Hello my friends, and happy weekend!
I’ve been continuing to read Convergence, by Zoraida Cordova, the adult novel in the first wave of Phase 2 High Republic books. I’m enjoying it, but as an adult novel, it doesn’t seem to have the same scope as other adult HR books. Instead of the usual galaxy-hopping, it takes place mostly on one, or at most, two planets. Add to this its focus on a group of young people, and it seems like another YA novel. That’s fine, it’s a good book, just not what I expected. I have a feeling this first wave of books is setting up the scene for the second wave, where things will possibly come to a head. I’ll write more about it when I finish it.

On Kindle, I downloaded Stephen King’s latest, Fairy Tale. I don’t read all of King’s books, but once in a while he comes out with one that particularly appeals to me. The last one was Sleeping Beauties, and before that, The Dark Tower series (and I heard a Dark Tower series may be in the works for Prime, for which I am very excited). Fairy Tale is about a teenager named Charlie Reade who gets involved in helping out an old man named Howard Bowditch and his faithful dog, Radar. Bowditch has been hiding a secret for many years on his property: a hole in the ground in his backyard with spiraling steps that lead to another world. King really takes his time setting this all up and I’m just getting to the other world, about 80 pages in. I have no idea what this might be leading to and I can’t wait to find out!

I haven’t gotten back to Poldark yet, but in the meantime I’m rewatching the Obi-Wan Kenobi series (for the fourth? fifth? time, lol). This came about because, during one of my husband’s scrolling sessions through Youtube on our TV, he came across the second lightsaber duel between Obi-Wan and Vader in that show. He hasn’t seen the show (he’s a very casual Star Wars fan, doesn’t know much about the prequels, and was unimpressed with the first episode that I made him watch). But he does enjoy battle/lightsaber duel scenes, so we watched. And this, of course, got me in the mood to watch the show again. Because I LOVE this show. While perhaps not as technically brilliant as Andor, it’s the one that gets me in the feels the most. And since I’ll be getting the Obi-Wan comic next week, it seems fitting.

There are a couple of Star Wars trailers that came out this past week that I’d like to note. I’m very excited about The Bad Batch Season Two trailer, the second one we’ve gotten, and it gives us more to chew on and anticipate. In particular, I love that Cody will be in the show. Fans have long wondered what happened to him after Order 66, and now we get to find out. He’s shown talking to Crosshair, and mentioning that a lot of clone troopers are questioning their orders. I’m hoping this means that Cody is, too, and will eventually join with Rex in fighting the Empire. We see Gungi, the Wookiee Jedi Padawan from Clone Wars, and it’s exciting to see a surviving Jedi in the show (and maybe more?). Rex, and Bail Organa, and some new characters. Maybe Ahsoka? Ahsoka doesn’t need to be in everything, mind you, but it wouldn’t bother me, lol. I’m excited to see Echo exhorting Hunter for them to do more, to help fight the Empire. I’m hoping Echo has a bit more to do this season. It all looks fantastic, and I can’t wait until January 4th, when we get the first two episodes.
As I’ve mentioned before, I’m not a gamer at all, but I did watch the Jedi: Survivor trailer, the Star Wars game that is a sequel to Jedi: Fallen Order. I’ve always been very interested in Cal Kestis’ story, and while I read a version of his story somewhere, and maybe even watched a Youtube version, I still felt like I was missing out. I’m glad gamers are getting more gaming fun from Cal and his crew, but it’s the book that drops the same week called Jedi: Battle Scars that I’m most looking forward to. I’m hoping you don’t need to know a lot about the game to enjoy the book, but just in case, I’ll watch some more Youtube summaries to get reacquainted with the characters. Both the game and the book drop in March of next year.
That’s it this week. What’s been entertaining you? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
I’m totally okay saying that I think Andor is simply inferior to Obi-Wan Kenobi as a Star Wars show. Obi-Wan Kenobi is showing us major personal development of some of the most important characters of the mythos. Andor is trying to be “Schindler’s List in space” while asking us to invest in twelve episodes of beating-around-the-bush character development of the deuteragonist who dies at the end of Rogue One. While I realize that the latter show has its bordering-on-cultish fan base, and it’s reasonably well written and acted… is it “Star Wars snobbish” of me to say that I think it’s only tangentially Star Wars?
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Nope. We all react to things differently. The way I look at it, Andor is Star Wars but seen through a different kind of lens. Some people like that lens, some don’t. And I don’t require everyone else to love what I love, lol. But I agree, Obi-Wan Kenobi “feels” more like Star Wars.
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Yeah. I read or see the occasional fan commenting that Deb Chow didn’t really understand the characters, which is just mind blowing to me. “I am… what you made me!” is perhaps the most in-character line Vader could have possibly given to Kenobi. So much rage, so much deflection… he has a bit of a point, and yet at the same time he’s completely absolving himself of all responsibility for the actions he took that led him into the armor. That one line sums up every character feeling Vader has, for good and bad, and it’s just so perfect.
I don’t mind saying that episode 3 of OWK is my favorite Star Wars episode all year, across all series, and it’s not close.
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Yeah, it’s pretty fantastic.
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