In January, Nanci and I started a podcast. In April, we spun that podcast off into a blog. All sorts of crazy things have happened since. Welcome to our gratuitous 2012 in Review Linkdump. As a note, thanks for bearing with us over the holidays as we took time to visit our friends and family. We’ll be back Wednesday with regular coverage and posts. Be sure to also check out Club Jade’s 2012 retrospective.
For our year-in-review, to the jump!
Conventions:
Convention season started out with me heading to Columbus for the Origins Game Fair. The first day covered writing advice, Mara Jade’s death, and all sorts of assorted Expanded Universe tidbits. Day two kicked off with a panel discussing gender in fiction before diving into more Q&As with Aaron Allston and Timothy Zahn. Day three also brought more panel time with Allston and Zahn while day four focused on Stackpole.
Celebration VI finally rolled around in August and we were there to cover it. Of note were the Timothy Zahn Retrospective and the big news of a Jaina Solo trilogy that dropped during the Del Rey panel. We also got a first-glimpse at Detours and were ambushed by a surprise George Lucas appearance. Nanci and I recapped the entire convention on a special Tosche Station Radio.
From there we hit the road to Atlanta for Dragon*Con. There was a whole bunch of costuming going on (and we took part in the fun). The first of the Expanded Universe panels was a Q&A with Aaron Allston, Timothy Zahn, Michael Stackpole, and Kevin J. Anderson. The same authors reconvened the next day to discuss masculinity in the Star Wars universe. There was also a Mercy Kill focused Q&A with Aaron Allston. Like we did at CVI, Nanci and I recapped the whole convention on Tosche Station Radio.
Interviews
We managed to snag a couple interviews this year with the help of Erin Amos of Solo Sound. Give a listen to conversations we had with Mike Stackpole, Aaron Allston, and Bryan Young. Nanci also secured an interview with Her Universe founder and Clone Wars voice actress Ashley Eckstein.
Reviews
We read a lot here at Tosche Station. As such, we review a lot. I started the year by reviewing Fate of the Jedi: Apocalypse and did a two–part look back at the series as a whole. I also got a chance to read through the Essential Guide to Warfare. Bria, Emily, and I all sat down to review the long-awaited return to the X-Wing series, Aaron Allston’s Mercy Kill.
Later in the year I reviewed Pablo Hidalgo’s brilliant Essential Reader’s Companion. Bria rounded things out by reviewing The Old Republic: Annihilation by Drew Karpyhsyhn and Winner Lose All by Timothy Zahn.
Columns and Articles
In preparation for the release of X-Wing: Mercy Kill, we decided that we should do a big retrospective of the original nine X-Wing novels, complete with reviews, interviews, and podcast roundtables.
In somewhat less cozy discussion, 2012 was a year in which female fans of anything had to put up with a lot of garbage. Both Emily and myself chimed in on why Star Wars needs female fans and why the fandom could afford to take a few lessons from The Legend of Korra.
Bria came on-board and immediately subjected herself to a series of retro reviews that’s probably in violation of the Geneva Convention. Behold the Waru Express, Bria’s Grand Re-Read of the Expanded Universe.
If you thought that was bad, Nanci one-upped Bria by re-reading the Jedi Prince novels. We tried to warn her, we really did.
Disney Buys Lucasfilm
After Celebration VI and Dragon*Con, we were all thinking that we were going to get to coast to the end of the year and take it easy. Oh, how wrong we were. Out of nowhere Twitter blew up and two things happened, one crazy and one we all had thought was impossible. First, Disney bought Lucasfilm. Didn’t quite see that one coming, but it made sense for both parties. Of course, the news didn’t stop there. Immediately after buying the company, Disney announced that a sequel trilogy was in the works and reality. It took me two posts to try and work out my thoughts on that bombshell.
***
2012 was an incredibly packed year, particularly in the Star Wars universe. I know that I wasn’t prepared for the fandom-altering news that we got in the fall, but if nothing else, it means that we’re going to have plenty to talk about for years to come.
To all of you who have come to read our posts and listen to our podcast, thank you. We definitely were feeling our way out early on. Heck, we still are, but I like to think we’re settling in and finding our identity as a blog. I’m incredibly lucky to have assembled such a wonderful writing staff this year that have created a wealth of content to share with all of you. This new year will bring more news, more columns, and more podcast episodes.
Hope you all are willing to put up with Tosche Station for another year.
