Celebration V roundup: Prep or be prepped!

It’s the last weekend before the con. What have you done so far?

Saturday is the last day to pre-order tickets to TheForce.net’s party! You want in on this, guys: In addition to being organized by CJ’s own lovely Dajuan, they’ve added a ton of celebrity guests in the last few days. You’ll want to be there!

StarWars.com’s Hyperspace to end in 2011

Hyperspace is going away next year.

Started right before Revenge of the Sith began principal photography as subscription section on StarWars.com, Hyperspace went through several incarnations. During the ROTS filming it offered fans extraordinary access to film’s set in Sydney with a live webcam, chats, and a set diary by Pablo Hidalgo. (It also had the nice side effect of effectively ending the cut-throat fansite spoiler-wars that marked the runup to The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones.)

However, once Revenge of the Sith was released, Hyperspace had much less to offer subscribers (even the ‘ad-free’ promise eventually expired.) Features were added, like the blogs, but the content over the past few years has been irregular and often only of interest only to those who enjoy fairly obscure parts of the GFFA.

It even merged with the fan club and became part of a package deal with Star Wars Insider for a time. The Insider is no longer included, but the Official Fan Club still uses the ‘Hyperspace’ name. (If Hyperspace is truly being discontinued, will the fan club be getting another makeover in the coming year…?)

I can’t say I’m surprised at this – the ‘exclusive’ content has been sparse for years and StarWarsShop probably brings in far more revenue – but Hyperspace has been around for quite a while in internet times, and it’s entwined with some particularly interesting times in the fandom for me. But it’s clearly been on the backburner for quite a while, so might as well give up the ghost and move on. And hey, what the hell – I renewed my subscription one last time this evening for old time’s sake.

Friday afternoon news sweep: Dave Filoni, John Jackson Miller and the Squishies are starting a band

There’s been an absolute barrage of news today and I haven’t much time, so you’re getting most of it in roundup forum. Aren’t you lucky?

EUbits: Get Crosscurrent early with Kemp giveaway

CrosscurrentFree book, sort of. Paul S. Kemp is giving away three signed, unbound galleys of his January Star WarsCrosscurrent. Enter through Dec. 18.

The blogside Karen Miller finished the rewrite of Clone Wars Gambit: Siege this week – twice. And Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff takes a look at forceful women and… Pets. When’s the last time we saw pets in the EU? I’m not sure I want to know. (Pittens in Children of the Jedi? Oye vey.)

Hyperspace. Discounting the Wookieepedians (with their love of War and Peace-sized character entries,) only Jason Fry could dedicate a week to Xim and the Tion Cluster.

Your moment of zen. The TFN boards have been quite the font of hilarity lately. First there’s the otter thing, and then the LULZ of reading KJA. Of course, then along comes something like this. Oh, TFN.

EUbits: Amazon still breaking all the TOR novelization news

Don't get too excited, this is just TOR game concept artStill nothing official, though. An extended title for the unconfirmed novel by Sean Williams was spotted on Amazon: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance. (The release date remains listed as July 2010, but we still don’t have a date for the actual game, so count on nothing at this point.) Wonder if this means we’ll get some kind of official announcement soon?

The blogside. Drew Karpyshyn is going on about the Sith again, while Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff writes about filk.

Authors. Aaron Allston is on Twitter. Sort of.

Hyperspace: Go obscure with The Forgotten War: The Nagai and the Tofs by James McFadden.