Tosche Station Radio #24: Flight of Romance

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On this week’s Tosche Station Radio, the hosts delve into the touchy subject of romance in fiction!

Kicking off the show, the hosts highlight what’s new on the blog. Beth sent in a Replace Mara’s Catsuit art entry. Emily brought us back to the Coruscant Craft Fair with a look at some Marvel-inspired shoes. Cosplay Monday featured Nate and Heather from Zhobot. Brian looked into a game that John Rhys-Davies and Mark Hamill appeared in.

In Fixer’s Flash, Nanci had herself a good time at a Wizard Rock show. She’s also been re-reading The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn. She also appeared on the Wrong Opinions About Movies podcast to talk about the hilariously awful Batman and Robin. Look for a link on the blog! Finally, she’s almost finished with her original novel! Meanwhile, Brian’s in comic mode having finished the Dark Reign arc and buying Captain Marvel #1.

Deak’s Dirt covers a host of information from San Diego Comic Con this week, specifically news from Dark Horse, Del Rey, and the Clone Wars creative staff. Mark Hamill was announced for Celebration VI, and there’s a bunch of new casting calls and rumors for Catching Fire. The hosts also take some time to talk Troy Denning’s new novel, Crucible, and go off on a tangent over fans that want Luke, Leia, and Han to die.

This week’s Camie’s Concerns revisits an article featured on the blog a few weeks ago, Rethinking Romance. We brought in Maggie to talk about why she wrote the piece and why she thinks we need to reevaluate our knee-jerk dismissiveness of romance in fiction and literature. The hosts and Maggie also touch on gender issues in fiction.

In Wormie’s Works, Nanci links to the Star Wars Love Poster by Mark Elwood and Brian rocks out to Book Eight – Another Harry Potter Song by nerdfighter Hank Green.

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

 

A Giant Leap For Mankind 43 Years Ago Today

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I always get chills when watching this video. It may not have been readily apparent to those watching at the time, but Apollo 11 nearly had to abort the landing attempt on three occasions. The first two were caused by program alarms when the computer’s processor became overloaded. The third happened as the navigation system directed the lander towards a boulder-filled crater, forcing commander Neil Armstrong to prolong the landing attempt and find a safe landing zone. When you hear “sixty seconds,” it’s CAPCOM Charlie Duke alerting the entire world that if they don’t touch down in a minute, the abort sequence will initialize.

But they landed, thanks to the teamwork at mission control, the watchful eye of Michael Collins, the guidance of Buzz Aldrin, and the cool of Neil Armstrong. On July 20, 1969 with seventeen seconds of fuel remaining, humankind set foot on the Moon.

Deadly Shooting at The Dark Knight Rises Premiere

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Midnight movie premieres are normally thought of as the time when months, sometimes years, of joyful anticipation finally come to an end with gleeful exuberance and geeky comraderie. Sadly, that was not the case last night during the midnight premiere of The Dark Knight Rises, when a gunman opened fire during a showing in Aurora, Colorado. The shooting occured just after midnight and reports indicate that at least 12 people are dead and 50 injured. A suspect believed to be the shooter was arrested at the theatre.

We at Tosche Station would like to send our thoughts and prayers to those affected by this tragedy.

Don’t Mess With Myri Antilles in the Latest ‘Mercy Kill’ Mini-Excerpt

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Another week, another mini-excerpt from Aaron Allston’s upcoming X-Wing: Mercy Kill. Myri’s back and she’s not taking crap from anyone!

The trooper caught up with Myri after three steps, seized her arm, and swung her around to slam her into the side of a building. She couldn’t see his features in the deep shadow, but his voice was suddenly full of anger. He jabbed a forefinger at her. “You do not insult the—”

She put one hand on the back of his and seized his index finger with her other hand. She bent his finger up, a sudden, all-out effort, and bones snapped.

He started to look at his stricken hand, started to make a pained noise, but she immediately drew her blaster, thumbed its side switch to make sure it was still set on stun, and fired into his stomach. The stun bolt briefly illuminated the alley and his shocked expression. Then he fell.

She looked down at him and holstered her weapon. “Sorry, Army. My heart belongs to Starfighter Command.” Then she stepped over him and returned to the street.

Mercy Kill is set to hit bookshelves on August 7th.

 

Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, and Malcolm MacDowell Were in a Video Game no one Remembers

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Back in the 90s, there was a stupidly popular trend in video gaming: live-action, full-motion cutscenes. Often times developers would hastily put together a green-screen room, hire a bunch of actors from an area film school (or from the accounting department, whoever was cheaper), and throw together a poorly written script as an effort to slap videos in between gameplay. Lucasarts (in)famously did this with Star Wars: Rebel Assault II: The Hidden Empire: Death by Colons.*

*A game so terrible I’m going to have to do a writeup on it someday.

Origin Systems saw this trend and said to themselves that they were going to go big or go home. Presumably, they threw a ton of money at Mark Hamill, John Rhys-Davies, and Malcolm MacDowell to appear in the FMV cutscenes for Wing Commander III and Wing Commander IV: The Price of Freedom.

Shockingly, when you bring in competent actors and work out a halfway decent script, the result can be positive. Wing Commander IV in particular was fairly well received by critics in 1996, praised for both its excellent plot and decent gameplay. Gamespot gave the game an 8.1/10 in its review.

Sadly this wasn’t a game that stood the test of time. Even the biggest Mark Hamill fans would be surprised to hear that he didn’t just provide a voice, but acted for a video game in the 90s. Largely this is because Origin Systems and Electronic Arts failed to keep the Wing Commander franchise playable as technology advanced. You can’t play any of these games unless you dig out your old Pentium 133 from the shed or tinker with a DosBox emulator.

For the Single CVI Attendee: Light Speed Dating

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Single? Going to be at Celebration VI? Boy howdy, is there an event for you!

It is a dark time for single people,
Although speed dating has become popular,
Couples-only events have driven the single people
Into hiding, and kept them from having fun across the galaxy

Evading the dreaded couples-only events,
The group Sci-Fi Speed Dating, led by Ryan Glitch,
Has established a new group of speed dating sessions,
In the remote city of O’Lando.

The dark lord, Darth Vader,
Obsessed with speed dating, has dispatched
Thousands of invites to Single Star Wars Fans across the galaxy
Inviting them to STAR WARS SPEED DATING
At Star Wars Celebration VI!

You’ll need to register in advance if you want to take part. Who knows, maybe you’ll find The One. Or at least, meet a nifty new fandom friend. You can’t have enough of those, right? There’s nothing wrong with platonic fandom friendship, after all.

Mark Hamill Wades into Presidential Politics

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In a rare foray into non-fandom issues, Mark Hamill sounded off on his thoughts on the presidential election at Comic-Con this week. The gist of the story? Luke Skywalker is apparently a Barack Obama fan and had a few things to say about Mitt Romney, keeping in the Comic-Con theme of things in his answer: “And you look at Romney—and I’m sure he’s a nice guy, but I think he’s like The Thing: He only imitates human behavior. He’s not actually human himself.”

See the full video of Hamill’s comments at the link above, via Yahoo!

(To forestall any possible political flames: Tosche Station has no preference one way or another. This is Star Wars news, thus, we are reporting it. Please keep comments related to the Star Wars aspect of this story, not the merits of one candidate over another.)

Final Batch of ‘EG to Warfare’ Endnotes

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The sixteenth and final set of endnotes from Jason Fry’s Essential Guide to Warfare dropped yesterday. In this set, we do a quick run-through the Legacy era.

The New Civil War: Paul Urquhart writes: “I found this one really tricky, because the complexity, frustration and tragic waste of the Second Civil War isn’t easily reduced to a simple campaign narrative. In the end, I tried to simply bring out all that angst and futility. This is a galaxy gone painfully wrong, in which a lot of people – ordinary citizens and powerful and capable leaders alike – are striving for some way to fix things and a cause to believe in. Which only makes matters worse. Concluding the piece with a comment from the younger Jacen Solo is designed to underscore the poignancy. I’m not quite sure that the whole piece works, but maybe it’s appropriate that it shouldn’t, quite.”

For more, head on over to Jason Fry’s Tumblr.

‘Crucible’ Tidbits from Random House: Into the Sunset for the Big Three?

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An interesting find over Random House’s product page for Troy Denning’s 2013 novel Cruicible. From their key selling points of the book:

AN ADVENTURE FOR ALL STAR WARS FANS! Everybody’s favorite characters spotlighted in a rousing adventure just like they shared in the “old days” of the classic movies.

FATE OF THE JEDI FOLLOW-UP: Releasing a year after Apocalypse, this is the first book to follow the popular nine-book Fate of the Jedi series. As such it will be eagerly aniticipated by fans desperate to know what’s in store for their beloved Star Wars heroes.

A PERFECT ENTRY POINT FOR NEW READERS! Even if you’ve never read a Star Wars novel before, how could you not be curious to see how our beloved trio of heroes—with the wisdom of age and experience that belie their years—fare in a brand-new heart-pounding tale of action and adventure?

STANDALONE STORY! No need to read multiple books in a series—just jump right in and ride a single rollercoaster from cover to cover.

SETS UP NEW SERIES: With this book, Han, Luke, and Leia are passing the torch to the next generation of Star Wars heroes, and the stage will be set for the next major Star Wars series.

THE HEROES RETURN: This will be the first cover to feature Han, Luke, and Leia since the 1990s!

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING STAR WARSAUTHOR! Troy Denning, just having completed the New York Times bestselling Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi series, is a fan favorite.

Emphasis added.

So will the creative staff really let the Big Three retire and shift the narrative focus to a younger generation? Well, color me skeptical. That’s something that has been discussed for so long that I’ll believe it when it finally happens.

What about the other popular fan theory that one or all of them are going to be killed off in a blaze of glory in this book? This one I definitely doubt, there’s little chance that Lucasfilm will allow that to happen.

I hope Han, Luke, and Leia are looking for a nice retirement community somewhere.