Month: April 2012

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EUbits: EUC’s #SWEU t-shirts benefit Reading is Fundamental

For a good cause. EUCantina is selling #SWEU t-shirts with all the profits going to CJ’s favorite charity, Reading is Fundamental. There’s far more than tees in the store, and $3 of each purchase will go towards the charity. (Which really needs all the help it can get right now.)

UPDATE: There are tees for #ZahnSolo as well.

The blogside. Galactic Drift makes a point about poorly crafted villians, something some of us saw as a major problem in Fate of the Jedi. Meanwhile, Tosche Station collected folks dream Star Wars novels.

Interviews. Tom Taylor talked to Big Shiny Robot, Rebelscum and CNN.

Background. Even more Essential Guide to Warfare endnotes from Jason Fry. Speaking of, Jacob, one of Jawajames’ friends, recorded Fry’s author talk and more at one of the San Diego “Attack of the Authors” tour stops. (You did watch James’ interview, right?)

Reviews. James takes a look at Dawn of the Jedi #3 and Crimson Empire III: Empire Lost #6.

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Video: A Star Wars sing-a-long

I generally run screaming in the night from stuff sent to me in press release form, but this is actually kind of neat. And, what the hell, it’s (another) slow news day. Enjoy.

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Other worlds: Major SF/F publisher going DRM-free

Big news for e-book lovers. The parent company of Tor, one of the biggest SF/F publishers, announced today that they’re going to make their ebooks DRM-Free. This is a pretty big deal – and it looks likely means we’ll likely see more cross-polinating on the existing readers. But I’m no expert – you’ll want to check in with folks like John Scalzi and Charles Stross.

Oh, e-book lovers? Don’t be this asshole.

On another note, I swear I’m almost done, you really, really want to go and buy The Price of Stars for $2.99. I have an entire post to write about the Mageworlds series, but who knows if it’ll still be on $2.99 then? $2.99!

Awards. I am shamefully late in writing about the Hugo Award nominations, for which I apologize. The novel nominees include George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons, Mira Grant’s Deadline and Jo Walton’s Among Others, which I gushed about back in the Nebulas. There are plenty of other familiar names in the media categories (Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, Doctor Who, even Community) but the news that made waves was that the blog SF Signal is up for best fanzine. They were so excited that they made an infographic. NERD PARTY! No, seriously, it’s pretty neat.

On a shoestring! SyFy is going to adapt Stephen King’s fantasy novel Eyes of the Dragon and I predict it will try very hard to look like Game of Thrones. Meanwhile, over at Vulture, Gilbert Cruz ranks all 62 of King’s books. His #1 is one of my favorite, can’t-miss novels.

Upcoming. N.K. Jemisin starts a new duology. This may be the thing to finally tear me away from my second Mageworlds reread in a month.

Also… Stop taking this picture – Drew Karpyshyn signed for fantasy trilogy – Wedding invitations with a Hitchhiker’s theme – Jim Hines follows up his viral recreation of women on book covers by posing like the men.

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Out this week: Scourge and a heap of comics

Have you heard about Jeff Grubb’s Scourge yet? Because it comes out Tuesday and I swear I have an entire EUbits worth of links for it. At least someone is excited… Roqoo Depot even has a reader’s guide.

Last week, Grubb chatted about the book on Facebook. (For the impatient, TFN has a recap.) He also chatted with the Fictional Frontiers podcast, EUCantina, Rooqoo Depot and Suvudu.

The reviews have been pretty positive, at least so far: Read up at EU Cantina, Lightsaber Rattling, Knights Archive, NJOE and Roqoo Depot. Or you can try a 50-page excerpt to see if it’s to your tastes.

Meanwhile, it’s a good week for comic fans, with three comics and a trade collection coming to stores on Wednesday. Two of the books – Crimson Empire III: Empire Lost #6 and Dark Times: Out of the Wilderness #5 – close out their storylines, while another begins with Blood Ties: Boba Fett is Dead #1. And for the final offering, the third volume of Invasion, Revelations, is collected.

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Everything is Jar Jar’s fault: Last week’s best #StarWars and #SWEU tweets

Remember when we raked Courtship of Princess Leia over the coals because Luke was way too powerful? Some problems never go away.

Damn it, Jar Jar, stay OUT of publishing!

No one should rock the Jedi braid. No one.

OH, YES, PLEASE. Four months to go, and we’ve had exactly two actual announcements? Damn it, Jar Jar, our patience is beginning to fray!

Okay, okay, I’ll leave Jar Jar alone now. Continue reading “Everything is Jar Jar’s fault: Last week’s best #StarWars and #SWEU tweets”

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Star Wars in the news: Opposition scuttles Lucasfilm studio project, Michael Fassbender’s toy collection

Last week, Lucasfilm shocked Marin by pulling out of their plan to build a film studio on their Grady Ranch property. The studio project had faced opposition from the nearby Lucas Valley Estates. Others in Marin begged the company to reconsider, but Lucasfilm is standing firm. Lucasfilm is hoping to sell the property for use as low income housing, something I’m sure the Lucas Valley Estate folks will just love. Meanwhile, I’m sure that Lucasfilm will have no trouble finding another Bay Area community to welcome a film studio.

Michael Fassbender loves Star Wars toys. Of course he does. “‘Star Wars’ was really the only sci-fi sort of fascination I had as a youngster,” he told Absolute Radio while doing promotion for Prometheus. “I collected and I’ve still got the AT-AT and the Millennium Falcon and the Ewok village.”

Lucasfilm is among those named in a burgeoning antitrust case that alleges companies stiffed “lucrative job movement in Silicon Valley by agreeing not to raid their rivals for employees.” Apple, Google, Intel, Adobe and Pixar are also named.

Is The Old Republic already losing subscribers? The analysts say TOR has lost about 10% of it’s subscribers in the last month, and they project an average of 1.25M subscribers through the year. (I’m no expert, but isn’t that kind of how an MMO launch works? Not everyone is going to stick around?)

The game has had a good share of controversy – an anti-gay campaign and a free game time giveaway that alienanted some players (Though Bioware did expand upon the giveaway.) Let the course of gaming never go smooth, or something to that effect….

Wired’s Kathy Ceceri and her family got a sneak preview of the Star Wars Identities exhibit in Montréal, and shares quite a bit about what you can see there. It opened on the 19th.