Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
It’s time for another Cosplay Monday and this week we’re featuring an awesome Jaina Solo costume by Cavalyn! Not only does her costume look great but she also makes a wonderful Jaina. You can more pictures of Cavalyn’s costume on her tumblr including some awesome group shots with not only the other Solo children but also some really cool looking Legacy of the Force inspired shots.
Fans of Star Wars and cheap mobile gaming applications will be overjoyed to hear that Angry Birds will be moving to the Galaxy Far, Far Away.
In Angry Birds Star Wars, a totally new edition of the game out Nov. 8 for iOS, Android and computers, the birds and pigs alike will take on the personalities of characters from the Star Wars saga. “They are not Angry Birds dressed up as Star Wars characters,” says Paul Southern, vice president of licensing and consumer products marketing for Lucasfilm Ltd. “They are characters in their own right.”
For example, Red Bird will be transformed into Luke Skywalker as an X-Wing pilot in Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope. “They’ve got personalities which are kind of similar,” he says.
Other birds provide takes on Chewbacca, Princess Leia, Han Solo and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the game, which will likely have free and paid versions. And, of course, Darth Vader and the dark side of the Force will be represented. “You will see a pig-esque Vader and pig-esque stormtroopers,” Southern says.
You’ll be able to download the Star Wars edition of Angry Birds on November 8th.
In case you hadn’t already noticed, we at Tosche Station are big fans of young adult literature even if we’re hardly the target age demographic. Everyone should be able to enjoy those books. Sticking an age label on a book shouldn’t stop older readers from enjoying them too. Today, I’d like to extend that argument and say that the Percy Jackson books by Rick Riordan are absolutely not just for kids because wow can anyone enjoy that story.
The basic premise of the series is simple: what if one of your parents was actually a Greek God? Our hero, Percy Jackson, is the son of Poseidon and wow did that cause some problems for him in the first series. Of course, you can’t have ancient gods and mythology without some prophecy so you can absolutely bet that our heroes are always going to have to try and save the world because of one. (Spoiler Alert: Percy Jackson never gets a break from this sort of thing.)
Tuesday saw the release of the third book in the second series about Percy Jackson and company: Mark of Athena. The previous two books in the Heroes of Olympus series saw our group of heroes divided between Camp Half Blood (the Greek demigods) and Camp Jupiter (the Roman demigods) and both camps happily existing without acknowledging the other. But now, because of a prophecy and meddling of Hera, young heroes from both camps have to team up to save not only one of their friends but also the world. And they have to do it fast.
Mark of Athena not only reunites our heroes but tells an awesome story. I was originally worried that the book would struggle with having such a comparatively large cast (the previous books had three main heroes, this one had seven) but my fears were unfounded. Riordan manages the larger cast well, sending different pairs or trios off to face each new obstacle or task. This allows not only for the two groups of heroes to get to know each other but also for Riordan to explore the different dynamics between the heroes.
The wonderful Ashley Eckstein was a guest on this week’s episode of Tosche Station Radio and shared with us some pretty great new products that you can look forward to from Her Universe in the near future.
Starting this Monday, Her Universe will be releasing a new Halloween bag for 2012. This year’s design, once again by Katie Cook, will feature Darth Vader in a unicorn costume. (Yes, you read that correctly!) He will have all of the candy and will be saying “I find your lack of candy disturbing” to several costumed yet candyless stormtroopers. Also available this Monday will be the Ahsoka Tano costume top in adult sizes (Small through 3X) and a brand new Spock costume top.
The next upcoming product doesn’t yet have a release date yet but will be a Hot Topic exclusive so keep an eye out for a TARDIS dress!
Finally, Ashley let us in on a new product for the holidays that will be released for Cyber Monday. You will now be able to purchase Her Universe pajamas! These are another Katie Cook design and will be a pair of flannel pants with little Darth Vaders on them and a top that will picture Darth Vader with bunny slippers and a coffee mug and saying “I woke up on the dark side of the bed.” The holiday pin will also make its return and this year’s design will feature Chewbacca.
Kicking off the show, Nanci highlights what’s new on the blog. Fanwork Friday featured a fic by salanderjade called Beside the Dying Fire. Bria’s weekly Cosplay Monday feature looked at a brilliant Ursula costume. In Trope Tuesday, Brian entered the battlefield of love to discuss Ship-to-Ship Combat. He also reviewed the Essential Reader’s Companion by Pablo Hidalgo and discussed continuity and perspective in the Expanded Universe. Hark.com sent us some infographic fun comparing Star Wars to Star Trek.
In Fixer’s Flash, Nanci has been keeping herself busy by reading The Long Hunt as well as the Essential Reader’s Companion. She’s also thrilled that Once Upon a Time is back on the air. Meanwhile, Brian is reading through War of the Seasons: The Half-Blood by Janine Spendlove and the latest issues of the all-new Captain Marvel. He also has been enjoying all the extra features in the Avengers Blu-Ray set.
Deak’s Dirt starts with news that the Essential Reader’s Companion has hit book stores. Long story short? Go buy it. Suvudu has collected a wealth of Star Wars short stories and archived them on their site. New ebook editions of the ERC and Essential Guide to Warfare are now available from Del Rey. Meanwhile, the Scoundrels release date has been pushed back to January 1st. Finally, The Clone Wars television series now has its own Twitter account!
For this week’s Camie’s Concerns, hosts Brian and Nanci are excited to welcome the voice of Ahsoka Tano and the founder of Her Universe onto the show. Ashley Eckstein joins Tosche Station Radio to answer questions from the hosts and listeners.
Wrapping up the show, hosts Brian and Nanci field questions from listeners and readers in our Ask Us Anything segment.
Tosche Station Radio is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net and a part of the Solo Sound network. If you like what you hear, please leave a review on the iTunes Music Store or the Zune Marketplace. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.
Nanci and Brian are the co-founders and writers of Tosche-Station.net. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.
The upheaval at Bioware Austin, development studio for the much hyped and underperforming The Old Republic, continues as the game’s lead designer has announced he has left the company. Daniel Erickson is currently looking for employment elsewhere
While a lead designer of an massively multiplayer online game isn’t especially unusual, one has to wonder if the troubles of The Old Republic factored heavily into Erickson’s decision. The Star Wars themed MMO launched to much fanfare and high expectations, but rapidly hemorrhaging subscriber numbers have dealt a blow to Bioware Austin. Earlier this year, the studio was hit hard by employee layoffs.
Nanci and I are excited to announce that the voice of Ahsoka Tano and Her Universe founder Ashley Eckstein will be joining us on Tosche Station Radio today!
We would love to take your questions for Ashley. You can send them to us via Twitter, Facebook, e-mail (link on the sidebar), or you can leave a comment in this post.
Ashley will be joining us at 6PM Pacific to record. Starting at 5PM you can join us for the recording in real-time over at our Livestream channel and chat.
Prepare for the ship war.
It’s Tuesday morning and I’ve already published four posts and I’m getting tired of the WordPress editor. It’s also the time of week where we dive into TV Tropes to take a look at an amusing literary theme or device that makes our favorite pop culture interesting. This week, we look at a trope called Ship-to-Ship Combat:
AKA Shipping Wars. Nothing to do with naval warfare (or space warfare for that matter). Or UPS vs. FedEx.
Many fans ship. Some of them have a distinct ship that they like over all others, while some of them support several, sometimes contradictory, pairings. Some of them like to debate a pairing while keeping in mind its status in canon, while some of them discuss it believing their pairing iscanon (or will inevitably be). Now throw in the power of the Internet to connect everybody (and everybody’s opinions) with everybody else…
Shippers tend to become emotionally invested in their pairings, and Internet shipping discussions can be quite difficult to keep peaceful. All too often, they can’t help but devolve into heated quarrels where preferences are insulted, ad hominem attacks are thrown, and comparisons to Nazis are made (though, to be sure, the latter aspect is just as capable of arising from anysubject of disagreement currently known to exist).
These Flame Wars are known as Shipping Wars: verbal arguments between people with different opinions about romantic relationships between fictional characters. There are those who bash whoever doesn’t like their ship of choice, those who bash whoever likes a certain ship, and those who do both, usually basing their attacks on how canon/Fanon the discussed ship is.
Gather ’round children and let me tell you a tale. A tale of the dark times. Before Vision of the Future. Now, I was not there to witness the events first-hand, but the records are seared into the very memory of the vast wasteland known as the Internet.
Kids, you might know that your favorite Jedi Master Luke Skywalker married a spunky ginger by the name of Mara Jade. Destiny, some would say. They were perfect for each other and certainly everyone could see that. Oh, but child, if you only knew. If you only knew.
You see, there was another woman by the name of Callista that vied for the hand of Master Skywalker. Some fans felt that Luke and Mara were destined to be together. Some felt that Callista was the one. Others felt that Luke was a monk and shouldn’t get married at all, but those folks were largely ignored by the shippers.
Child, the Ship War of the 90s were a frightening time. Tempers flared. Ranty missives were composed. Fan fiction was written. Oh the fan fiction. All of the fan fiction. They were frightening times. But they were merely a precursor of things to come when a fifteen-year battle raged over three men that fought to court one Jaina Solo.
In celebration of Pablo Hidalgo’s Essential Reader’s Companion hitting bookshelves today, Suvudu has gone and posted a large number of short stories on their site. Some of these shorts are older material gathered from various sources over the year. I can’t speak for anyone else, but I’m certainly excited to see Suvudu gathering up all of these great shorts and archiving them for Expanded Universe fans.
Del Rey has put a wealth of Expanded Universe ebook material on sale today. Perhaps a better way to phrase that would be a wonderfully staggering amount of ebook material on sale.
First off, both the Essential Guide to Warfare and the newly released Essential Reader’s Companion (Have you read our review yet? You should) are now available in electronic format. These editions are complete with all the illustrations that appear in their paperback counterparts, so if you own a tablet this could be a very interesting option for you.
As we mentioned yesterday, an essential novels bundle containing Heir to the Empire, X-Wing: Rogue Squadron, Vector Prime, and Legacy of the Force: Betrayal goes on sale today for only $7.99 total. A larger 10-novel bundle can also be purchased for $62.99.