This column involves spoilers for Lost Stars. Read at your own risk.
Dragon Con 2015 Recap
Just one week ago, Dragon Con 2015 was wrapping up and Brian, Nanci, and Bria were on their ways back to their respective homes. We posted a whopping twelve panel recordings, ten of which at least one member of Tosche Station participated in. We also got to meet awesome people like Chuck Wendig and Vanessa Marshall, and hang out with the awesome Star Wars fan community.
Nanci will be writing a post soon about her experience moderating the Aftermath panel. For now, here’s a breakdown of all our coverage from the convention itself.
Review: Moving Target
There’s very little I love more in this world than a well-written Leia Organa story and Cecil Castellucci and Jason Fry have definitely delivered with their contribution to the Journey to the Force Awakens: Moving Targets. It’s a middle grade book which means the writing style is a bit more simplistic but that certainly doesn’t take away from the impact of the story nor from how much I enjoyed reading it.
Worrying reports have reached the Rebel Alliance of the construction of a second Death Star… something that absolutely no one wants to see in the hands of the Emperor. The Rebel Alliance must strike back but they’ll need time. Princess Leia volunteers to lead a decoy mission and serve as a distraction… a moving target if you will.
Review: Aftermath’s Prose
I usually hate reading present tense prose, at least in professional fiction. It’s always lent itself to fanfiction in my mind for some reason, so when I read the first excerpts of Aftermath when they were released, I wasn’t impressed.
Boy, was I wrong.
I read Aftermath in between feedings and diaper changes of our new little Jedi-in-training, and every time I set the book down, I looked forward to picking it back up again, and had the book come out before Little Jedi’s arrival, I probably would have read it all in one sitting.
Many of you know that I am, by trade and training, a professor of literature. So while the rest of our staff has reviewed Aftermath based on its content, I want to focus on the style and why it works so well for this novel.
REVIEW: Star Wars Rebels: Complete Season One Blu-ray set
The announcement of Star Wars: Rebels was met with mixed reactions from fans. Some folks resented Rebels right off the bat for the crime of not being season seven of The Clone Wars. Others, like myself, were simply tired of the pre-A New Hope era, and wanted Lucasfilm to move the story along, show us some post-Return of the Jedi action.
I think it’s safe to say that fans worried about a dip in quality following the Disney acquisition were pleasantly surprised by Rebels. But now, with season two just a month away and the first season finally out on DVD and Blu-ray, is an excellent chance to look back at season one as a whole. Does the show hold up on a second viewing, not only on an episode-by-episode basis, but as a complete work? And is the new Blu-ray set worthy of the show and a good investment, going into season two?
Let’s find out together, friends!
The Persecution Complex of Bring Back Legends Rears its Ugly Head at Dragon Con
I’ll be honest, I was more than happy to just write off Bring Back Legends as a mostly annoying but ultimately ineffectual movement. That all changed this past weekend when Bring Back Legends/Continue Legends or whatever they’re calling themselves took it upon themselves to turn Dragon Con 2015 into a platform for their fanboy entitlement. Not unlike how Gamer Gate thinks they own gaming, or Sad Puppies thinks they own science fiction, BBL is acting like they own Star Wars fandom and will do whatever it takes to make their voices heard.
Things began to look curious midnight on Force Friday, when in short order the Amazon page for Aftermath began to be flooded with one-star reviews of the book. There were three primary complaints: the inclusion of LGBT characters, the prose style, and griping about Legends. As for the prose style complaints, it’s odd that so many people had seemingly read the book in less than an hour, especially considering that Del Rey sent out perhaps less than 20 advance review copies. Certainly, some stores broke street dates, but not enough to account for the massive influx of reviews that seemed to complain about the exact same thing (as Chuck Wendig, Michael Patrick Hicks, and Jim C. Hines noted). At absolute best, it’s a bizarre coincidence. At worst, it’s an organized campaign designed to, as Wendig so brilliant put it, weaponize nostalgia for Legends and hurt folks as a result.
Okay, quite a bit more than annoying, but the negative reviews actually help the Amazon algorithms prioritize Aftermath, so I guess it’s more amusing in a dark way than anything else. Once again I’m ready to shrug off Bring Back Legends and the one-star Amazon review campaign.
Then the rest of Dragon Con happened.
Review: The Weapon of a Jedi by Jason Fry
Once upon a time, there was a girl named Nanci.
When Nanci was 11 years old, she saw Star Wars for the first time. And promptly fell in love with Luke Skywalker. She loved everything about him: his farm boy earnestness, his hot-shot piloting, his skills with a lightsaber. She loved that he was brash and courageous and kind and loyal and optimistic even in the face of certain death. She loved everything about him — yes, even the “Tosche Station” line.
(Yes, she did choose the name for this podcast and blog.)
People told her that one day, she’d grow up and stop loving Luke so much. That Luke was a character for kids to look up to, while Han is the character adults loved.
That never happened. Nanci stayed firmly on “Team Luke” despite all arguments to the contrary. (His relationship with Mara Jade helped solidify her lifelong devotion.)
But even so, things started going sour.
The Expanded Universe lost its luster. Luke stopped being the character Nanci believed him to be. Even amazing one-offs, like Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, weren’t enough to make Nanci happy.
She still loved Luke, even if he’d lost his way in the Expanded Universe.
Then the reboot happened.
(Spoilers for the book and some rumors about TFA under the cut.)
Review: Darth Vader #9
Not content with all the new Star Wars material we got on Force Friday? Good because Marvel has plenty more to share. Out today is Shattered Empire #1 (which we’ll be reviewing once it’s collected in November) and Darth Vader #9. Kieron Gillen and Salvador Larroca return to the adventures of Darth Vader, Doctor Aphra, and the two lovable murderbots.
Vader is still under the thumb of Admiral Tagge after his failure at Yavin 4 and must work with Thanoth instead of devoting himself to his own side project. Thankfully, he has (for now) an ally and useful tool in the form of the one and only Aphra who is running down some leads for him at a very expensive rate…
And then Kieron Gillen dropped the f*$&ing microphone. Thus ends the review. Dear Marvel: Give me issue #10 right now. Please.
(No seriously. That’s all this review is going to say. Go buy Darth Vader #9 either at your local comic store or through a digital shop right now. Trust me.)
REVIEW: LEGO set 75099 – Rey’s Speeder
Even though my LEGO preferences tend to lean more towards the larger, more complicated sets (the UCS Slave I is currently sitting just to my left), one of the “Force Friday” The Force Awakens sets I was most looking forward to was the relatively tiny Rey’s Speeder (75099). I liked the look of the vehicle from the two teasers we’ve seen so far, and the set itself looked like a solid, satisfying build — not huge or intricate, but well-designed and fun to put together, much like the Inquisitor’s TIE set (75082) from back in January. That wound up being an extremely satisfying build, despite its small size — does this new (even smaller) offering from LEGO follow suit? Read on to find out!
(Minor spoilers/speculation for The Force Awakens, I guess)
Tosche Station on Location: Dragon Con 2015 – Strong Women of Star Wars
From Dragon Con day three, it’s the Strong Women of Star Wars panel. Panelists include Kay Serna, Bryan Young, Beth Dolgner, Travis Grimm, an Nicole Tapp. Bria LaVorgna moderates.