Archive for April, 2011

Today’s episode is jam packed.  Wayne and I give you each of our top 5 favorite Star Wars authors and why.  We share the strengths, style, and sheer awesomeness of each author.  Of the two list, only one author appears on each list.  Kudos if you can guess which author that is.

Also, Wayne and I give you two authors out side of Star Wars that you should check out.

Our hope is that our passionate talk and discussion on each author will encourage you to check out their books, show you that all Star Wars novels and authors are not the same, and give you some reading to do outside of Star Wars.  We want to light a passion in you.

Finally, we make a big announcment rguarding Geek Out Loud and our good freind Steve Glosson, and then, I have some fun at Steve’s expense, but Steve knows how much I love him.  By the way you will love this announcment.

Let’s get started and explore together the galaxy one page at a time.

Thanks for listening, Jesse

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I am not much of a car guy or truck guy.  I don’t know anything about vehicles.  When people talk bead lock tires, turbo injection, liters, gear ratio, skid plates and such, I usually stare dumbfounded at them not having a clue as to what they are talking about.  When people ask me how much horse power my truck has, I say, “It runs on gas…there are no horses.”  Then they snicker at me for some reason and walk away.  I just know my truck gets me from here to there and it has hauled everything I have ever thrown into its bed.  Well my third favorite scene makes me wish I was more of a car guy.  It comes from X-Wing: Rogue Squadron by Michael Stackpole.

This scene is very simple.  There is no action.  There is no great story advancement.  It is just so cool it made me wish I was a starship snub fighter pilot.  It is the scene where Wedge Antilles makes his preflight X-Wing check in front of the squadron.  Wedge simply walks around his X-Wing checking every angle, every fastener, every hose, every wire…he slowly gazes over every inch of his fighter.  This slow walk and slow examination brought such a powerful response in me as a read it.  I could not help but imagine the conflicting emotions going through Wedge during this scene.  Stackpole does a great job of portraying Wedge’s joy and sadness of flying an X-Wing in Rogue Squadron.  I couldn’t help, but imagine Wedge remembering fondly all the times his X-Wing’s shielding or extra power has saved his life against an enemy Tie.  I also couldn’t help, but imagine Wedge remembering all of his friends that were lost in this same craft.  As I was reading, I was seeing the faces of Wedge’s friends killed in Episode IV.  All of these emotions boiling through me as Wedge ran his hand over this plating or that connection caused this scene to be powerful to me.

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This is a spoiler conscious review of Dragon and Judge: The Fifth Dragonback Adventure by Timothy Zahn.

I like Jack and Draycos.  I completely enjoy them as characters and a duo.  I now enjoy them so much that I would like a book with these two characters if they did nothing but interact with one another because they are a great duo.  They frustrate each other.  They make each other laugh, and most importantly, they deeply care for one another.  Throw in Uncle Virge, and I am a Dragonback fan.

That being said, I could easily see why this book would frustrate some readers.  The overall plot of The Dragon Back Adventures is Draycos, the dragon, has a fleet full of his people coming to the Orion Arm section of the galaxy to escape annihilation in a war against the Valaghua they cannot win.  Well, some evil men in the Orion Arm have teamed up with the Valaghua to have prepared an unwelcoming committee to destroy Draycos’ people upon arrival.  Draycos and Jack are trying to stop this from happening.

Do you want to know how much work Jack and Draycos do to try and foil this nefarious plot?  The answer is very, very, little.  In fact, after the opening pages, you could say nothing at all.  Also, if you leap back to Dragon and Herdsman, you could say there has been very little advancement of the main plot in the last two stories made by Jack and Draycos.  I must admit here that Alison does advance the main plot with her storyline in Dragon and Judge, but Jack and Draycos have done little with the main plot, and I do find that odd.  Also, I could see how that could turn people off.  They expect Jack and Draycos to do some investigating, infiltration, and ingenious planning to stop this annihilation, and when Jack does not do this, I could see them being disappointed.

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In today’s episode, Wayne and I have a good old fasion argument over whether or not Shatterpoint by Matthew Stover is a great or terrible book.  What is cool is the reason I really liked this book is the same reason why Wayne did not like it so much.  We discuss how cool it was to read Mace Windu’s diary…although I am surprised a man that bad would keep one…We also discuss what we liked and did not like about this novel.

Also, we complete our discussion on Eldest by Christopher Paolini, and just how much did this book rip off George Lucas and The Empire Strikes Back with it’s two big reveals are so similar to the reveals in Episode 5, and then, we share how good this book is becasue hey, if you are going to be influenced by Mr. Lucas, your work is going to be good.  We also share our likes and dislikes in this novel as well.

And we open by discussing Darth Vader’s long lost twin on the cover of Deceived by Paul Kemp.

It is another big show for you today, and we thank you for exploring the galaxy with us one page at a time.  We hope you enjoy today’s nonsense.

Thanks for listening, Jesse

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If this cover does not produce a reaction in you, I am not sure what will.  Darth Malgus the next cool Sith that has been introduced in the Old Republic, and the first thing that any Star Wars fan will think when picking this book up and glancing at the cover is, “Why is Vader on the cover of an Old Republic novel?”  You cannot help but to notice the similarities between Darth Malgus and the visage that Luke gazes upon in Return of the Jedi when Anakin utters the greatest line in movie history, “You already have my son.”  Their respirators are the same.  Their heads are bald.  They are wearing black capes.  Their chest plates have similar looking gadgetry.  Their faces have disfigurements.  Darth Malgus and Darth Vader could be twins.  Now, that will produce a strong response whether it is good or bad in Star Wars fans.  My question becomes…is it a good response or bad one?

This past Spring Break I took my youth group, as I am a Youth Pastor, to the beach for a retreat, and Steve Glosson who you all know from Geek Out Loud, Starkville House of El, and others was our Guest Speaker, and if you think he can talk geek, you should hear him share from the Bible.  He makes God’s Word come alive.  One day we took the youth shopping, and Steve and I were walking through a book shop.  He picked up Deceived and said, “You know what bothers me about this?”  To which I responded, “He looks like Vader.”  Steve said, “Exactly,” with a little disgust mixed in with his tone.  It was a strong reaction, and I must admit, I was stunned when I saw this cover because of the similarities between Malgus and Vader, but instead of being bothered by it, I thought and still think it is pretty cool, and here is why.

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For those of you that regularly check out the great book reviews and podcasts by  Jesse, Wayne and yours truly, you’ll know that each of us come to our love of  Star Wars from different paths.

For me,  it was probably the same as a lot of you reading this.  In 1977 I was 8 years old, unaware of the phenomenon that was to come, and how it would influence a large part of my life moving forward.  I watched the movies, played with the toys, acted out new adventures with my friends.  Little did I know that even at that early age I was entering into the exciting world of Star Wars roleplaying.

While  attending broadcasting college, I met up with my own motley crew of Star Wars  chums and the ongoing devotion to all things Star Wars continued.  So while some of my college classmates were  out at the local establishments and going to house parties, I was hold up in my friend one room bachelor apartment, playing Star Wars Roleplaying until all  hours, surviving on snacks from the local convenience store.

Now for those of you who are very active in the Star Wars universe, this is not an in-depth article on the character development tools, sourcebooks, campaigns or adventure supplements. Instead, consider this an introduction to the world of Star Wars Role Playing for someone who has heard about it, but has never tried it.

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Welcome to Episode 23 and in today’s episode Wayne and I discuss heroes.  We share what our favorite characteristics of a hero are, and we differ quite a bit.  We discuss our favorite types of heroes, and we share our favorite Star Wars heroes, where we discover one Star Wars novel we completely disagree on…Needless to say we almost launch into Episode 24 immediately, but do hold back, to share with you our favorite heroes from outside the Star Wars universe.  This is where we discover that Wayne words 40% harder than I do, but if you are looking for some good places to start reading or think your out of good books, this is the episode for you because we mentioned quite a few Star Wars novels and series to find great heroes, and we give you at least a dozen good places to find fun heroes outside of Star Wars.  If want a hero to save you, keep listening because we will help you find one.

Thank you for exploring the galaxy with us one page and one good guy at at time.

Thanks for listening, Jesse

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