Category: books and comics

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Video: Unboxing Star Wars: Bloodline, C-3PO comic & Jello!

Unboxing-Star-Wars-title-card-05-04-2016

Happy Star Wars Day! We’ve got a special episode of Unboxing Star Wars for May the 4th! First, Baby Jawa, Yowie and I check out the fun at “The Dome Awakens”, the Star Wars Day celebration at the downtown San Diego Public Library held on May 1, 2016. Then it’s time to review the recent C-3PO one shot comic by James Robinson and Tony Harris, and get excited for the new Star Wars novel, Bloodline, by Claudia Gray. We finish up with the results of our first try at making Star Wars Jell-o Jigglers, and then some Baby Jawa fun time!

Quick reviews
→ C-3PO #1 – A fun (and long-awaited) tale that does indeed explain the origins of Threepio’s red arm. Read this comic then watch the LEGO Star Wars short “The Resistance Rises: Poe to the Rescue” for an interesting crossover of canon and LEGO Star Wars.
→ Bloodline – Strongly recommend! I had high expectations for this novel because of Gray’s first Star Wars novel, Lost Stars, and she surpassed them. I really enjoyed this tale – it’s a top-notch story with some great characters, and Gray nails Leia’s character.
→ Star Wars JELL-O Jigglers Mold Set – Comes with two 6-character mold trays and 4 boxes of Jello! All the characters look great, except Yoda, who is in some sort of action pose which doesn’t quite work right. Be sure to use the special mold instructions on the big box instead of the regular Jiggler instructions on the inside boxes of gelatin.

Get more info on Wear Star Wars Every Day or make a donation at GoFundMe or sign up to make a per-day pledge.

Note: Del Rey provided a copy of Star Wars: Bloodline for review.

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Review: Claudia Gray’s Bloodline is required reading for Star Wars fans, but you won’t mind

BloodlineIt’s rather refreshing to finally be getting some of the gaps filled in.

Claudia Gray’s Star Wars: Bloodline, out today, isn’t the first to give us a look at the galaxy beyond Return of the Jedi in the new canon. (It isn’t even Gray’s first, technically.) But it the closest to The Force Awakens so far, set less than a decade before the film. It’s also the first to feature a major character in anything beyond a glorified cameo. This is, by far, the canon novel with the most mass appeal to Expanded Universe fans new and old.

And yes, it’s good. I admit, I am worried that those of us who got and talked (vaguely) about the book early may be overselling the novel. After all, that’s what happened to me with Gray’s previous Star Wars book, Lost Stars. There was no early copy for me there, and it was the last of the Journey to The Force Awakens books I read. And it was fine! But I suspect the unrelenting hype damaged it a bit for me. (I may also be extremely a tiny bit burnt out on YA-style romance.)

Bloodline, on the other hand, was a blistering fast read for me. The minute I got it, I couldn’t put it down. As anyone who was following me on Twitter may have noticed, I read it in three hours. I honestly can’t recall the last time I read a Star Wars novel at that speed. It might have been back in the ’90s?

Some minor spoilers beyond the cut.

Continue reading “Review: Claudia Gray’s Bloodline is required reading for Star Wars fans, but you won’t mind”

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25 years of Heir to the Empire

HeirEmpire_HCThe first Star Wars novel to be set after Return of the Jedi, Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire was released in hardcover on May 1, 1991. It was the first major step out of what’s now called ‘the Dark Times,’ when Star Wars was (mostly) a dormant franchise. The book was immensely successful and helped prove there was still an audience for Star Wars

Although now classified as non-canon ‘Legends’, along with the rest of the pre-2014 Expanded Universe, Heir remains an important part of franchise and fandom history. Hell, we wouldn’t exist without it.

Also it’s a damn good story and you should read it (along with ’92’s Dark Force Rising and ’93’s The Last Command) if you haven’t already. Though note I am totally biased.

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Today in The Force Awakens: Making of book canceled?

tfa-bts-ridley-jjAlthough it was never officially announced, it appears that The Making of Star Wars: The Force Awakens book from Mark Cotta Vaz and J.W. Rinzler has been canceled. A listing for the book appeared before the movie – usually a reliable indicator – and it was pushed back to October before the film’s release. However, it now it no longer appears on the publisher’s site, and Florian at Jedi Bibliothek found a listing on BookManager that says it’s been canceled..

All-out cancellations are rare, but I don’t expect we’ll get any word on the reasoning anytime soon. (Again, it was never actually announced.) My only guess is that it may have something to do with the lawsuit over Harrison Ford’s on-set injury. Note the incident isn’t mentioned in the official behind-the-scenes documentary on The Force Awakens Blu-ray – and may be off-limits until the legal issues have been worked out. Everyone loves the original trilogy Making of books, but here’s hoping we won’t have to wait 30 years for this one.

→ Speaking of the accident… Something we overlooked during the big Rey parentage debacle was J.J. Abrams revealing exactly how Ford’s injury actually helped the film.

→ A great new behind the scenes video from Discover Ireland.

→ Casting director Nina Gold talks about finding Daisy Ridley and John Boyega (plus some Game of Thrones folks) in an interview with The Hollywood Reporter.

→ Lucasfilm president Kathleen Kennedy and actor Oscar Isaac are among of Time’s 100 most influential people.

→ Custom BB-8s created by Star Wars stars and luminaries, being auctioned for charity.

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Out this week: Star Wars #18

Star Wars #18This Wednesday will bring Star Wars #18 to the comic shops.

Looking at what’s already on the shelves, our own James interviewed author Pablo Hidalgo about the updated Star Wars Character Encyclopedia on StarWars.com.

Next week’s big release is Claudia Gray’s Bloodline, a Leia-centric novel that answers a question or two raised by The Force Awakens. (You can get a look at the first three chapters by subscribing to a newsletter from Playcrafting.) Look for my review on the release date, May 3.

Bloodline may be locked, but there have been minor shifts in the release dates of our next significant ROTJ-TFA bridge novels. Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath: Life Debt moves up a week to July 12, while the third book in the trilogy, Empire’s End, goes back a week to January 24. Our release schedule has been updated.

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Video: Unboxing Star Wars: Rebels finale ‘Twilight of the Apprentice’, Character Encyclopedia

Unboxing Star Wars 4-15-16 title card

We’ve got a new episode of Unboxing Star Wars! Yowie and I hit the road for the Star Wars Rebels finale screening at Walt Disney Studios and we review ‘Twilight of the Apprentice’. I also check out Star Wars Character Encyclopedia Updated and Expanded by Pablo Hidalgo and Simon Beecroft, from DK. Plus I give a quick review of the first issue of the Poe Dameron comic, while Baby Jawa plays with a new R2-D2 toy and we check out some of the new Star Wars stuff we’ve picked up. And at the end, some Baby Jawa fun time!


Quick reviews
→ Star Wars Character Encyclopedia Updated and Expanded – Great for everone! Have fun learning tidbits about more than 200 characters and creatures from all the Star Wars films! (and watch for my interview with author Pablo Hidalgo on starwars.com early next week)
→ ‘Twilight of the Apprentice’ – Big thumbs up! When Rebels has a season finale, they pull out all the stops and unload a whole boatload of awesome. (Also, if you haven’t seen it already, I have the entire Q&A from the screening available to watch.)
→ Poe Dameron #1 – A promising start! I think I’m more interested in who Lor San Tekka is than about Poe on his tail but we’ll see where it goes. Plus BB-8!

Get more info on Wear Star Wars Every Day or make a donation at GoFundMe or sign up to make a per-day pledge.

Note: DK provided a copy of Star Wars Character Encyclopedia Updated and Expanded for review.