Star Wars with occasional sarcasm
Here in America, anyway. Last weekend’s ‘Asylum of the Daleks’ was the most-watched telecast ever for BBC America. 1.6 million viewers tuned in, making it the series best rating for the show since it debuted on the channel in 2009. The show was also up 23% over the 2011 premiere.
Meanwhile, at home in the U.K., the premiere had 6.4 million viewers.
Awards. The Hugo Award winners were announced at Worldcon this past weekend. Taking Best Novel was Jo Walton’s Among Others, beating out George R. R. Martin’s A Dance With Dragons and works by China Miéville, James S. A. Corey and Mira Grant. (Walton also won the Nebula for the book.) Other writing prizes went to Kij Johnson, Charlie Jane Anders, Ken Liu and more.
The dramatic presentation awards went to Game of Thrones S1 and Neil Gaiman for his Doctor Who episode ‘The Doctor’s Wife.’ (Gaiman took the opportunity to announce he’s writing another episode for the show.) Also noteworthy to us, SF Signal winning for Best Fanzine!
Tolkien. With Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit adaption now being three films, the second has been retitled The Desolation of Smaug, with There and Back Again now being the third installment. I fully expect it to contain at least an hour of various slow-motion endings. But seriously, it looks like there was a lot of hints dropped at DragonCon.
A Song of Ice And Fire. A hilarious Storm of Swords ‘It Gets Better’ PSA. Yes, of course there are spoilers. Or, you can read what GRRM has revealed of the Targaryen conquest of Westeros from the upcoming The World of Ice and Fire.
Lists. io9 picks fall’s must-read SF/F books and explores the mermaid trend in YA.
Records. The Hunger Games series has outsold Harry Potter – at least on Amazon.
Also: Ray Bradbury’s FBI file / Lev Grossman interviews Terry Brooks / Ursula Le Guin’s Noble Prize odds / Dark Tower adaption not so dead after all?
Last week, we reported that the first two seasons of Star Wars: The Clone Wars was headed into syndication. Today, Holocron keeper Leland Chee tweeted that the syndicated version will be aired in chronological order:
First two episodes to air are “Cat and Mouse” (S216)and “Hidden Enemy”(S116).Mull that over for a little bit.#tcwsyndication
— Leland Chee (@HolocronKeeper) September 4, 2012
At least on the Holocron’s local TV station. A check of the my local TV listings also show my local station starting with the same two episodes, both of which happen just before the events of The Clone Wars film. Check your local listings, most likely for the weekend of September 15 and 16.
Will this be a soft way to introduce the proper timeline for the first two seasons (which did skip around a bit as the show was getting its bearings)? But since a good chunk of the first half of season three was also forming prequels and sequel to existing episodes, it seems that the syndication airing timeline is only a piece of the puzzle to a final chronological order.
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…
It’s time to start keeping an eye out for Star Wars insider #136. It contains interviews with Carrie Fisher and the folks behind the new Star Wars comic, as well as a short story by new-to-the-EU author Ari Marmell.
The newstand edition has a Boba Fett cover. Of course.
Our next book release comes on the 24th, with the paperback reprint of Drew Karpyshyn’s The Old Republic: Revan. Our next actual new release comes first thing in October, with Pablo Hidalgo’s Essential Reader’s Companion.
I’m a little behind on this, mostly because, oh, that huge convention a week or so past. In any case, here are some of the best tweets out of Celebration and DragonCon and whatever else was going around from August 20th to September 2nd.
Random House Audio continued their convention tour, bringing some of their audio book production team to Star Wars Celebration VI as well as having a show floor presence. I caught the Star Wars University: Audio Books panel with staff from Random House Audio, producer Aaron Blank, narrator Marc Thompson (check out my interview with Marc), and director Kevin Thomsen. Crashing the panel was Leland Chee, keeper of the Holocron. Key points from the panel: Continue reading “Celebration VI: Audio books panel highlights”
Another recap from the Tosche Station folks in Atlanta: Timothy Zahn, Aaron Allston, Michael Stackpole, Kevin J. Anderson and Doctor Carol White discuss Masculinity in Star Wars.
Hot on the heels and six hours north of Celebration, Dragon*Con is being held in Atlanta. Tosche Station is there now, and Brian has recapped the Star Wars author panel held there yesterday. Attending were Aaron Allston, Timothy Zahn, Mike Stackpole and Kevin J. Anderson.
Also coming up Monday will be a Mercy Kill discussion with Allston.
Don’t forget that the new series of Doctor Who starts up this Saturday with “Asylum of the Daleks”. The Doctor, Amy and Rory are back, and this time they’re headed to a place that even regular Daleks fear. For those in the US, Doctor Who starts up on BBC America on Saturday at 9pm/8c. Helping get us back into the timey-wimey mood, BBC has been posting a series of fun shorts, called Pond Life, focusing on Mr. and Mrs. Pond since we last saw them.
What does writer and producer Stephen Moffat have to say about writing his first Dalek episode? RadioTimes has his episode guide.
Also celebrating the start of series 7, Nerdist Channel has a few programs related for their Doctor Who-eekend: For wacky fun, the Doctor Who cast and crew takes on Chris Hardwick, Wil Wheaton and more in Chris Hardwick’s All Star Celebrity Bowling on Friday (preview here – “Bowling is cool”). On Saturday, check out the Doctor Who Premiere Q&A at 10pm/9c, with Chris Hardwick talking with Matt Smith, Karen Gillan and Executive Producer Caroline Skinner after the premiere.
EDIT: BBC America just put up a new Her Universe Doctor Who shirt for sale, combining the logo and the Amy Pond introduction. Go check it out / buy it!