Holonet Blast #105

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Hello again and welcome to our weekly roundup of news from a Galaxy Far, Far Away!

This week’s news is particularly Disney-centric.

Star Wars cast and crew are among this year’s Disney Legend Award winners! The D23 expo is fast approaching and this year’s Disney Legends award recipients have just been announced. Among the honorees are Star Wars alum James Earl Jones (Darth Vader) and The Mandalorian showrunner John Favreau. D23 is Disney’s marquee fan event and the 2019 convention will be held in the Anaheim Convention Center August 23-25, 2019. Tickets are still available through the D23 website.

And with a mere 11 days until the opening of Galaxy’s Edge at the Disneyland Resort, Disney announced just today the Star Wars Datapad upgrade to the Play Disney Parks app. Launching in August (presumably in concert with the opening of the Galaxy’s Edge expansion in Walt Disney World, Orlando), the app will contain tools to help guests navigate not only Batuu and environs, but also to integrate their experience in a galaxy far, far away into their time in the rest of the Disney parks.

Reservations for Galaxy’s Edge at Disneyland are required through June 23, after which the land will open to all ticketed Disneyland guests.

That’s all I have for this week.

As always, send Star Wars news tips to Tosche Station, and send Galaxy’s Edge photos to @MandaTheGinger

MTFBWY!

A Star Wars Celebration Giveaway from Book Wars Pod

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Hey you! Yes, you! Did you miss Star Wars Celebration Chicago? Struck out on getting into some of the big panels? Then we have a giveaway for you!

One lucky winner will receive:

  • a Galaxy of Adventures poster
  • a Star Wars: The Clone Wars season 7 poster
  • an Art of Star Wars Rebels mural poster
  • a Del Rey sampler
  • a Girls Run the Galaxy pin from Looking for Leia
  • two bookmarks from Fiction State of Mind
  • a Rey postcard from Kotobukiya
  • a Book Wars Pod pin (duh)

To enter, you can do any of the following social media actions below. Each is worth multiple entries, and some more than others–so choose wisely! The contest closes June 1, and we’ll be picking a winner that weekend. Good luck!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Celebration 2019: Military in Star Wars

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From Celebration is the Military in Star Wars panel. Alex Damon (YouTube’s Star Wars Explained), Daniel Orrett (YouTube’s Spacedock), John Liang (Inside Defense), Marc G. (The Templin Institute), and Star Wars authors Jason Fry and Alexander Freed. Major Thomas Harper (U.S. Army) moderates.

Thanks to John Liang for the audio.

TSR is the flagship show of the Tosche Station Network. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave a review on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. For more great shows from us, you can also subscribe to the Tosche Station Network mega feed on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Nanci and Brian are the co-founders of ToscheStation.net and the Tosche Station Network. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.

This podcast has been brought to you in part by your support on Patreon!

Review: Dooku: Jedi Lost

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Something Star Wars, something new! It’s always a good day when we get to experience a new story set in the Star Wars universe and Dooku: Jedi Lost by Cavan Scott is something likely familiar to fans of a certain science fiction franchise across the pond but brand new to Star Wars. It’s an audio drama with a full cast in addition to all the excellent production value we’ve come to expect from Random House Audio. Jedi Lost takes us through much of the life of Dooku before we ever meet him, pulling back the curtain on one of the most charismatic and enigmatic characters in the galaxy far, far away.

Set at some point during the Clone Wars, Asajj Ventress has been given a mission by her master Count Dooku: find his sister Jenza. To help, he gives her some of the correspondence that had passed between the siblings dating all of the way back to Dooku’s time as an initiate at the Jedi Temple. Ventress being Ventress though, she pokes around and finds out more than the Sith Lord probably would have preferred and gains a deeper understanding of Dooku than perhaps anyone left living. Continue reading →

Book Wars Pod, Episode 88: The Buzz Buzz Sticks

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We’re continuing our read of BATTLEFRONT: TWILIGHT COMPANY by Alexander Freed, discussing chapters 21-29 and thinking about the moral challenges of liberating populations who don’t want to be saved, Thara Nyende’s crash course in what fascism really means, and the effects of the Empire’s empowering of loyal but stupid leaders.

This podcast is NOT spoiler-free.

Book Wars Pod explores the Star Wars universe through the franchise’s non-screen media: the canon novels, comics, and video games. Check out our guide to past episodes, and subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and wherever else you cast your pods. You can also subscribe to the Tosche Station Radio Mega Feed on iTunes Google Play, or Stitcher for more great shows from our podcast network.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr for episode updates! Hosted by Kristen Sereci, Chris Sedor, Kate Sedor, and Miranda Eldon. Art by Joe Butera. Music by Podington Bear.

This podcast has been brought to you in part by your support on Patreon!

Review: Alien Archive

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Editor’s Note: The following is something a little different from our usual book reviews… because it’s written by someone from the intended audience for Star Wars: a kid! Olivia W. is nine years old, a member of the Galactic Academy, and one of the biggest Star Wars fans I know. I thought it only fitting to ask her to review the book for us. Enjoy! 

Alien Archive – A Guide to the Species of the Galaxy, illustrated by Tim McDonah is an in-universe reference book for explorers, travelers, animal lovers, and those looking to learn more about the galaxy around them. This book includes over two hundred alien species from all times of galactic history and locations. It includes some that are well known to all fans, and others that are only seen briefly in a classic battle scene or mentioned once in a book. Information is laid out in the form of a journal written by some unknown traveler. In addition to facts and details about aliens, their homeworlds, and their characteristics, there are amazing drawings of all of them.

Species are categorized by their habitat, so if you are looking up a specific species you will need to know something about them to get started. Or, this is a book that you can pick up and open to literally any page to learn something about any creature big and small, well known or not. Alternately, there is a good index in the back of all the species by name and by some of the locations where they are found. Some species include notes about famous figures in the history of their kind. Some references have handwritten notes with the observations from the traveler.

Strangely, this book includes no direct references to humans, maybe the author thought that humans weren’t worth talking about in a book of interesting species. On the other hand, if you are desperate to hear about tales of the humans there are many familiar figures and heroes included in the articles about species like the Rodians, or the Lanai. Also, there are multiple entries for “species: unknown; homeworld: unknown”. This book even includes information about aliens when we don’t know what species they are classified to be, like Yoda and Maz.

This book includes characters and species from the movies, books, tv shows (even Resistance!), comic books and more. It will be best appreciated by a true fan that may have wondered just what a Momong looks like, or where a Frigosian is from. This is a colorful and informative addition to the bookshelf of any true Star Wars fan.

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

Holonet Blast #104

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Happy Mother’s Day to Leia and Padmé and Shmi–y’all the real MVPs.

Not a ton of news this week, but Entertainment Weekly gave us a great first look at Vader Immortal. On the off chance you haven’t heard the buzz around it, Vader Immortal from ILMxLAB will be coming to the Oculus Quest virtual reality wireless headset that releases May 21. Vader Immortal will be the first of a trilogy of VR experiences and will set you back $9.99. (The Quest headset itself is a much steeper $399, but I’m impressed with the price point of the first episode, given the playing experience described here–mind you, the creators would not love me referring to the volume as even having a “playing” experience–click through for more on that.)

All that to say, you’re thrown into MUSTAFAR which sounds WILD. Creators said they posed the question “what does Vader do on his off hours?” (my paraphrase) and this first volume is an exploration of that. The author of the EW piece compares the experience to a haunted house–the journey is the point, in a way. Timeline wise, this first “episode” slots in before Rogue One. The other two volumes will drop later this year.

We are all very grabby hands about this. Is anyone getting an Oculus I can just take from them forever so I don’t have to justify spending $400 on what would be (for me) a Star Wars toy? K thanks!!!

Oh, and Lucasfilm publicist Chris Argyropoulos tweeted the following on May 7:

No big deal. Right? RIGHT?! *shrieks into the night*

Until next time!

TSR Celebration Chicago Recap: Literature

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Our Celebration 2019 recap kicks off with a look at the Star Wars literature announced!

TSR is the flagship show of the Tosche Station Network. If you like what you hear, subscribe and leave a review on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. For more great shows from us, you can also subscribe to the Tosche Station Network mega feed on Spotify, iTunes, Stitcher, and Google Play. We can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

Nanci and Brian are the co-founders of ToscheStation.net and the Tosche Station Network. You can find Nanci on Twitter with the handle @Nancipants and you can find Brian with @LaneWinree.

This podcast has been brought to you in part by your support on Patreon!

Book Wars Pod, Episode 87: Mild & On Topic

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We’re continuing our read of BATTLEFRONT: TWILIGHT COMPANY by Alexander Freed, discussing chapters 8-20 and thinking about some of the similarities between Namir and Chalis, the consequences of being too cynical, and how a story without heroes means that no one is ever safe.

This podcast is NOT spoiler-free.

Book Wars Pod explores the Star Wars universe through the franchise’s non-screen media: the canon novels, comics, and video games. Check out our guide to past episodes, and subscribe on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, and wherever else you cast your pods. You can also subscribe to the Tosche Station Radio Mega Feed on iTunes Google Play, or Stitcher for more great shows from our podcast network.

Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Tumblr for episode updates! Hosted by Kristen Sereci, Chris Sedor, Kate Sedor, and Miranda Eldon. Art by Joe Butera. Music by Podington Bear.

This podcast has been brought to you in part by your support on Patreon!