Archive for the ‘The Force’ Category

Wayne is back!  And we dive into the force in today’s discussion.  The force, or at least our understanding of the force, seems to be being changed everywhere you look these days across the Star Wars timeline.  With Darth Bane, The Lost Tribe of the Sith, The Unifying Force, Episode I: The Phantom Mennance, The Dark Nest Trilogy, Fate of the Jedi, everywhere Qui-Gon pops up, and of course, the latest Mortis Trilogy in The Clone Wars: The Animated Series, it seems the force cannot be or is not the simple matra taught to us as children on Degabah along side Luke.  One of us are really happy about that and one of us…not so much.  Listen to find out who.

Wayne also takes revenge for me poking a little fun at the Canadian Jr National Hockey team blowing a 3 goal lead in the 3 period by commenting on my Alma Matar’s basketball game against Wisconsin.

As always we have fun, chase rabbits, but somewhere in between, we have some good discussion on the nature of the force and our thoughts on being in a time where the force is being defined or redefined depending on your view.

Thanks for listening, Jesse

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This is a spoiler conscious review of Dark Nest III: The Swarm War by Troy Denning

Books and Series Mentioned

Dark Nest III: The Swarm War

The Dark Nest Trilogy

The New Jedi Order

I just completed the Dark Nest Trilogy, and there was no reason for me to like this trilogy.  There were so many plot points and events that I do not like.  Strike one, I am not big into bugs.  I do not like them in my house, and I do not like them in my stories.  Strike two, as has been well documented on the site, I am not a fan of the unifying force.  There was one scene in Dark Nest One: The Joiner King where Luke drew upon his anger and fear to cloak their ship that turned my stomach.  Strike three, I am not a fan of a hive mind.  That idea has just seemed overdone to me in the Sci-Fi universe.  I did not think that Star Wars needed to go there.  Strike four, there was its total ignoring of Jacen’s sojourn through the universe studying the force that Jacen tells Luke he will do in The Unifying Force.  I was so intrigued by Jacen telling Luke about this plan in The Unifying Force, that was the one thing I was excited to learn about in this series, and it basically ignores it with just a few offhanded mentions.  Strike five, the Jedi council, which seemed finally settled after The New Jedi Order was not so settled and we had to read through another Chief of State vs. Jedi debate.  Strike six, and the most egregious, is Luke on the cover of Dark Next III: The Swarm War shooting Sith lightning!  Let me tell you I still throw up a little in my mouth seeing that.  How many strikes do you get before you’re out?  Through the grape vine I heard about these issues and could see the cover of Dark Nest III: The Swarm War that I did not think that I would ever read it.  I was not interested at all. 

In fact I was so not interested that it took my love for reading on a Kindle to get me to read it.  I have read every other Kindle Star Wars book, and since I live in small town USA, I had to either drive 45 minutes to the nearest book store, or read The Dark Nest Trilogy, and my laziness won out, and I Kindled The Dark Nest Trilogy, and let me tell, no other book, movie or any other form of entertainment has won me over like this trilogy.  There are so many reasons for me to hate this trilogy, but I didn’t…if fact I rank it as one of the best trilogies I have read. 

You may be thinking that my expectations were so low that I could not help, but be impressed by this trilogy, but that is not the case.  This was not about my expectations.  I flat do not like, bugs, hive mind, the unifying force…these are things that bother me, so for me to like things that I do not like, is an incredible writing feat by Mr. Troy Denning, so let’s get to all the things I loved about the final installment of this thrilling trilogy. 

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Brand new expanded podcast.  It is like getting two podcast for the price of one.  In the first part of this mega-episode, Wayne Chamberlain and I share what we are currently reading which is The Force Unleashed for me and Heir to the Empire  for him, and then we launch into a wonderful discussion on the villains of Star Wars and how the villains make the story just as much as the heroes do.  We discuss different types of villains and where to find them.  We share our favorite villains and so much more.  Thrawn, The Emperor, Vader, Dooku, Fey’Lya are all in here and we also discuss whether or not the Dark Side of the force is a villain.  Enjoy

Also, in the second part of the interview we have a wonderful interview with New York Times best selling author and multi-Scribe award winning author Greg Cox stops by to discuss his 4400 novels and what is it like to write tie-in work with such legendary characters like Batman, Superman, among others.  He also shares what he is watching on TV.  Greg Cox was fun and he is a true fan of Sci-Fi.   The Greg Cox interview begins at about the 1:09 mark.

Thanks for listening…we appreciate your time.

Exploring the galaxy together one page at a time, Jesse.

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The Force Unleashed

I have read the first 5 chapters of The Force Unleashed and this book has fascinated me on several levels.  Success of the novels has become a cover art contest.  Joe Schreiber in our e-mail interview with him, which you can find here, states that he was signed to a second book because of the fan reaction to the pre-release of the cover art before the novel was ever released, and in our podcast interview with Steven Barnes, which you can find here, you can here just how many times he has been asked about Count Dooku on the cover of The Cestus Deception.  Cover art matters, and The Force Unleashed has a great cover that makes me want to read about this guy on the cover wielding a lightsaber and shooting force lightning at the same time!  Also, he is wielding a red lightsaber, which usually denotes Sith, but he is blasting a Storm Trooper, so that opened up a lot of questions in my mind about why a Sith would shoot a Storm Trooper.  This was a very good reaction because I wanted to read this book to have my questions answered.

Now, I am not a gamer anymore, so I have not played or even seen this video game in action, so I am clueless to this plot outside of what was on the commercial for the video game, which I did see.  I think video games peeked in 1987 with The Legend of Zelda and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out.  You can add more buttons.  You can add interactive movement game play.  You can connect to the internet.  You can even add better graphics, but there will never ever be a better video game than The Legend of Zelda and Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, so all that said, my first and only introduction to this story was through the novel.  This also excited me because I am so interested to see how the novelization of a video will play out…get it play out.  What will be different from a stand-alone novel and a novelization of a movie?  I can only imagine what a video game story would look like…

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I am so fired up for today’s episode.  Big Honkin’ Steve from www.geekoutonline.com and www.geekoutpodcast.com is with us for the second part of our discussion on the unifying force…now, we are discussing the idea of the unifying force, not to be confused with the novel The Unifying Force although it is in that novel that Luke puts forth the idea of the unifying force.

For your information, we are both passionately against the concept of the unifying force, and our discusion definitely displays our passion.

Part One of this discusion can be found here.  Listen to it, and all other of Big Honkin’ Steve’s podcast they are gold.

Thanks for listening to us, and for exploring the galaxy with my one page at a time.

Thanks, Jesse

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In an upcoming episode of Star Wars Book Report: The Podcast, I will be participating in a podcast crossover spectacular with Steve Glosson from www.geekoutonline.com, and his podcast Geek Out Loud at www.geekoutpodcast.com.  Steve and I are good friends who love to debate Star Wars, wrestling, and many other geektacular topics.  In our crossover spectacular, part one will be on Geek Out Loud, and part two will be here at Star Wars Book Report.  The impetus for this crossover spectacular was a phone discussion we had on the idea of The Unifying Force as put forth by Luke at the end of the novel with the same name, and this concept of the unifying force goes through to at least The Dark Nest Trilogy and comes up in Legacy of the Force and the Fate of the Force.  This conversation was a blast, and as soon as it is edited, we will give to you.

There was one aspect of the unifying force that Steve and I do not cover in our discussion, and I wanted to address it here. 

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