A New Approach to Recommending The EU

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Bria

If you’re an Expanded Universe fan, chances are you’ve had to field the following question at least once: “Where should I start reading the Star Wars books?” Everyone has a different answer of course but the most common is usually “The Thrawn Trilogy. Duh.” As the first EU book, it’s accessible and doesn’t require more knowledge than the films and it’s simply a pretty darn good trilogy. The problem, however, is that I don’t think this works anymore.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve had two people ask me where they should start reading the books and I had to pause and reconsider the instinctive and age-old Thrawn Trilogy answer. We now live in a world where there is Star Wars canon and there is Legends with hundreds of books. For me, this changes that game completely.

Taking my probably belated realization into mind, I wanted to share with all of you my new method for deciding which EU books I should recommend to someone. It’s only been tested on two people so it’s hardly foolproof but it may be useful to some of you.

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Tosche Station Radio #106: Wild Mass Guessing II – The Guessening

Posted on March 18, 2015 by admin

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Rogue One and Journey to the Force Awakens? Mike Cooper joins us for WILD MASS GUESSING!

Kicking off the show, the hosts highlight What’s New on the Blog. Bria reviewed Star Wars #3. Brian wrote about Separating the Art from the Artist and why he’s worried about Lords of the Sith. Nanci explained the big problem with Heir to the Jedi. We’ll be discussing these topics in depth next week along with a sort of State of the EU.

Deak’s Dirt starts with comics news this week. Stuart Immonen will be the new artist on Star Wars starting with #8. Meanwhile on the lit side of things, Journey to The Force Awakens announced. In additional Marvel comics news, the cover of Shattered Empire #1 by Phil Noto was shown off. Finally, we got official confirmation that Aftermath will be written by Chuck Wendig.

Over in Biggs Bull$^%*, Rian Johnson officially confirmed for Episode VIII and the release date is set for May 26, 2017. Rogue One announced as the first standalone movie, will be released in December 2016. Directed by Gareth Edwards, written by Chris Weitz, and starring Felicity Jones. Alexandre Desplat will do the score. Stackpole had a blog post on the subject. Meanwhile, Andrew Liptak posted a history of Rogue Squadron at B&N

There’s so much news this week, we’re just continuing it in Camie’s Concerns! Mike Cooper from Eleven Thirty Eight joins us to break things down and engage in wild mass guessing (our favorite passtime).

You can see Mike’s work here at Eleven-ThirtyEight and follow the blog here on Twitter.

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.

Journey to The Force Awakens: Aftermath Cover and Author revealed

Posted on March 17, 2015 by admin

Well, the author is officially revealed, anyway.

A few days after Random House’s publicity site let slip that Chuck Wendig would be writing the first Story Group canon era novel set after Return of the Jedi, Jen Heddle made it official. While she can’t say much, Jen was able to tell us that this will be the first book in a trilogy. Also, this:

What I can reveal is that you will be introduced to a sweeping new cast of characters, along with a fan favorite from the films. And who knows what other familiar faces will pop up along the way? And once you’ve seen The Force Awakens in movie theaters, you may find that certain names and places in Aftermath have a relevance you never knew–so keep your eyes wide open!

Additionally as you can see on the right, the cover was released as well. I don’t know about you, but I absolutely dig that look.

Welcome to the Star Wars community, Chuck!

Separating the Art from the Artist: Why I’m Torn About Lords of the Sith

Posted on March 17, 2015 by admin

I don’t want to feel conflicted about this, but there’s no way around it.

It goes without saying that an LGBTQ+ character being introduced into the Star Wars story group era canon is unequivocally a good thing. Any step to diversify one of the most prolific and powerful pieces of entertainment in the world is welcome. Despite this obvious good news, I can’t help but be wary. Not because I don’t doubt there are good intentions by the story group and the folks at Del Rey, but because the author who is introducing this character has a pretty dubious history when it comes to speaking about diversity.

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20 New Star Wars Books and Comics to Fill in Gap Between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens

Posted on March 10, 2015 by Shoshana

Those of you thirsty for some information of the state of the Galaxy Far Far Away leading up to The Force Awakens are in luck. According to an exclusive report at Entertainment Weekly, there are at least twenty new Star Wars books and comics to be released later this year fleshing out the thirty-two years between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens, ranging all different publishers and target age demographics in a series called Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Content under that title will be released by various Disney imprints as well as at least seven outside companies and is confirmed to include adult novels, young adult novels, sticker books, and comics.

Details on most of the books involved are still under wraps and many of the books are still being worked on, but we do know some about of the upcoming material:

A few titles we can confirm are Del Rey’s Star Wars: Aftermath, which sounds like it may serve as an epilogue to the original trilogy – and perhaps a prologue to the new one. Meanwhile, Marvel Comics will put out one prequel called Star Wars: Journey to the Force Awakens and another preview story told from C-3PO’s perspective. For vehicle enthusiasts, Studio Fun International will print Star Wars: Ships of the Galaxy.

The report also let’s us know some of the authors involved for a series of young adult novels focusing on the characters of original trilogy, to be released by Disney-Lucasfilm Press:

Cecil Castellucci (author of Tin Star) will write Moving Target, an adventure following Princess Leia; Jason Fry, who earlier wrote Darth Maul: Shadow Conspiracy, will be the author of The Weapon of a Jedi, about Luke Skywalker; Claudia Gray, author of the Evernight series of fantasy books, will write a book titled Lost Stars; and Greg Rucka, a comic book scribe and writer of the Atticus Kodiak novels, will pen Smuggler’s Run, a Han Solo tale.

There will also be a new series of novels retelling the original trilogy from various perspectives, though there’s no word yet on whose points of view we’ll see.

Star Wars canon to introduce first LGBT character

Posted on March 9, 2015 by admin

Bryan Young at Big Shiny Robot has the scoop: Paul S. Kemp’s Lords of the Sith will feature the first LGBT character of the new story group era.

Moff Mors is an Imperial who has made some very serious mistakes but she is an incredibly capable leader and spends much of the book working hard to prevent absolute failure. She also happens to be a lesbian.

Awesome. What’s more, Bryan sat down with Del Rey’s Editor-at-Large Shelly Shapiro to talk diversity in Star Wars and Star Wars literature in a recent Full of Sith episode.

This is certainly the first character in canon,” Shapiro says. “But there was a gay Mandalorian couple, so it’s not brand new. It’s not something I really think about, it just makes sense. There’s a lot of diversity–there should be diversity in “Star Wars.”

Emphasis added. Well put, Ms. Shapiro.

Be sure to head to the Big Shiny Robot link above for more information.

The Big Problem with Heir to the Jedi

Posted on March 6, 2015 by Nanci

I cannot talk about Heir to the Jedi without revealing spoilers. I’m too emotionally invested in Luke Skywalker’s life. If you’d like to read a non-spoiler opinion, let me direct you to Bria’s review over here. However, if you’ve already read the book, or just don’t care about being spoiled for the end, proceed at your own caution.

(I’m serious.

Major spoilers abound after the cut.

You’ve been warned.)

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New Heir to the Jedi Mini-Excerpt

Posted on February 25, 2015 by Shoshana

With less than a week until the book’s release, Del Rey posted a mini-excerpt of the upcoming novel Heir to the Jedi on their Star Wars Books Facebook page earlier today. Read the excerpt here and check out Bria’s spoiler-free review of the book here.

Heir to the Jedi, written by Kevin Hearne, will be released in hardback, ebook, and audio formats next Tuesday, March 3.

New Audio Excerpt of Heir to the Jedi

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Shoshana

Yesterday the official Star Wars site posted an exclusive three-and-a-half minute excerpt of the audio version of Kevin Hearne’s upcoming novel Heir to the Jedi. Listen to the excerpt, read by Marc Thompson, here and read Bria’s spoiler-free review of the book here.

Heir to the Jedi will be released in hardback, ebook, and audio formats next Tuesday, March 3.

Thrawn Trilogy Retrospective: Dark Force Rising Chapters 1-3

Posted on February 24, 2015 by Nanci

We start our tale, as we always do, on an Imperial Star Destroyer. Pellaeon, in command of the Chimaera under Grand Admiral Thrawn, is preparing to coordinate an assault on Myrkr. Specifically, coordinating an assault on Talon Karrde’s former base. Thrawn is certain Karrde crossed them by not handing over Luke Skywalker, and he isn’t having any of that.

Because Karrde is smart, he’s already abandoned his base, and Thrawn, of course, knows that. Because he knows everything, apparently. But he still wants to attack Karrde’s base, both to give the ground crews much-needed combat practice, but also to see if any of Karrde’s contacts in Hyllyard City attempt to get ahold of Karrde and, in turn, lead the Empire to his new base of operations.

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