Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
You see these kinds of things crop up every now and again, but generally you already know a lot of these little factoids that they present. For instance, most of the time you see something like ‘Warwick Davis was a last minute casting change for Wicket the Ewok.’ This list actually does have some things I didn’t know, some I did, some of which are my favorite SW facts.
Image and more after the break
I need to go put the sharp pointy thing in the thing with the sharp pointy fangs now.
Introducing Trope Tuesday!
What’s Trope Tuesday? It’s a weekly sojourn into the land of fiction and literature to learn more about the devices and themes that resonates with its audience.*
*It’s a thinly veiled excuse for me to destroy your productivity by linking you to that great time-sink in the cloud: TV Tropes.
Every Tuesday we’ll feature one new trope. This week we’re highlighting one of my favorites: Buffy Speak
Buffy Speak is that thing where they say that a guy is saying things too fast, or can’t figure out what the thing they want to say is, or doesn’t have enough learning and stuff to say what the thing they mean is.
A thing you see a lot with this is when they don’t know the right words and stuff, so sometimes you see noun and verb things combined like in “shooty-gun thing”, and stuff that goes in a cycle thing in frustration: “That idea went over like… like… like a thing that doesn’t go over very well.” That thing where you go on and on and forget the stuff you were trying to say comes up a lot. Sometimes it uses that verb-noun-ing dealie thing, and sometimes that name thing where it’s like, descriptive, but not really their name, because you don’t really know their name? Or are trying to make a point? I dunno, just click on the link.
The Trope Namer is, obviously, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
Ever find yourself doing this when trying to explain Star Wars to someone who hasn’t seen it? “No, no. You see Hyperspace is this wibbly-wobbly … thing … that lets other things go from one place to another place all quick like. You know. Like a thing that goes really fast.”
If you’ll excuse me, I’m going to get back to surfing … that thing. With all the links. And pictures of cats.
Yesterday, the official Del Rey Star Wars Twitter account dropped this tease:
Reviewing outline for 3rd Guide Characters. Tough part is thinking ahead – what #SWEU is upcoming that needs to be included. @Darth_Duff
— StarWarsBooks (@DelReyStarWars) April 9, 2012
I know I’d love to see a number of post-Return of the Jedi Expanded Universe characters included. A longshot, sure, but any chance I could see something about the Antilles sisters?
Who would you like to see in the third EG to Characters? Drop a comment in this post to tell us!
Over on his blog, Jason Fry posted a set of endnotes from his latest Expanded Universe release, the Essential Guide to Warfare.
The book originally began with a transcript of a briefing featuring Admiral Motti, Bevel Lemelisk, a general from the Department of Military Research and Dr. Insmot Bowen, a pre-Republic specialist from the Obroan Institute. Dr. Bowen explained that some of the odd characteristics of the galaxy — including that barrier west of the Core — were the remnants of Celestial technology, and told the panel of an ancient war between the Celestials and the Rakata. (Motti, as you might imagine, wasn’t believing it.)
The section was fun, but my editor at Del Rey, Erich Schoeneweiss, felt it wasn’t the best beginning for the book. He felt we needed something that put the reader in a dynamic scene rather than a briefing room, and that had some actual warfare in it, instead of a discussion of it. I fumed about that for a bit, then fumed a lot more because I realized Erich was right.
I have to say, I’m glad Schoeneweiss suggested a different opening. The prologue was one of my favorite parts of the book and really helped set the stage for perhaps the best Essential Guide I’ve gotten my hands on.
For more interesting notes and tidbits from Jason Fry, head on over to his blog.
With Apocalypse hitting bookshelves last month, the three-year Fate of the Jedi series came to a conclusion. Not only did it mark the end of the nine book series, but the end of the megaseries concept Del Rey has been known for since New Jedi Order kicked off in 1999. FotJ marks the end of an era in more ways than one, but how effective was it?
Part I of the Fate of the Jedi retrospective below the cut.
Author, humorist, and Ewok enthusiast Aaron Allston has updated his appearance schedule for the remainder of the year:
If you ever get the chance to see Allston on a panel at a convention, drop whatever it is you’re doing and grab a seat. He’s one of the funniest men alive and puts on an incredibly entertaining show. This year promises to be especially fun as his first X-Wing novel in thirteen years is due out in August.
via Roqoo Depot
And now, we rejoin our frustrated columnist to bring you this correction and further review of Barbara Hambly’s Children of the Jedi.
As my Netflix queue will confirm, I have a thing for cheesy 80s television. Star Wars as an 80s action/drama? Sign me up. Also? Cheesy 80s Firefly. Get on that, Joss Whedon.
Welcome to the roundup!
At the end of every work week, we’re going to gather up the most interesting bits of Star Wars related news and discussion from around the web and hand them to you lucky readers in the handy link-dump format.
Two New Scoundrels Announced: We knew that Han, Chewie, and Lando would be comprising three of the characters in Timothy Zahn’s upcoming novel Star Wars: Scoundrels. Frank Parisi announced two additional characters via the Forcecast last weekend: Kell Tainer and Winter Celchu. The following animated gif accurately portrays the feelings of Tosche Station’s writing staff regarding this announcement:
Bless you, Bill Adama. More news below the cut.
Greetings, readers! For those of you just joining us here at the blog, this is part of an ongoing series in which I am reading ,or in some cases re-reading, Star Wars novels from yestery
ear. I’m going to be starting rather early on in the Bantam-Spectra era and slowly working my way forward. Now, in some cases that will actually mean chronologically but in other it will mean that I’m just reading them as I get to them.
I also want to tell you that I will be reading most of these for the first time while in other cases they’ll be books I haven’t read in fifteen or so years. It’s needless to say that I may miss some things or note things that will eventually be resolved. If that’s the case, I’ll generally try to note it. In most cases, I’ll end up being right. Expect lots of exasperation and rage.
This brings us to the first of many posts in the series, the name of the series might be a bit fluid for a while until I come up with something that I’m happier with, but we’ll just have to see. For now, you pick, either “EU Growing Pains” or simply “Some books have it coming.”
Brian recently posted his roadmap to the EU, suggesting his own recommendations to get started on the path. You will also notice that many of these really aren’t on that list. There’s a good reason.
The first thing on the docket from this humble author will be Children of the Jedi.
Part I