Archive for the ‘Darth Vader’ Category

New Years Eve and New Years Day are two days that are filled with mixed emotions.  It is sad to see another year pass by, but it is exciting to have another year come filled with all of its possibiities laid out before us.  Well, all of these mixed feelings got me thinking, like so many things, about my love of Star Wars.  This past year has been so much fun with the launching of this site, and all of the fun I have had with this site, the podcast, and meeting so many new friends.  It has been a blast, and I look forward to the upcoing year with more great fun and great Sci-Fi coverage.  Anyway, I am chasing rabbits as I am want to do. 

What I want to share is the one aspect of my Star Wars fandom that is much like New Years Eve and New Years Day filled with mixed feelings of sadness and excitement.  I am above all a book nut.  I have literally dozens of Clone Wars episodes on DVR that I have yet to watch, and I do not collect anything outside of novels.  I am a book nut, but this past year, I did expand my reading to include comics.  From the encouragement of my good friend Steve from www.geekoutonline.com I began reading the Marvel Comic series, and from my contact with John Jackson Miller, I began reading various Dark Horse series most notably his Knight Errant. 

I have really enjoyed my new found passion for comics, but it has come with some saddness because two of the saddest scenes I have ever read in the Expanded Universe, I read in comics in the last sixth months both of which ripped at my heart.  I will share these scenes now.

First, comes from the comic Purge where my worst nightmare came true.  As a lover of books, I am quite fond of libraires and book stores, which makes me quite fond of librarians and book shop clerks.  All of that said, I have a soft spot in my heart for Jocasta Nu.  I have always wanted some Jocasta Nu novels where she travels the galaxy in search of rare tomes to better complete the archives because book lovers are cool.  Well, when i picked up the comic Purge: Seconds to Die, I was all excited to see the rise of Darth Vader and the solidification of the Empire, but my mouth droped to the floor and I was quite devestated to see on page one the death of Jocasta Nu.  I have aways thought that Vader probably did kill Master Nu when he slaughtered the younglings, but having that guess confirmed was not fun to read.  I will miss Master Nu, and I will continue to hope for some Jocasta Nu novels…I still think the powers tha be are missing out on some Nu novels.  Book lovers would love to have a book lover as the central character…Keeping my fingers crossed. 

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Welcome to your Star Wars and Sci-Fi Book Report: the Podcast episode 14, and in this episode Wayne and I discuss The Force Unleashed and The Force Unleashed II.  Wayne being a professional video game reviewer gives us the gaming review.  He discusses gameplay, game engines, and gives us his thoughts on how these stories are revealed in the games and the overall gaming experience.

I on the other hand give the perspective of the novles.  Where I break down my thoughts on both of these novles…I also tell you the greatest video game ever.

This podcast gets interesting in discovering the differences between the novels and the games, and Wayne and I just have a blast discussing how all of the unbelievable acts in these two stores fit into the canon.  It may be a short episode, but it is full of laughs and insights.  We have never given you a more fun podcast, so come along and explore the galaxy with us one page and today one button at a time.

Thank you so much for listening, Jesse

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Welcome to our Thanksgiving speical.  Where we give thanks for books esspecially The Force Unleashed by Sean Williams.  Chris Hothiceplanet Smith stops by from The Sarlacc Pit the official podcast of www.galacticbinder.com to join the discussion.  We discuss all the things we like and dislike about this novel, and how it fits within the canon.   We also discuss the challenges of novelizing a video game.  It is a fun break down of everyone’s favorite video game and now novel.

Also, Chris Hothiceplanet shares some very cool Christmas news going on at www.galacticbinder.com where they will be giving Star Wars toys, collectables, and merchandise to three needy families this Christmas, and they need your help.  All of us that has been blessed this year can share and help out.  There are two ways for you to help out.  First, www.galacticbinder.com need Star Wars stuff to give away, so you can mail any donations to:

Holiday Star Wars Gift Packs

4955 Byron Road

Memphis TN. 38122

Send those gifts in, and also you can share your story of need or if you know a family in need,  you can share the story of some other family.  You can send in these stories of families in need to hothiceplanet@galacticbinder.com, and then three families will be chosen.  You can find more information at www.galacticbinder.com/pgiveaways.html.  Also, at the previous link, there is a tab to donate through paypal to save you a trip to the store.  I hope you all will participate.  If you have much, send in a gift.  If you have little, share your story with them, and if you know a family in need, share their story.  Submissions must be sent in by December 10th, 2010.  Join in this great Christmas ministry as your Star Wars Book Report has.

Thanks for listening, Jesse

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Daily

Reading

Update

The Force Unleashed by Sean Williams

I have completed this novel, and I have to admit this novel bothered me on so many levels…pun totally intended.  If you have read my Daily Reading Update part 2 on The Force Unleashed there will be some repetition here.  This novel is just so over the top, filled with galaxy altering events that will shape the Expanded Universe, that there was not enough space to adequately cover these topics.  In my Daily Reading Update part 2, I mentioned how Starkiller faces 3 post purge Jedi in just 92 pages.  That is 3 monumental events in the Expanded Universe to learn of 3 post purge Jedi and one padawan.  Since those 92 pages, Starkiller learned that there was another Jedi who survived the initial purge in his father.  We learn of a total of 5 new Jedi that survived the initial purge.  Words cannot adequately describe how huge this is, but this just scratches the surface of the Universe altering events that were in this novel. 

We are also introduced to some serious Rebel Alliance leadership like Bail Organa, Leia Organa, Mon Mothma, and Garm Bel Ibis, and they are secondary characters.  This is a pre-rebel alliance look into these characters, which is another huge event. 

In the last third of this book, we have Starkiller who breaks Bail Organa out of prison and then takes down a Star Destroyer construction facility, and through these two acts becomes trusted enough to observe and actually become the founder of the Rebel Alliance as the rebel leaders give their allegiance to him.  Not only do we have 5 new post purge Jedi, we have the actual founding of the Rebel Alliance, and that founding is a side story…how can something this huge be a side story? 

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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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Daily

Reading

Report

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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Novels or Series Mentioned

Rogue Planet

MedStar II: Jedi Healer

Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader

The Legacy of the Force

One of my favorite aspects of the prequel novels is how they flesh out the inner-personal struggles going on inside of Anakin Skywalker.  I find them to be fascinating.  You rarely read or see in movies a hero of prophecy struggle the way Anakin does, and I find it to make for great reading. 

Anakin’s struggles remind me of my time teaching middle school.  Middle school students are stupidly fascinated with dangerous things.  One dangerous hobby the students at my school had took place in the math class adjacent to my classroom.  They enjoyed sticking pencils and silver gum wrappers into an electric socket to watch the sparks fly out of the plug.  It is a miracle none of them electrocuted themselves or others.  When they would do this, the circuit breaker would flip and the electricity would go out in my room and that wall of the math classroom.  It seemed to always happen as I was typing up quizzes or entering in grades, and when the circuit breaker would flip, my computer would cut off, and I would lose not only the data I didn’t save, but all kinds of information because a 15 year old computers can only take so much abuse.   It seems that every time that breaker flipped, I would lose another vital program that made my computer good. 

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