Over the last few days, the Galactic Senate has had chats with author Karen Traviss and Insider regular Abel G. Peña. Interesting stuff!
“The universe is God’s self-portrait.”
Science fiction author Octavia E. Butler passed away at her home in Seattle yesterday. Her first novel in seven years, Fledgling, was published last fall. (via Eldritchhobbit and Neil Gaiman)
From the Blogside
Imadra_blue ponders fan fiction and fandom thinking and the two great loves of Obi-Wan Kenobi’s life. She also considers Anakin/Obi-Wan, canon, and believability, an issue Shoiryu has some thoughts on as well.
Pablo mocks the masses with 1977 Blog Titles. If you actually read blogs.starwars.com, this is hilarious. On a more serious note, annotations to week 3 of the Rookies webstrip. Paul joins in on the webstrip action with a update on Evasive Action #3.
Another interesting VIP blog: Dan Wallace on the never-published Clone Wars Sourcebook.
Rabidfangurl rants on fanfic and fandom. To which I say, hell yeah. Fangirl beatdown posse meets on Tuesday.
The Dark Moose considers Star Wars… with lawyers. Been there, done that.
Rive Caedo on returning to the roots of Star Wars. On a similar note, 101 Reasons Firefly is better than Star Wars! Funny because it’s true. Or not. Your choice.
Lazypadawan has a ‘fair and balanced’ review of Outbound Flight. It looks like she subscribes to the theory that every second Zahn character is a Mary Sue, but I found most of her points pretty on target. (I myself have harbored Suerific thoughts re: Thrawn and VOTF Mara, so to each their own.) EU fans may also be interested in Suzanne’s overview of the Dark Nest trilogy.
Annoy like the wind!
The contest for the next Star Wars Fan Club President has begun. There are rules and a leaderboard and everything!
Build spaceships, for real
Scaled Composites, the folks who built SpaceShipOne, are recruiting. They say they hire from all sorts of backgrounds, but I know CJ has at least one actual rocket scientist…
In related news, the X Prize Foundation is setting up draft rules for a lunar lander contest.
Crossover fanart
Beware of geek
Advertising industry site Adotas ponders if techies are the new creatives:
In roughly the time since “Star Wars” was released, the way the world works, thinks and transacts has been revolutionized by technological innovation. In that same time the film business has barely moved on from the story-telling pattern set by “Star Wars” itself – a narrative revolution created by another inspired, informed and slightly geeky individual, George Lucas. As a matter of fact, the most significant innovations in film-making during this time have been the extension of the special effects tools to the digital realm by the same sort of inspired, informed and slightly geeky individuals that are building the technology revolution in the rest of the world. Indeed, Photoshop, the now industry standard image processing software, was created in part by John Knoll – a special effects maestro at George Lucas’s Industrial Light and Magic.
Wank? On TFN? Unthinkable!
A thread on Jacen Solo’s behavior in the Dark Nest trilogy makes Fandom Wank. Bless Narcissam and the anonymice for making it through all this, because I’m getting a headache just reading the digest version.
Evil Bears indeed
The early cover and some sketches from The New Essential Guide to Alien Species on starwars.com tonight. You can just see Helen’s name under the ‘NOT FINAL COVER’. And the drawings look fabulous!
DRIN & Tim
Interview with Timothy Zahn from the Del Rey Internet Newsletter. Thanks Rosemary!