The parody that’s sweeping the internet!
So how did Star Wars books sell in ’08?
Andrew Wheeler has made a habit of rounding up genre bestsellers from Publishers Weekly’s list, and if you separate out the Star Wars stuff, an interesting trend emerges:
In Adult Hardcovers:
- Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, Sean Williams, 103,232
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars by Karen Traviss, 101,146
- Star Wars: Legacy of the Force: Invincible, Troy Denning, 101,034
And in New Children’s paperback:
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Tracey West, 190,700
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Battle at Teth, Kirsten Mayer, 186,282
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: The New Padawan, Eric Stevens, 152,661
- Star Wars: The Clone Wars: Intergalactic Adventure: Activity Book, no author listed, 119,621
- Star Wars Fandex, Christopher Cerasi, 103,191
In short, The Clone Wars kids books sold significantly more copies than the adult books. Behold, the power of a theatrical release…
Interesting, if rather sad factoid: Stephenie Meyer outsells everyone. No, seriously. But then, in a year where Dean Koontz outsells Stephen King, can we really be surprised?
The catchup: Links from Twitter
Here are some of the things I’ve micro-blogged over @clubjade in the last week or so.
Hollywood hyperbole. Sony’s Amy Pascal thinks that James Cameron’s Avatar could be the next Star Wars. I’m just trying to think of an upcoming genre movie I care less about than Avatar and failing miserably.
Duck and cover, Dallas. Will Texas be able to handle the squee produced by an official Twilight convention? We can only hope the lack of Robert Pattinson gives them a fighting chance.
Space blob approaches! Guys. GUYS. Waru is coming! I repent of all my Twilight mocking. Okay, not really.
But the real question is, who did they ship? Wired’s Scott Brown takes a brief look back at Sherlock Holmes fanfic.
Presented without comment. Guess who wants to write a Wonder Woman novel?
Gate Geek – I see interesting things
I really need to do these more often. Lots of news flying, these days.
Prepare to be astounded. Stargate Universe is going to feature an openly gay character for the first time; in addition to being “dark and edgy.” (The cast does not appear to be as dark and edgy, though. If you’re not already following them, cast members David Blue and Brian Jacob Smith have been Twittering up a storm and seem like a lot of fun.)
So this gay thing is not entirely new. It has already been said that at least one of the Atlantis characters was gay, but they never put it on screen. And there may be others.
Maybe they’ll do that in the “some day soon” version of the Atlantis movie? (Joe Mallozzi has been working on the script.) But apparently MGM is being a bit wishy-washy about the timing for this and the next SG1 project.
In spend-some-money news, there is a preview of the Teal’c animated maquette on i09 that is entirely too cute. (Words rarely associated with Teal’c.)
You can also spend your money to have lunch with Richard Dean Anderson to benefit the Waterkeeper Alliance.
And in yet still unrelated news, big, um, congrats to the incredibly talented Christopher Hyerdahl for being cast in the next Twilight movie. May you not be overrun by Twihards.
The catchup: Links from Twitter
Here are some of the things I’ve micro-blogged over @clubjade in the last week or so.
Clothing: Behold the Anatomy of the AT-AT t-shirt!
Guardians of peace and justice? Eight Scottish officers with the Strathclyde Police and two of their civilian co-workers have listed their religion as “Jedi.”
Crazy Twilight fan theater. Lady Sybilla’s industrial-sized victim complex trucks on! She’s now claiming that “Characters don’t belong to authors. Authors don’t create characters. They merely channel them.”
Lulz. io9’s Charlie Jane Anders pegs Obi-Wan Kenobi as one of the Great Unsung Slash Fiction Heroes. I know it’s pretty ironic that the most code-abiding Jedi in the saga is the fandom bicycle of Star Wars fanfic, but these things just tend to happen when Ewan MacGregor is involved.
Video fun! We Didn’t Start the Flame War! (NSFW, mostly for language.)
Chad Vader joins Rifftrax for ESB mocking!
The latest Rifftrax is out, and it’s spoofing our beloved Empire Strikes Back. Joining Mystery Science Theater 3000 alums Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett is the internet’s own Chad Vader, for extra mocking fun. The sample had me laughing out loud, so prepare for awesome.
(Psst… They also did Twilight.)
Edward, may I treat you to a stake dinner?
This was actually all over the internets a few months ago, but Paula helpfully reminded me of it today. Sure to be a huge hit at this year’s Dragon*Con and other places where people who get the joke will congregate, the shirt is available for both men and women. Wear it hoping that the Twilighters actually have a sense of humor offline.
Twilight infringer backs off, sort of
With fandom buzzing and several professionals weighing in, Lady Sybilla and her ‘publisher,’ AV Paranormal, are backing off on selling her Twilight fanfic, Russet Noon. But she’s not going to take it laying down!
Swarming with self-righteous judgments and slander galore, some of these postings have gone as far as to threaten Lady Sybilla and her team with everything from boycotting the novel, reporting it to web administrators, and even stalking the addresses listed under Whois registrar entries.
Slander is a term used for defamatory speech. The term she’s actually looking for is libel. But wait, there’s more:
Blown out of proportion falls short of describing the overzealous crusade that has given these teens “a common enemy,” as one of them has called it. Some of these volunteer soldiers are so militant about their cause, that eBay buyers appear to have been contacted one by one in an attempt to persuade them to request refunds on their Russet Noon preorders.
Now we all know that sometimes fandom will get a bit… overzealous in reaction to people trying to publish fan fiction of copyrighted works. Some of it might even qualify as libel, though most of what I’ve seen is simple boggling at her ignorance. But that is the absolute most minor reason not to do it. In short? Lady, if you don’t want people saying mean things about you when you do something stupid on the internet, maybe you should stop fanning the flames.
A recent theory, however, could mean her behavior isn’t born out of arrogance and ignorance, but instead something even less savory. Could Lady Sybilla have manufactured this situation simply to get more views on her site and cash via Amazon affiliate links? If so, she wouldn’t be first in fandom to attempt to (fandom_)wank her way to profit, but perhaps the most successful to date…
Once again, a huge tip of the hat to Caito and the folks at Fandom Wank.
You still can’t sell your fanfic: Twilight edition
I hate to make two Twilight posts in a week, but now it seems the fandom has their own Lori Jareo wannabe in the form of LadySybill, who’s written Russet Noon, a post-Breaking Dawn story about Bella’s other love interest, Jacob Black. Nothing surprising about that as a fanfic: But she’s calling it a “tribute novel” and was directing readers to… eBay? And it seems she thinks she can get away with it because… Stephenie Meyer didn’t draw pictures of her characters:
The characters in SM’s novels were not copyrighted because she never drew them or hired an artist to draw them. Today she shares her character copyrights with Summit. And, no, Russet Noon does not have direct permission from SM to publish this sequel, which is why the article says that it is a “Tribute” or “Unauthorized” Sequel.
And here’s what her ‘publisher’ has to say:
When fictional characters become such an intricate part of the popular psyche, as is the case with the Twilight Saga, legal boundaries become blurred, and copyright laws become increasingly difficult to define.
Yeah, that would totally hold up in court. Get the rest of the story and boggle at length at Sparklefield and Fandom Wank.
UPDATE: Has LadySybill seen the light?
Wacky merchandise of the day: Let the Twilight candy hearts dazzle you!
Yes, these Twilight conversation hearts are for real: I actually saw them in Borders today. Some of them have glitter and one says “Dazzle.” IT’S LIKE THEY’RE SPOOFING THEMSELVES.
Of course, the Twilight folks are breaking no records here: The infamous Jar Jar lollipop beats this by miles and miles. But it gave me a good laugh this morning.