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.
Tag Archives: SWEU
Eleventh Batch of ‘EG to Warfare’ Endnotes: Rogue Squadron, The Rebellion Military, and the Executor
You all knew I wouldn’t pass up the chance to link to something discussing Rogue Squadron, right? Of course you knew that. The eleventh set of endnotes from Jason Fry hit this morning with a bit of roster goodness.
Duty Squadron: Rogue Squadron: Unlike with Red Squadron, I had a lot more leeway here. Get your continuity caps on and let’s go: Luke, Dak, Zev, Wedge, Janson and Hobbie are of course from The Empire Strikes Back. Kit Valent is from Inside the Worlds of the Star Wars Trilogy. Kesin Ommis is from Star Wars Insider #79. Tycho Celchu’s role in the Battle of Hoth is from X-Wing: Rogue Squadron. Samoc Farr is from Tales of the Bounty Hunters. Nala Hetsime is from Decipher’s Jedi Knights game. Zev Kabir is from
the old Star Wars Kids magazine. Tarrin Datch and Tenk Lenso are from Galaxy Guide 3. Dash Rendar got added (somewhat awkwardly) to the battle in the Shadows of the Empire video game. Tarn Mison is from Decipher, referencing an extra played by ILM’s Michael Pangrazio, but his role in the battle is new. Cinda Tarheel is from Marvel #64, the immortal “Serphidian Eyes,” after which she was never seen again. Stevan Makintay is from Star Wars Adventure Journal#8. Barlon Hightower is from Marvel #78, the equally immortal “Hoth Stuff.” Vigrat Pomoner, Stax Mullawny, Hosh Hune and Jek Puglio are all new characters.
This set of notes also dives into the the Rebellion military and digresses a bit to talk about Vader and Tarkin. For more, head over to Jason Fry’s Tumblr.
PSA: Your Blanket Expanded Universe Protest Isn’t Helping
There’s been a certain sentiment I’ve spotted around the interwebs lately in regards to a few Expanded Universe books that are coming out this year. People are unhappy with what has happened in recent series like Dark Nest, Legacy of the Force, and Fate of the Jedi. So unhappy they claim they won’t be buying books like Mercy Kill and Scoundrels because they want to send a message to the folks at Del Rey at Lucasfilm. They do this despite the claims that they’re legitimately interested in these books. At first I thought that this kind of thought was isolated, but I’ve seen it mentioned by enough people now to warrant some kind of analysis and response.
Now, surely, a lot of this is just hyperbole. I imagine a fair amount of the people making these claims are going to go right out on release day to buy both of these books, but for a moment let’s look at this claim at face value. I’m unhappy with the state of the Expanded Universe so, as a means of protest, I will not buy these books I’m legitimately interested in. I don’t mean to belittle you if this is a mindset you’ve taken up, but I feel it’s important to spell this out explicitly.
A blanket protest of the Expanded Universe will not help your cause.
I apologize for being blunt, but it’s a point that needs to be made (and there’s going to be a lot of bold text in the rest of this PSA to drive the point home in an over-the-top fashion). Here’s the thing, even though sales numbers of EU material are down, series like Legacy and Fate of the Jedi are still selling relatively well. Well enough that Del Rey and Lucasfilm can continue telling stories like that and still make money. Even if you decide to stop buying books, period. There are enough fans who are content with the state of the EU to continue the status quo without you. In fact, the vast majority of EU fans are content with the status quo. You and I make up a minority. A vocal minority, but a minority nonetheless.
Here’s what your blanket protest will accomplish. If you choose not to buy books like Mercy Kill and Scoundrels, the only thing Del Rey and LFL will stop publishing are books like Mercy Kill and Scoundrels. Tim Zahn said as much during Origins. While his standalone books may be more critically reviewed than a series like Fate of the Jedi, they do not sell as well. The same concept will apply to Mercy Kill.
If you want more books like Scoundrels, you had better buy Scoundrels. If you want more books like X-Wing: Mercy Kill, you had better buy the first X-Wing book published in thirteen years.
If you don’t buy these books, the takeaway on Del Rey and Lucasfilm’s part won’t be that fans are discontent with the state of the Expanded Universe because the EU is still selling relatively well. The takeaway will be that there isn’t a market for the books you are interested in and have been asking for over the last thirteen years. Now is the time where we, as fans, have to put up or shut up because we’re at a very critical juncture that will determine what kind of stories are told in the Expanded Universe moving forward.
If you’re going to vote with your wallet, you need to be smart about it. Buy the things that interest you, refrain from buying the things that don’t. That’s how you can send a clear message. A blanket protest doesn’t tell Del Rey and LFL anything useful. I can’t make this any more clear. If you are interested in books like these and you want more stories like them, you need to buy them.
More ‘EG to Warfare’ Endnotes
Another week means another batch of Essential Guide to Warfare endnotes from author Jason Fry. On the docket this week: superweapons and starfighters.
The Death Stars, the Tarkin and Other Superlasers: As you might expect, weaving the many, many Death Star tales into a coherent narrative was an exhausting continuity slalom. The parallels between the Death Star’s early troubles and those of the Malevolence are there on purpose. In retelling the Battle of Yavin, I stripped events down to what we see in the movie, plus Blue and Green squadrons – whose fighters get a mission I think makes sense.
Why didn’t I mention the various other elements added to the Battle of Yavin in assorted videogames? Because, to be frank, I think they’re great games but not so great storytelling. I think Rookie One’s exploits and the Imperial ground raid muddy the drama of the attack we see in the movie, while additions such as the Death Star’s support fleet and communications satellite lessen the power of the stark contrast between tiny fighters and a massive battle station. If you like those elements, you’re perfectly welcome to use them to fill in the blanks in Warfare’s narrative. Same goes for IG-88 getting ready to run the show from inside the Death Star II, I suppose.
I can think of a person or two that will be thankful for downplaying the importance of video games in the overall Star Wars narrative. Sure, Rebel Assault might have been a fun game, but ye gads, trying to shove that into canon is an exercise in futility and misery. It’s okay for certain things to not be canon, people.
I’m a fleet junkie, so I rather enjoyed Fry’s look into starfighters and squadron rosters int his batch of notes.
Duty Roster: Red Squadron: This was another section I was really excited to tackle. Note that Red 12 finally gets a name, chosen after sorting through a number of candidates. They were Naeco (original X-wing game), Captain Ernek Marskan (same), Fin Danglot (Galaxy Guide 1), Travis (a blonde woman from Marvel’s retelling of A New Hope back in the Droids kid’s comic – how’s that for obscure?), and Talos Merkin (Captive to Evil).
I liked the idea of using Travis, as I thought it would be fun to add a female pilot to the ranks and tip the cap to a really obscure EU tale. In the initial draft Travis was Red 12, but then Leland Chee and I saw an opportunity to address a continuity flub in A New Hope: When Red 10 gets shot down, the pilot we see die is someone else – a previously unseen male pilot with a helmet thatlooks like Janson’s in The Empire Strikes Back. That pilot, we decided, should be Red 12. That decision took Travis out of the running, and as Plan B we chose Naeco to be the lucky (or unlucky) pilot, with Leland supplying “Puck” as a first name.
There’s a whole lot of interesting stuff in this set of notes, so head on over to Jason Fry’s Tumblr to read the rest.
Tosche Station Radio #19: Snark-to-Snark Combat With Aaron Allston
On this week’s episode of Tosche Station Radio, Nanci and Brian sit down to interview the Expanded Universe’s most prolific author, Aaron Allston!
Kicking off the show, the hosts discuss what’s new on the blog, Shane kicked off our summer X-Wing retrospective with his retro review of Rogue Squadron. Brian was at Origins and posted a whole bunch of coverage from panels featuring Mike Stackpole, Aaron Allston, and Tim Zahn. Nanci posted the first of her new column series that aims to offer geeky (and snarky) advice about love, life, and fandom.
In Fixer’s Flash, Nanci says she recorded an episode of Star Wars Beyond the Films about women in Star Wars. Look for that to go live soon. She also went to see Snow White and the Huntsmen. Verdict? An overwhelming “meh.” The third round of Star Wars Weekends took place and Nanci was once again on hand, meeting author Jason Fry and Erich from Del Rey. Brian, as mentioned, was at Origins over the weekend, but he’s holding off on talking about that until next week.
The X-Wing Retrospective: A Tosche Station Summer Series
Last week, Shane posted the first of what will be a summer series of retro reviews and discussions looking back at the X-Wing novels by Mike Stackpole and Aaron Allston. You should read it, especially if you haven’t read the books yet and are on the fence about diving into them. A few weeks before that, Nanci and I overviewed the series on the podcast. You should listen to that as well. We also interviewed both Mike Stackpole and Aaron Allston.
You might ask why we’re doing this. The books were published well over a decade ago and countless words have been spent discussing their merits. Unfortunately, despite the praise that have been heaped on the books over the years, they remain perhaps the most misunderstood novels in the entire Expanded Universe. I can’t count the number of misperceptions I run into when talking about them with even savvy EU fans.
- It’s only dogfights and lightfights.
- There are no interesting characters.
- Nothing important happens.
- There are no Jedi.
Statements like these are held as facts to many fans, despite the fact that there’s not much truth to them. The X-Wing novels are some of the highest quality books in all of the EU, but lots fans haven’t read them because they are, admittedly, different. Luke and Leia are only seen in passing cameos. Han doesn’t have a large role until the middle of the series. The Jedi aren’t the primary focus. The Galaxy isn’t about to be ripped apart by the bi-weekly apocalypse of doom. For new Expanded Universe fans, that can be a tough sell, but glossing over these books would be a mistake.
So we’re going to be spending the summer convincing those of you on the fence (and those of you who have never even considered it) to read these books before the long-awaited tenth novel hits bookshelves in August. Part of this is selfish. We want Mercy Kill to sell well because if it does, we’ll get more books in a franchise we love dearly. More than that, though, we believe that the Expanded Universe needs more quality books like the ones found in this series. Grand adventures that get back to the root of what makes Star Wars so special.
Are we going to make a sizable impact on the sales numbers of X-Wing novels? Hell, no. But if we can get at least a few people to pick up and enjoy these books, we’ll be happy. So what are you waiting for? Go get the first book.
Tosche Station Radio Interviewing Aaron Allston
Have a question for the Expanded Universe’s most prolific author? Send us a tweet, leave a Facebook message, or drop a comment in this post! We’ll be interviewing Aaron Allston on Wednesday, June 6th.
While we can’t promise we’ll have time to get to everyone’s questions, Nanci and I will do our best to get to as many as possible.
Trope Tuesday: Proud Warrior Race Guy
Warrior enough for you?
It’s Tuesday, which means countless individuals will spend their lunch breaks racing to the nearest restaurant to purchase tacos for consumption. It also means we’re going to use alliteration as an excuse to dive headfirst into TV Tropes to talk about an amusing literary theme or device that makes entertainment fun. This week, we’re looking at the Proud Warrior Race Guy.
A specific subtrope of Blood Knight, the Proud Warrior Race Guy seeks battle and bloodshed because his culture teaches that doing so is the greatest source of personal honor and glory. This Proud Warrior Race will often be based on one of several real world cultures who are perceived to have acted this way, such as the Samurai, Spartans, Vikings, and Mongols. They are often a Martyrdom Culture. The Proud Warrior Race Guy is almost always a hero. If evil, he will probably be the Worthy Opponent.
“Proud”, in this case, meaning “Psychotically Violent”. Critiques of this position will be met with: “You donotunderstand“. May occasionally overlap with the Always Chaotic Evil race, though the two are usually differentiated by the Proud Warrior having a strict Code-of-Honor, while the Chaotic Evil race has no real rules and does cowardly or underhanded things. If the Code-of-Honor is too alien for humans to understand, or too xenophobic to allow cooperation, then the heroes will treat the two groups as the same. The better sort of Code of Honor will enforce Would Not Shoot a Civilian, although often because civilians are dismissed as too weak and cowardly to be good fighters, and so they get passed over in the search for worthy enemies.
Sound familiar? In the setting of the Expanded Universe, you’ve got the Mandalorians and the Yuuzhan Vong. The Echani from Knights of the Old Republic also fits the bill. I’m sure you can name a dozen examples from other science fiction franchises that features a character or a race of characters that fall under this description. This is a trope you have to be careful with. Go overboard and it comes off as campy. Unless your intention is to come off as campy, then by all means, go overboard.
There’s actually a novel that’s devoted to deconstructing this trope, Starfighters of Adumar by Aaron Allston.
Wedge: “Circular thinking. I’m honorable because I kill the enemy, and I kill the enemy for the honor. There’s nothing there, Cheriss. Here’s the truth: I kill the enemy so someone, somewhere — probably someone I’ve never met and never will meet – will be happy. […] I told you how I lost my parents. Nothing I ever do can make up for that loss. But if I put myself in the way of people just as bad as the ones who killed my family, if I burn them down, then someone else they would have hurt gets to stay happy. That’s the only honorable thing about my profession. It’s not the killing. It’s making the galaxy a little better.”
Now, I dare Wedge to say that to Worf.
Origins Day Four Recap: Q&A With Mike Stackpole
The last day at Origins was a brief one, mostly due to the fact that the convention wraps up a little after mid-day. In all, the whole affair was an enjoyable experience (after I figured out how their bizarre event ticketing system worked). While it seems a little odd to attend a game convention to talk to notable Expanded Universe authors, Origins turned out to be a fantastic place to discuss Star Wars with both notable figures and fans.
But beyond the games and the panels, it was a great chance to hang out with some cool people. I had the chance to chat things up with Tracy and the rest of the Club Jade folks as well Rachael from Galactic Drift. Hanging out with two good friends of mine (and using that as an excuse to see The Avengers for a seventh time) was a blast. I’m pretty sure I’ll be back next year. We’ll see if we can get Shane, Emily, and Nanci up here as well.
But enough rambling. Before heading off to the airport, I sat in on a Q&A with Mike Stackpole. Highlights below the jump!
Origins Day Three Recap: More with Allston, Zahn, and Stackpole
Day three at the Origins Game Fair brings more discussions from Expanded Universe authors Timothy Zahn and Aaron Allston as well as a reading session from Mike Stackpole. No game recommendations today, but I’ll try and get back onto the dealer floor tomorrow to play test one more before heading home.
To the jump!