Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
If you’ve been waiting for Timothy Zahn’s Scoundrels to hit in paperback, head to the bookstore today. For the comic fans, there’s Legacy #9 on Wednesday.
Novel-wise, that’s a wrap for 2013. Our next one, Darth Maul: Lockdown by Joe Schreiber, was recently pushed back a week to January 28. And there’s more Han coming in March with James S. A. Corey’s Empire and Rebellion: Honor Among Thieves, which Jason Fry says is “one of the best EU books I’ve read in a very long time.” (via)
Del Rey has revealed the cover for the second Empire and Rebellion book, James S. A. Corey’s Honor Among Thieves. It’s due out in hardcover March 4.
This is the book’s second cover – here’s the first one (and the blurb!)
Continue reading “New cover for Corey’s Honor Among Thieves”
John Ostrander and Jan Duursema are back Wednesday with a new arc of their Dawn of the Jedi series in Force War #1. Meanwhile, collections of Darth Vader and the Ninth Assassin and Legacy: Prisoner of the Floating World will also debut in comic shops.
Novel fans sit tight – next week brings the paperback edition of Timothy Zahn’s Scoundrels.
For the past week or so, there’s been a storm brewing in comics fandom regarding Star Wars writer Brian Wood being accused of harassment by another comics creator, Tess Fowler. There’s been much written about this (on high-profile outlets like The Beat, The Mary Sue and Doctor Nerdlove; Wood himself has released a statement) but for those who haven’t been following, I found the most helpful roundup to be Beccatoria’s.
The incident Fowler writes of may be fairly low key by harassment – if not ethical – standards, but it’s still extremely skeevy and far, far from uncommon. Bad, drunken passes happen all the time, above and beyond conventions. And that’s the problem.
That kind of behavior is not acceptable. Whether it’s from a noted professional or just a random dude off the long boxes.
Feel free to give Wood the benefit of the doubt. I don’t know Tess Fowler; I’ve never met Wood. I certainly can’t vouch for her story or his response. But I’ve heard stories like this far, far too many times to instantly doubt that she’s telling the truth. (And when it comes to naming – or not naming – harassers, there’s simply no way to win.)
Awareness of harassment and harassers is important to fandom – all fandoms. All conventions. The more people talk about harassment, the more visibility we give it, the less we pretend that these things are isolated incidents, the more people won’t be afraid to speak up when it happens to them. To talk about it. To name names. To report. To, if nothing else, stand up and say THIS IS NOT OKAY.
Because it’s not okay.
Period.
UPDATE: Anne Scherbina, a former D.C. employee, has detailed more inappropriate behavior from Wood. And in Star Wars fandom, both Brian at Tosche Station and Tricia at Fangirl have weighed in.
Upcoming. J.W. Rinzler revealed the cover for his Star Wars Storyboards: The Original Trilogy on Twitter earlier today. The book is due out May 13.
And on that note, Joe Schreiber’s Darth Maul: Lockdown has been pushed back a week, from January 21st to the 28th, Del Rey tweeted. The trade off: The first mini-excerpt from the book.
The blogside. Over at the official blog, Pablo played with fire by looking into the lengths of Super Star Destroyers, Jennifer Heddle sung the praises of the galaxy’s non-force sensitives and Jason Fry and Paul Urquhart looked into ancient Coruscant.
Reviews. James’ thoughts on Star Wars #10 and Ewoks: Shadows of Endor.
It’s that most wonderful time of the year when all the Star Wars gift books come out. So which ones are worth putting on your gift list for the year?
National Geographic Angry Birds Star Wars: The Science Behind the Saga has a fairly self-explanatory title. This book, targeted at the teenage reading level, gives you cute little stories about the adorable Angry Birds Star Wars characters, but also delves into the science associated with it. Astronomy. Physics. Science history. There’s a little bit for everyone in there. And since it’s National Geographic, you know they’ll have it right.
This is probably a fun book even if you haven’t gotten yourself aggravated by Angry Birds Star Wars, yet. (Why am I so bad at that game?) Many of the facts concern the science behind Star Wars, as well. And the graphics are bright and colorful.
Both the hardcover and paperback versions are reasonably priced. So if you’re trying to find something on the lower end for folks to get you, this would be a good one to add to your wish list.
It’s not a big week for releases, but we’ve at least got Star Wars #11 coming up on Wednesday.
Comics are pretty much all we’re going to see for the rest of the year, though the paperback for Timothy Zahn’s Scoundrels is due out on the 26th. Our next brand-new novel will be Darth Maul: Lockdown by Joe Schreiber on January 21st.
Ryder Windham has written over fifty Star Wars books, across the spectrum from comics to junior books to hefty reference books. His latest book, the Death Star Owner’s Technical Manual, came out this week as a Haynes manual, and focuses on the saga’s favorite armored space station. Windham spoke with me about the new book, illustrated by Chris Reiff and Chris Trevas, who had worked previously with Windham on the Haynes Millennium Falcon Owner’s Technical Guide which came out in 2011. Here’s the interview with Ryder Windham about the new Death Star reference book:
Continue reading “Interview: Ryder Windham on Death Star Owner’s Technical Manual”
StarWars.com has been featuring a number of important dates on both the site and through social media – and today’s is one particularly relevant for our purposes! The Facebook numbers are pretty impressive, even for the official account – More than 13,500 likes, more than a thousand shares and almost that many comments.
And, of course, without the Thrawn Trilogy, would there be a Club Jade? Probably not.
The tweet’s doing pretty well, too!
#ThisDayInHistory – 1989: Timothy Zahn gets a call confirming that he has been hired to write the novel that will become Heir to the Empire.
— Star Wars (@starwars) November 6, 2013
Why don’t these guys have a Tumblr yet? (If you want to reblog it there, we did the honors.)
The holiday book parade continues today with the release of the Death Star Owner’s Technical Manual by Ryder Windham, Chris Reiff and Chris Trevas. You can get a look inside courtesy of io9.
For comic fans, there’s The Star Wars #3 on Wednesday. Lazerswords for everyone!