Club Jade

Tosche Station wraps up their DragonCon coverage with a recap of Aaron Allston’s Mercy Kill panel on Monday.

In other Tosche Station news, Brian and Nanci have posted their Celebration VI special. I’m on it somewhere, but I haven’t listened to it yet out of fear of embarrassment squick by self…

I’m a little behind on this, mostly because, oh, that huge convention a week or so past. In any case, here are some of the best tweets out of Celebration and DragonCon and whatever else was going around from August 20th to September 2nd.

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Random House Audio continued their convention tour, bringing some of their audio book production team to Star Wars Celebration VI as well as having a show floor presence. I caught the Star Wars University: Audio Books panel with staff from Random House Audio, producer Aaron Blank, narrator Marc Thompson (check out my interview with Marc), and director Kevin Thomsen. Crashing the panel was Leland Chee, keeper of the Holocron. Key points from the panel: (more…)

Another recap from the Tosche Station folks in Atlanta: Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, Michael Stackpole, Kevin J. Anderson and Doctor Carol White discuss Masculinity in Star Wars.

Hot on the heels and six hours north of Celebration, Dragon*Con is being held in Atlanta. Tosche Station is there now, and Brian has recapped the Star Wars author panel held there yesterday. Attending were Aaron Allston, Timothy Zahn, Mike Stackpole and Kevin J. Anderson.

Also coming up Monday will be a Mercy Kill discussion with Allston.

Street dates. Knights Archive spotted this release date for Troy Denning’s Crucible on the Random House Smart Archive. As it is put there by the publisher this could be the real release date… At the moment, anyway. The farther we are out from a release date, the more the things move around, but it might be worth penciling in.

Meet the new folks. Rebels authors Martha Wells and Kevin Hearne both spoke out publicly for the first time after the announcement of their new Star Wars project.

Star Wars Reads. Start planning for October 6th now, as StarWars.com has posted a location map for events through the U.S. A few authors have posted where they’ll be appearing already: Troy Denning, Dan Wallace and John Jackson Miller will be in Roseville, MN, while Pablo Hidalgo and Haden Blackman will appear in Corte Madera, CA, along with Aaron Allston, Drew Karpyshyn and Alexander Freed in Austin, TX. I suspect we’ll be hearing about more of these as the date approaches!

Comics. Skuldren from Roqoo Depot taped the ‘One Writer’s Approach to Star Wars’ panel at Celebration.

Detectiving! In all the hussle and bussle of live-tweeting Celebration, there’s not always time go back and find your sources. Thankfully, Pete did a little digging to find Paul Kemp’s tweet about his mystery duology.

Those of us who were at the Del Rey panel at Celebration will certainly remember Shea Standefer‘s Jaina costume – she was one of the first up at the Q&A and quite popular with photographers afterwards. Well, she sent us in a couple of pictures of the two Jainas she wore, taken with the backdrops at the con. Check them out below the cut.

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I had some time to catch up with PIGGY, the well-traveled Gamorrean Guard, at Star Wars Celebration VI. Thanks to PIGGY’s handler, Jon Leopold, for his assistance. It’s amazing how much PIGGY likes the same things I do in Star Wars.

I had planned to upload my pictures at the con, but due to some key issues like forgotten passwords and awful hotel wifi, it was not to be. Still, I a) took more pictures than I did at CV and b) uploaded them less than a week after getting home. Let’s call that progress and be done with it.

Yes, some of them are iPhone photos, but most are from my trusty Lumix. EU fans, you’ll find most of the Essential Reader’s Companion art shown at the Essential panel. Cupcake fans, I have so many pictures of the Cupcake Wars cupcakes that your teeth will hurt. (And big thanks to Her Universe for the invite!) James, I will never stop taking pictures of you with food when you insist on posing with it. And finally: Disco Anakin. I know you want to see Disco Anakin, an officially licensed product of Hasbro, not something Club Jaders made on a dare, I swear.

And, yes, don’t forget James’ pictures! Also, if anyone got a shot of either of the two Doctor Who Elevens I heard about, please share a link to it in the comments!

After the Random House Audiobooks panel, I had the opportunity to chat with voice actor Marc Thompson about his work as the narrator of the audio versions of the Star Wars novels. Plus he gives us a little sample of one of his favorite characters, Cilghal.