Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
What are the ethics involved in humanizing the Empire? Does Star Wars need to be a more nuanced universe, or are the black-and-white morals of the original and prequel trilogies preferable? And is now the right moment for that nuance? These were the questions that plagued me as I listened to the latest Star Wars novel: Christie Golden’s Battlefront II tie-in, Inferno Squad.
Forget hope. Forget the dream. Forget the Rebellion. Sign me up for the Empire because Inferno Squad has made a true believer out of me. (Okay so maybe I’m still really hurt by everything that happened to Alderaan BUT BESIDES THAT. THE EMPIRE.)
Listen. I understand that I’m coming into this as a biased reviewer. As many people know, I was 100% on board with this book as soon as I saw the cover at Celebration and I could not be more excited for Battlefront II. To top it off, I just spent six weeks working like crazy to build the first Iden Versio costume. So yes, I really wanted to love this book based just on the concept and my appreciation for a character we knew very little about. After reading Inferno Squad by Christie Golden, I can now assuredly say that I would follow Iden Versio into the fires of hell and back. No exaggeration. Continue reading
Welcome 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: Battlefront II: Inferno Squad. It’s the prequel for the highly anticipated Battlefront II game and follows the members of Inferno Squad as their team is formed and through their first missions. But how do we feel about the book? To mission control for the verdict! Continue reading
This week on Tosche Station Radio, we’re joined by author Christie Golden to discuss Dark Disciple, Star Wars, and even a bit of Warcraft!
The discussion will contain spoilers, so if you haven’t finished Dark Disciple, proceed at your own risk!
Tosche Station Radio is the official podcast of Tosche-Station.net and a part of Majestic Giraffe Productions. If you like what you hear, please leave a review on the iTunes Music Store. 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.
This podcast has been brought to you in part by Her Universe and Audible.com.
The enemy of my enemy is my assassination BFF …or at least that’s the logic of the Jedi Council when it comes to teaming Master Quinlan Vos with Asajj Ventress to try and take the nefarious Count Dooku out of the picture and hopefully end the war. (No one ever said the Jedi Council was brilliant, okay?) What could possibly go wrong with this plan? And it’ll worth it if it brings the Clone Wars to an end, right? Out today, Dark Disciple by Christie Golden asks these questions as an unlikely partnership forms to take on an impossible task.
While there were things I did and did not like about the book, it was an overall enjoyable reading experience. While readers go in knowing the outcome (the mission fails, it has to fail,) Golden does a good job of building up anticipation and making you think that just maybe Vos and Ventress will succeed and Dooku will die. This is a book that’s more about the journey than the actual end result. The story is based upon unproduced episodes of The Clone Wars but Golden takes the basis of the arc and really makes it her own so well that it’s impossible to tell what was originally in those eight scripts and what wasn’t. (Dark Disciple may, however, may not be the most accessible book those who didn’t watch the show.)
Welcome 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: Dark Disciple. It’s our first book outside of the Episode III-V timeframe in the new canon and uses unproduced episodes from The Clone Wars show. It’s Ventress and Vos versus Dooku. But is the book worth your hard earned money? To mission control for the verdict!
Del Rey revealed the cover for Dark Disciple today, the forthcoming novel by Christie Golden. The novel is based on an unused storyline from The Clone Wars and stars Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos. The cover is the work of artist Matt Taylor.
Del Rey also announced the book’s official release date: July 7th, 2015. (Keep in mind though that this could be subject to change.)
You can read their full press release here.
Authors Mike Stackpole, Dave Wolverton, Kevin J. Anderson, Rebecca Moesta, Christie Golden, and Timothy Zahn discuss their thoughts on the Expanded Universe moving to Legends status and field questions from the audience about their contributions to the Star Wars universe.
Authors Christie Golden and Timothy Zahn discuss tropes in Star Wars and literature. They also take questions from fans in the second half of the panel.
Two days down of San Diego Comic-Con and we’re already rolling in Star Wars news. Well sort of.
Last night was the Rebels panel that featured the main cast along with Dave Filoni. You can read StarWars.com’s liveblog of the event here. While we didn’t get the official release date for Rebels (groan!), we did learn a few things. The cast agrees that Vanessa Marshall is the biggest Star Wars fan out of all of them although apparently Freddie Prinze Jr. makes all the Force motions while recording. The show will definitely be embracing the idea of this crew as a family and bringing in some comedy; both concepts they’re taking from the Original Trilogy. Another point of note from the panel is that Filoni made mention of establishing a hierarchy of villains so if Darth Vader shows up, people should definitely be running. Also, Rebels will be much more of a contained story than the Clone Wars as they won’t be jumping from character to character and creating new locations each week.
In addition to showing several clips from the show, they also debuted a second brand new trailer which you can watch below.
The Star Wars Books panel just wrapped up and needless to say, the highlight was the new book announcement. Christie Golden will be penning a novel about Asajj Ventress and Quinlan Vos. The book is due out in Summer 2015 and is taken from a plot line for the intended Season 7 of The Clone Wars.
As for the rest of the panel, it was moderated by Vanessa Marshall and there was a lot of discussion about John Jackson Miller’s forthcoming A New Dawn. Vanessa has apparently read the book already and said it gave her a lot of insight into Hera. Tarkin will be, as expected, akin to James Luceno’s Darth Plagueis and will take place very close to Revenge of the Sith. Heir to the Jedi was described as a character study of Luke Skywalker and Lords of the Sith was dubbed “kind of a Vader/Palpatine road trip novel” by Jen Heddle. You can read the rest of the live blog of the panel by the main site here. I’d particularly suggest that readers take note of their comments about the newly minted Legends books.
If you’re looking for comic news though… well that’ll be dropping tomorrow during Marvel’s Cup of Joe Panel. You’ve been warned.
