Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
A few weeks ago, our own Nanci and Kelly from Big Shiny Robot were guests on the SW:BTF podcast with Nathan P. Butler and Mark Hurliman. Check out the latest episode where the hosts, Nanci, and Kelly talk about gender issues in the Star Wars universe and fandom.
Kicking off the show, Nanci highlight’s what’s new on the blog this week. You can find a collection of tweets covering Dave Filoni’s Q&A at Star Wars Weekends, Shane’s look back on Wedge’s Gamble (part of our ongoing summer X-Wing retrospective series). Don’t forget, we’re holding a contest to replace Mara Jade’s catsuit. Send in your art and costume photos!
In Fixer’s Flash this week, Nanci went and saw Prometheus and greatly enjoyed it. She was also at Star Wars Weekends livetweeting the Clone Wars news from Dave FIloni. Don’t look now, but she’s also gotten herself into costuming! Meanwhile, Brian finally discusses the goings on at the Origins Game Fair where authors Mike Stackpole, Aaron Allston, and Timothy Zahn held numerous panels discussing writing and Star Wars. A lot of interesting tidbits were divulged during the convention, including perhaps a story idea the three authors are hoping to pitch?
He crawled southward, keeping well below the trench lip above.
Myri followed, occasionally peeking up above the rim to see her surroundings. “My father was on the Death Star Trench Run. You know, the famous one. Me, I get the General’s Basement Trench Crawl.”
X-Wing: Mercy Kill is due out August 7th and is the first novel in the series to be published in thirteen years.
Spotted via Club Jade’s tumblr comes this magnificent fake movie poster by oldredjalopy.
Ten credits to the first person who turns this into a fan film.
Apparently Saturday was Star Wars Night at the home field of the Arizona Diamondbacks and here’s the evidence. It’s really great to know that there is one piece of Sci-fi popular culture that extends so far into the popular consciousnesses that it even intersects our nation’s past-time. Follow the link for pictures and video from the event!
It’s Tuesday, which means we’re delving back into TV Tropes to talk about an amusing or just quirky literary device that makes the entertainment we love work. This week, we’re investigating a trope called In the Blood.
Genealogy and Ancestry are really popular tropes in fiction. It makes a great Secret Legacy, a source of fraternal conflict, adds drama with an unexpected family reunion, and can set up a host of different conflicts and relationships. Just like in real life, a person’s ancestry can determine their genes and, to a lesser extent, their personality and even their talents; but in fiction this extends to skills, superpowers, and even moral alignment.
Sometimes even The Messiah and the most valiant Knight in Shining Armor are at risk of going insane, or over to The Dark Side, if a parent or grandparent was a Villain by Default or member of an Evil Race. This inevitably leads said character into a Wangstyexistential crisis that comes completely out of left field, since they rarely ever struggled against villainous impulses before this revelation.
Boy howdy, where do you even start with this one when it comes to Star Wars? You’ve got your various generations of the Skywalker and Solo bloodlines, all sorts of Hapan royalty, and who knows how many Fetts. Sometimes, there are certain traits that seem to carry on from generation to generation. Young Ben Skywalker definitely inherited his mother’s snark. If you look at the Antilles family, one daughter became a pilot like Wedge and the other daughter went into intelligence work like Iella.
Occasionally generational ties provide a familiar touchstone that can bridge from one age group to the next. Aaron Allston has said as much when he’s discussed the importance of the Antilles sisters in more recent Expanded Universe works.
Continuing into part two of our ongoing retrospective on the illustrious X-Wing series, we move past the introduction to the series Rogue Squadron and into Wedge’s Gamble. The second book of the series is less about letting the readers slip into the military pilot perspective instead of the farmboy, Jedi or smuggler, and more about exploring the characters and their relationships with each other.
On that note, there really isn’t even that much in the way of dogfights in this book. Whereas in Rogue Squadron there were at least three different blood-pumping, heart-pounding battles where the readers felt like they might lose the characters who they’re just starting to care about, we’re given the opportunity to fear for them in much different ways.
Be sure to check out the rest below the jump.
Paul Urquhart dropped by Suvudu today to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Midway in a somewhat unique way: talking about the snubfighter pilots as unsung heroes in the Galaxy Far, Far Away. Not only that, he teamed up with artist Frank-Joseph Frelier to illustrate some of the great combat pilots introduced via the Expanded Universe.
As Jason Fry’s authorial sidekick in Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Warfare, I got the chance to write about the development of fighter tactics in a galaxy far, far, away and how the advantages and limitations of combat planes translate into the vast arena of space. Between us, we produced “biographies” for almost every major warplane type from the movies, novels and comics.
But last week was the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Midway, a decisive air battle with more than a passing resemblance to some stories in the Star Wars universe — and reading about the real-world fighter combat reminded me of another key component of any war: the people.
One of the pilots Urquhart and Frelier highlighted that might have gotten some audible noise of excitement out of me? Syal Antilles, daughter of Wedge.
And if you need a bit of heartwarming in your life today, take a look at the helmet Syal’s holding. That appears to be the one that belonged to her father.
Paul talked about a bunch of other pilots that have made their marks on Star Wars and the Expanded Universe and there are other great illustrations of some neat minor characters to go along with the post. Head on over to Suvudu to check the rest out.
Star Wars Books released the full jacket cover for Tim Zahn’s upcoming novel Scoundrels this morning. Featured are Han, Chewie, Lando, Kell Tainer, Winter, and two characters new to the book.
Let the rampant speculation commence!