar (c’mon, you know him). With such a cast of characters demanding page-time, we actually get less of the titular villain than one would expect; Vader plays the role of antagonist here, rather than the focus of the plot.  Continue reading

Holonet Blast #64

It’s the news, y’all!

Fairly light week for actual news, but you know you can always check back here when The Last Jedi remake finally happens.

First, some toy news. In August, Funko will be coming out with its popular (and aptly named) Pop! figures from The Clone Wars television series that ran from 2008-2015. We can expect Anakin (complete with all his limbs), Obi-Wan, Yoda and TWO Ahsoka figurines (one of which will be a Hot Topic exclusive). If you need me, I’ll be in the corner rocking back and forth at the (extremely unlikely) possibility of finally getting a Pop! Fives.

Over in France, ILMxLAB and The VOID won two Cannes Lions Digital Craft awards for their incredible work on Secrets of the Empire hyper-reality experience. Now… who wants to fly me to Orlando or Anaheim so I can actually go play and write a first-hand account for TSR?!

And let’s not to forget to congratulate our friends over at The Star Wars Show for their 100th episode! (Does anyone actually know any of the cast and/or crew so we can be real friends? Asking for a me.) There was singing, there was dancing, there were several red Millennium Falcon shirts.

That’s it for now! Going to moonwalk into the night and go see Solo again.

Review: Most Wanted

If you’re like me, you walked out of Solo: A Star Wars Story wanting to know everything you possibly could about Qi’ra and read dozens of stories about her. Thankfully, Most Wanted by Rae Carson came out the same day as the film and I was eager to dive into it especially since I’m a far of Carson’s Fire and Thorns trilogy. Even better? Most Wanted definitely did not disappoint.

Most Wanted introduces us to both Han and Qi’ra not more than a year before Solo begins with Lady Proxima pitting the two of them against each other to determine who will be the next Head Child of the White Worms. Given that the promotion comes with extra rations (including real food!) and other “privileges,” both of them really want it. Badly. When a deal goes very wrong, Han and Qi’ra realize that the only chance they have of salvaging either of their hopes of becoming Head is to work together and find themselves on a crazy adventure that neither of them could have ever forseen. Continue reading

Review: The Mighty Chewbacca and the Forest of Fear

What’s a wookiee to do when the daughter of the Emperor’s advisor has taken his partner hostage and will only free him if said wookiee goes on a dangerous assignment for her? Complete the mission, of course! The Mighty Chewbacca and the Forest of Fear by Tom Angleberger is a middle grade book that teams up everyone’s favorite wookiee with a young woman who’s trying to help her people and the galaxy’s snarkiest KX security droid.

Angleberger has a delightfully wry yet fun style of writing, providing direct commentary on the story as the narrator. Writing Chewbacca can be a challenge since his words are traditionally not translated directly but given vague meaning. Angleberger finds a way to make it fun and feel logical. The narration is really what makes the book veer more towards special and away from “this is fine” and I actually found myself laughing out loud once or twice.

Star Wars, as of late, has seemed to have fun pairing Chewie up on his solo missions with a spunky and relatively young girl to be a foil. That girl also usually has her own agenda that just happens to somewhat line up with Chewie’s own mission but they end up doing good and becoming friends at the end. It could have very easily been tedious this time around but Angleberger found a way to keep it interesting. When in doubt, toss in the K-2SO wrench apparently. (I love that droid so much, I really do.)

The Mighty Chewbacca and the Forest of Fear is a book that kids in the middle grade age range will likely find delightful but may be less appreciated by the older ones/teenagers. It’s a fun little adventure with Chewie that could be an amusing divertissement for adults or a great journey for kids.

Thank you to Disney Lucasfilm Press for providing a copy of the book for review purposes.

A Solo Report from a Q&A with Joonas Suotamo

When given the opportunity to attend an early screening of a Star Wars film, you say yes and then ask for the details later. Luckily enough, the early screening of Solo I attended on Monday night had a bonus for us: a Q&A after the film with Chewbacca actor Joonas Suotamo. If you’re ever given a chance to attend a panel with him, I highly recommend it. Suotamo is passionate about his role in a very earnest way that leaves you completely charmed. It’s hard not to become a fan of him. I mean… how can you not love someone who delivers all of his lines on set in Wookiee English even though it’ll be dubbed over?

This brief summary of the Q&A will involve spoilers for Solo. Continue reading

Review: What Is A Wookiee?

We have an emerging reader in my house, which means our Star Wars bookshelf has gotten a recent injection of titles designed for the preschool set. From time to time, I’ll be popping in with words about how my little guy is enjoying the parts of Star Wars designed for enjoyment by the franchise’s youngest fans. I’m happy to report that the age-appropriate offerings are plentiful and entertaining. A current favorite is the DK Readers Level 1 book What is a Wookiee.

We were a little surprised that the book isn’t a tell-all about Wookiee culture as we’d thought. It is, instead, a primer on many of the creatures we meet in a galaxy far, far away, with spotlights on individual characters the kids may encounter in the Star Wars films. The book is from the point of view of C-3PO, who takes readers through this catalog of creatures and droids with just enough of his own editorializing baked in for the adults in the room to recognize him. The pages on what characteristics differentiate aliens from droids, and how to tell the difference turned out to be a conversation starter in our house.  Continue reading

Review: Choose Your Destiny: A Han & Chewie Adventure

I had absolutely no idea what I’m doing when it comes to a choose your own adventure book but you know what? That’s actually pretty in-character for Han Solo so I’m going to say it works. Star Wars: Choose Your Destiny: A Han & Chewie Adventure by Cavan Scott with illustrations by Elsa Charretier is precisely what it says on the label and hey to top it off, it’s actually rather fun.

As I said before, I’m not exactly a connoisseur when it comes to choose your own adventure books so this was a brand new venture for me. Turns out that I’m not actually all that great at picking the right option: I led Han and Chewie straight into their journey’s premature end at least five times if not more. That’s actually part of what makes this fun because the right choice isn’t always immediately evident. Sometimes, this is because Han has two equally hair-brained ideas such as telling someone that he’s Jabba the Hutt when he’s in a less than ideal situation. (Honestly, it’s actually somewhat impressive how many people in the galaxy don’t know what a hutt looks like…) I only went through the book once but there are apparently twenty different outcomes (although I suspect that I found about a quarter of those given how many times I unsuccessfully guided our favorite smugglers.) This could easily keep someone entertained for a few hours if they wanted to try and find all the different endings.

The bottom line? If you like these sorts of books, you’ll enjoy Choose Your Destiny: A Han & Chewie Adventure. If you’ve never tried a choose your own adventure book, this could well worth giving a try. It’ll keep you (or kids in particular) entertained for a little while and let you have fun flying the Falcon alongside Han Solo and Chewbacca.

Thank you to Disney-Lucasfilm Press for providing a copy of the book for review purposes.

Go/No-Go: Last Shot

nasa-mission-control-3Welcome back to Go/No-Go, Tosche Station’s regular feature where we offer our spoiler-free opinion as to whether or not you should spend your hard-earned money on a book, film, or other entertainment. Today on the launch pad: Star Wars: Last Shot. Star Wars fans were first introduced to Daniel José Older via his delightful sandtrooper in From a Certain Point of View but what do we think of his take on Han Solo and Lando Calrissian? To mission control for the verdict!

Bria: I was somewhat familiar with Daniel José Older prior to this book but admittedly, I didn’t entirely know what to expect. Once I did start reading the book over my lunch break, I found it almost impossible to put down. (Seriously: I finally had to shame myself into doing so after I finished the first 90ish pages and was seriously considering shutting my office door and reading the rest.) Older has a very humorous and engaging style of writing, something that’s a perfect fit for Han Solo and Lando Calrissian; two characters whose voices he has down pat. Taking place over three time periods, the story weaves together and would be far less rich without the Lando/L3 and the Han/Sana plot lines. Older also makes sure to put forward a diverse cast of which my favorites are probably Peekpa the ewok and Taka the pilot. At the end of the day though, what you really need to know is that Last Shot is fun as hell, will make you laugh a lot, and is incredibly difficult to put down. We can only hope that Older gets to write more Star Wars novels given what a delight this one was. Needless to say, Last Shot gets a GO from me.

Nanci: Last Shot reminds me of a Bantam era book. If you know me, you know that’s some of the highest praise I can give a Star Wars book. How does it compare to Bantam, you may ask? Well, it’s a one-off story with personal as well as galactic stakes. It features some well-known film characters like Han, Lando, Leia, and Chewie, but also introduces a wide variety of new characters I’d love to read about in the future. (Taka Jamoreesa was my surprise favorite. Peekpa the Ewok is also delightful.) Last Shot also features Sana Starros, a character from the Marvel comics, in a great bit of synergy. (There’s another cameo from a book character that made me run around the house with glee.) One of the best parts about the Bantam era books was “checking in” with characters that had been previously introduced in other books and seeing what they were up to, or using them in stories when the plot called for certain character types. Like Aaron Allston’s X-Wing novels, Last Shot is deeply funny, and cares more about telling an entertaining story than adding to lore or “expanding” the universe. Not that there’s anything wrong with those types of stories, but sometimes it’s nice to just sit back and enjoy a book with no repercussions to the galaxy at large, even if the characters go through deep changes. (This is how I feel about Solo: A Star Wars Story in general, as a matter of fact.) Given that this book is a tie-in to Solo, I was surprised, but thrilled, to find that the majority of the story takes place two years after the Battle of Jakku; anything that takes place post-Endor is my jam. The flashbacks with Han, Chewie, and Sana as well as Lando and L3-37 succeeded in getting me very excited fro the film. Finally, one of my favorite things Last Shot does is prove there are plenty of stories to tell during the period of peacetime between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens. Just because the Empire is gone and the First Order hasn’t risen to prominence yet, doesn’t mean our heroes did not have any adventures. I hope Del Rey, Disney Lucasfilm Press, and Marvel continue telling those stories. For those and many other reasons, Last Shot gets a GO from me.

Amanda: I am always dubious when an author I’m unfamiliar with gets their hands on Han Solo. But having read the excerpt in the Del Rey Sampler, I was cautiously optimistic when I embarked on reading Last Shot. Let me tell you: I was so much more than satisfied. Older does a fantastic job of giving us ever-growing but still recognizable versions of our favorite scoundrels. In addition, we find new characters to love (Taka has my heart forever) and see glimpses of favorites from the Star Wars comics and previous novels. The villain made me shudder, the action made my heart race, and the relationships felt real, honest, deep, and important. I got everything I wanted out of this book and a bunch of things I didn’t even know I needed until after I had them. This book was a delight from beginning to end, weaving together multiple time periods and interconnected plot threads with finesse and facility. It was well done from start to finish. I adored it and hope to see more from D.J. Older on my Star Wars shelf in the future. Last Shot absolutely gets a GO from me.

Flight Director’s Ruling: Last Shot is a GO for launch!

Review: Last Shot

What do you get when you take Daniel José Older, toss him into the Star Wars universe, and let him play with two of the most famous scoundrels in the galaxy? A goddamn delight. You get a goddamn delight. Okay, fine: it’s actually called Last Shot but that doesn’t mean it’s not also a delight. Set two years after the Battle of Jakku, Last Shot follows Han and Lando on a mission with an eclectic team as choices they made over a decade before rear their ugly heads to bite them in the rear. What could possibly go wrong?

While the idea of a novel told over three different time periods may leave some readers a little wary, Older quickly sets us as ease. Right from the start, Last Shot is engaging and difficult to put down. Han and Lando’s in-the-past story lines weave in and out of the current day tale, all building together until you can’t imagine reading about the main adventure without knowing about the journeys that Han and Sana and Lando and L3 went on before. Continue reading