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Other worlds: Ladies rule the Nebulas, again


AS a completely biased blogger I implore you to read this book. Now in paperback!

Awards. The Nebula Award nominees were announced the other day, Like last year, the novel category is very female-heavy – 4 women, 2 men. (James Nicoll has the full tally.) I’ve read two of the nominees – Jo Walton’s Among Others and N.K. Jemisin’s The Kingdom of Gods, but my completely uneducated guess for a win based on levels of hype I just don’t get is China Miéville’s Embassytown. (I’d vote for Walton.) Surprise me, SFWA!

Releases. Tor has announced that the final Wheel of Time book, A Memory of Light, is scheduled to come out on January 8, 2013. Brandon Sanderson is finishing the series working from Robert Jordan’s notes. Tor will also be re-releasing the other books with new covers, an action I heartily endorse as the original awful, awful covers are the main reason I never read them.

Adaptions. Producers are pitching a TV series based on Marion Zimmer Bradley’s Darkover series. I’m not so sure this is a great idea – the books have their charms, but they are incredibly dated.

Views. Fantasy Faction takes a look at the changing face of SF/F, while Sherwood Smith remembers Andre Norton.

Star Trek! Jo Walton looks an influential Trek novel, John M. Ford’s The Final Reflection. She says: “…it’s one of those rare tie-in books that’s good even if you’re not a fan of the show and it must be world-shatteringly marvellous if you are.”

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Prophets of Science Fiction to feature George Lucas

The Science Channel’s Prophets of Science Fiction will air an episode devoted to George Lucas on March 7. Here’s the description:

From Luke Skywalker’s light sabre to Darth Vader’s Death Star, the Star Wars franchise is one of the defining science fiction works of the later 20th century. George Lucas’ prolific imagination has already inspired two generations of scientists and engineers to push the envelope of technology. By introducing computers into the filmmaking process, he changed the way movies are made, and the way we all see the future.

(It’s lightsaber. Sigh.) Most of the subjects of the show are science fiction authors (Mary Shelley, Issac Asimov) so Lucas appears to be a controversial choice in the comments. Still, you can’t deny that Star Wars has had a lot of influence over the genre.

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In the news: Reports of 3-D Blu-ray coming in spring

Rumor! Pocket Lint report that sources at the Panasonic conference in Hamburg are saying that The Phantom Menace 3D will be coming to Blu-ray in the spring.

Being Ackbar. The San Francisco Chronicle’s Peter Hartlaub catches up with Erik Bauersfeld, the radio dramatist who provided the voice of Admiral Ackbar and Bib Fortuna.

Sports. Sports Illustrated features Amanda Lucas. She claimed an open-weight women’s championship Saturday in Japan.

Honors. George Lucas accepted a Vanguard Award from Samuel L. Jackson at Saturday’s NAACP Image Awards. In his presentation, Jackson talking about lobbying for a role in the prequels: “I’ll be a Storm Trooper and just run across the screen. Nobody even has to know I’m in it.”

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Will Her Universe’s Mara Jade shirt debut at CVI?

It looks likely! We first heard that it was in the pipeline back in 2010 (Ashley Eckstein admitted a little later she had spoke too soon.) I’m hoping it pans out for the con, and I even promise I won’t get too mad if there’s a catsuit.

UPDATE! When I tweeted this post, Ashley replied with a key detail: The artist!

Staggs has a 2010 commission of Mara on her Deviantart page.

In the meantime… The shirt Erin is wearing above is Mara Jade Nouveau from Mighty Fine, and it does appear to be an authorized product.

In other Her Universe news, Ashley has a new interview with Nerdist News.

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The Phantom Menace drops to #6 at the box office, but moves past Star Wars on the all-time list

The Phantom Menace had a 65% drop at the box office this weekend, coming up at #6 with $7.9 million, but it did pass one very big milestone – the first Star Wars. The Phantom Menace is now beating the original in all-time domestic grosses. Will A New Hope earn back top placement when its 3D turn comes around? Stay tuned…

In the meantime, there’s a rumor going around that we may see Attack of the Clones 3D as soon as August. Curious…

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EUbits: Darth Maul is coming to comics as well

The year of Maul, indeed. Dark Horse’s Randy Stradley announced two upcoming projects featuring Darth Maul yesterday. Up in August will be a digest, The Sith Hunters, from Henry Gilroy and Steven Melching. There’s also an four-issue mini-series from Tom Taylor that we’ll learn about in “the near future.” (Celebration, maybe?) Stradley also reveals that the Maul storyline will bridge S4 and S5 of The Clone Wars.

Authors. Drew Karpyshyn has retired from Bioware, where he worked on The Old Republic, to “focus more time and energy on my novels and other non-video game related projects.” Karpyshyn is currently working on the fourth Old Republic novel.

Curious… A new book appeared on the Random House site this week: Glittering Images: A Journey Through Art from Egypt to Star Wars by author and cultural critic Camille Paglia. It’s set for an October release.

Excerpt. This week’s mini-excerpt is from Jeff Grubb’s Scourge. It features Wookiees slapping droids around a bunch of other people I’ve never heard of.

Interviews. Graphic Novel Reporter talks to John Jackson Miller about Knights of the Old Republic: War. On that note, the last standalone Lost Tribe of the Sith story is now available for preorder. (Yes, it’s still free, it just won’t be out until March 5.)

Review. James has good stuff to say about Dawn of the Jedi #1.

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LEGO extends Star Wars license for another decade

LEGO announced at Toy Fair that they have extended their license with Lucasfilm for Star Wars-themed toys, video games, etc. for another ten years. So not only will there be twenty new Star Wars LEGO building sets released in 2012, we’ll be seeing lots of LEGO Star Wars merchandise until 2022 (or probably longer).

As part of the announcement, they released some stats including that the LEGO Star Wars video game franchise has sold more than 30 million units with their four titles (and Joystiq seems to think they have a sequel in the works to their 2011 The Clone Wars video game). Also, from Toy Fair, Kotaku has some photos of some The Old Republic building sets and The Lord of the Rings sets (a new license for LEGO) and Collider’s got images of The Avengers sets. And for those who want to drool over all the revealed sets, FBTB has your full LEGO Star Wars set coverage from Toy Fair.

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Confirmed: Sam Witwer to voice Clone Wars‘ Maul

As rumored, Sam Witwer is indeed voicing Maul for The Clone Wars, confirms MTV’s Laurel Woods. She also has a behind-the-scenes video featuring animation clips and Witwer with Clancy Brown (Savage Opress) in the studio. This is Witwer’s second Clone Wars character, the first being the Son from last season’s Mortis arc.

Witwer is actually the second ‘voice’ of Maul – although Ray Park played the character in The Phantom Menace, it was British actor Peter Serafinowicz who provided his voice.

Witwer’s Maul will make his debut in the March 9th episode.