Club Jade

I appeared with the always top-notch Brian and Nanci on the Toshe Station podcast last week to talk about Marvel’s latest harebrained scheme to pander to the female demographic and what place chick-lit style romance has in genre and Star Wars. As promised, there was ranting and rambliness and random asides about Laurel K. Hamilton and Star Destroyer bubbles.

Well. Valentine’s Day. If you’re like me, you’re going to spend a lot of time rolling your eyes at everything and anything today. (Speaking of! Going to be live on the Tosche Station podcast tonight! Talking about Marvel romance novels! Ranting is almost guaranteed!) Anyway, onto business:

At the Star Wars Blog, Jennifer Heddle writes a tribute to the original Star Wars couple, Han and Leia. Who isn’t pro Han and Leia these days? (We don’t want to know.)

Over at Suvudu, Tricia Barr takes a look at Star Wars power couples. Includes refreshingly not-overboard artwork of Wedge Antilles and Iella Wessiri from Chris Trevas!

And for those looking for a little less kissing, io9 presents the 7 greatest bromances in space. Obi-Wan and Anakin are repping for the Wars, which… Okay.

In a video for StarWars.com, Bonnie Burton looks at romance in a galaxy far far away, while Amy Ratcliffe has a look at fans who found love through the franchise.

Rebels. Austin at Fandom Apocalypse takes a look at what we know about the forthcoming Rebels series that was announced last summer. He reached out the authors Martha Wells and Kevin Hearne, who are handling books on Leia and Luke.

The blogside. Tor’s Ryan Britt explores the differences between A New Hope and its novelization. What’s a duck? And Tosche Station’s Bria continues her EU retrospective after Endor with True at Bakura and Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor. And over at Big Shiny Robot, Bryan lets the darkness take hold wondering if The Clone Wars won’t be coming back at all.

Podcasting. After something of a hiatus, EUCantina’s EUCast is poised to make their return soon. In the meantime, here’s Episode 0. And if you’re interested in podcasting, Tosche Station host Brian wrote at length about the gear you’ll need and what he uses.

Frames gets cheap(er.) TheForce.net spotted an Amazon listing for a paperback edition of the fancy screenshot book Frames. At $150 retail it’s still not pocket change, but seeing as the original would set you back $3000… Amazon being Amazon, we’d wait for official details before pre-ordering, though.

Interviews. Paul S. Kemp talks about Star Wars, Dungeons and Dragons and his non-franchise work with SF Signal. And Timothy Zahn chats Scoundrels on Fictional Frontiers.

In the market for another Star Wars podcast? Well, our pal Bryan Young is part of a new one that’s just launched: Full of Sith.

Also part of the crew is Rancho Obi-wan media consultant Consetta Parker and Obviously Oblivious’s Mike Pilat.

The podcast is available through all the usual channels – Brian has more info – and links, if iTunes isn’t your thing – at Big Shiny Robot.

Last night I joined Brian and Nanci for an emergency episode of Tosche Station Radio to discuss the buyout, and the episode is now live! Behold as we revel in the WTF!

Next week, our friends at Tosche Station Radio will be interviewing Her Universe’s (and The Clone Wars’) Ashley Eckstein. Have a question for her? Tweet it to @Tosche_Station or leave a comment at the link. The podcast will record Wednesday evening and we’ll be able to listen live.

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 didn’t go to any panels this afternoon, but that’s not to say it was uneventful. I went back to the con floor intermittently, but perhaps the highlight was sitting down with fellow Jader Nancy Lutz to talk Club Jade and fandom with SiriusXM’s Dave Ziemer. And it was only yesterday that I did my first podcast… Celebration is truly a con of wonders!

But most of the afternoon was spent was spent wandering about the floor and halls, chatting with folks and getting pictures. For instance, Russ getting cuddly with some Ewoks. Meanwhile, James was able to catch a special showing of a new Clone Wars arc.

Some of the other things that went on yesterday: Amy Ratcliffe recapped the second Detours panel; Jennifer Landa attended the Smuggler’s Gambit radio drama. Amy Ratliffe attended to double bill of James Arnold Taylor and Carrie Fisher, which sounds like it was fabulous fun.

Two of the three winners of Suvudu’s SDCC lunch with Tim Zahn and Shelly Shapiro contest just happened to be a pair of familiar bloggers: Amy Ratcliffe of Geek with Curves and Peter Morrison of Lightsaber Rattling. They were sworn to secrecy on some points, but wrote up what they could on their respective blogs, including that Tim is interested in writing a Clone Wars episode.

Zahn was busy at SDCC, and sat down with the folks of the podcast Star Wars Action News. That interview is up now, though Nanci at EUC has summarized a few pertinent points about a possible future project.

Interviews, everywhere! There’s been an absolute plague of interviews lately. EUC talks to Lucasfilm Licensing’s Sue Rostoni, Podcaster Sohaib had Del Rey’s Shelly Shapiro on his show last week, and Roqoo Depot has Jedi: The Dark Side writer Scott Allie.

Blurbs. Drew Karpyshyn’s Revan novel gets a summary.

Fandom. Michael Falkner is breaking up with the ForceCast over their recent treatment of Expanded Universe fans.

Namesake corner. I’ve got two fairly minor Mara Jade bits today: io9 named her one of their 10 sexiest assassins. Naturally, it features fan art of both the badly photoshopped and naked body paint persuasions. (Sigh.) On the other hand, there’s a new namesake: A foal. She has a twin sister named after Princess Leia.