I thought I’d change the title of these weekend updates and make them more tuned to what each post is about.
So I’ve gotten a few chapters into Out of the Shadows, by Justina Ireland, and I’m pretty sure I’m going to like this book. I’ve heard a few complaints about it, that it’s more talky and slow than previous books, but that’s okay by me. Between Star Wars and Marvel, I think I’ve had enough explosions and battles to last me several lifetimes, lol. This one focuses on the Padawans and younger Jedi, like Vernestra Rwoh, Reath Silas, and Imri Cantaros. I’m a big fan of Reath ever since Into the Dark by Claudia Gray. He’s a bookish type, more into research and scholarship than the whole Jedi adventuring thing, and I can relate to that, lol.
On Kindle, I’m still working on Freefall, about a young Poe Dameron, but it’s recently taken a back seat to a non-Star Wars book called I Was Anastasia, by Ariel Lawhon. For the past few years, my sister and niece and I have done a little book club together, on and off throughout the year, and after some time off, we just started up again. The book we chose was this one about Anna Anderson, the woman who had claimed to be Anastasia Romanov, the supposed only survivor of the slaughter of the Romanov family during the Russian Revolution. I’ve always been fascinated by the subject, and probably saw a movie or two back in the day about it, but I don’t quite remember all the details. I think it was fairly recently established that she was NOT Anastasia, but again, I’m not sure. Even if that’s true, people still want to believe, I think. It’s a tragic, sensational story, and people respond to that. It’s in novel form, so it’s “fiction,” but I’m sure the author has done her research. Really intriguing.
The Bad Batch penultimate Season One episode, “Return to Kaminoa,” is what I’ve been waiting for this show to do for a while now: go back to compelling story-telling. I won’t go into spoilers in case you haven’t seen it yet, but this Season Finale Part 1 is fantastic, and I can’t wait to see what happens in Part 2.
On the Marvel front, I’m a few episodes into The Falcon and the Winter Soldier. Admittedly, I’m not as invested in this one, although I think the character of Bucky Barnes is interesting. And the return of Zemo is great. But after the quirkiness of Wandavison, and the sheer enjoyability of Loki, this one’s a bit dull, lol. But I’ll soldier through, and then rewatch Loki, of course. And then I’m done with the Marvel universe (unless I look around for Hulk and/or Spiderman movies, which I may or may not do). I may catch Black Widow in the theater next week. There’s a few Marvel movies coming out later this year, like The Eternals, but I have no idea what it’s about, lol, or if it’s connected at all with what I’ve been watching. Oh, and the Shang-Chi guy. I can’t keep track, lol. What I’m waiting for are the next Dr. Strange and Thor movies, and I think another Wakanda movie is coming out next year. So I’ll stay tuned.
That’s about it for entertainment. My family and I still haven’t done half the summer stuff we wanted to do this year yet, but next week is our 23rd wedding anniversary and I took the week off from work, so maybe we’ll get some fun stuff in. We’ve been talking about ziplining, so maybe we’ll actually get to that! I’ll let you know next week. See you then!
So I’ve been mostly absent this past week, just reading and commenting on other people’s blogs. I’ve been cheating with another franchise, as I’ve wanted to catch up with some MCU movies as I watch the Disney+ show Loki. Certainly not all of them, but just the ones with Loki in them (which is 6 two and a half hour movies, at least, lol).
And they’re super fun, and seriously, if you haven’t checked out Loki, do so now, because it’s a real treat. It’s actually been good for me to take a break on the Star Wars and get into something new. I’ve been going full steam on the blogs for about a year now, and it felt good to have a little vacation.
But now it’s time to get back to work, lol. And I haven’t been completely ignoring Star Wars, either. I finished re-reading Claudia Gray’s High Republic book Into the Dark, and have started reading E.K. Johnston’s Queen’s Peril, about Padme Amidala. I was trying to wait until the paperback came out just before the third book in the series, Queen’s Hope, comes out in November, but I noticed Amazon offered it on Kindle for just $4.99. So I’m reading it on my Kindle, but will probably buy the paperback when it comes out to put on my shelf next to the paperback of Queen’s Shadow, the first in the series. Cuz I’m like that, lol.
Of course I’ve been keeping up with The Bad Batch; I didn’t do a review of last week’s episode, Reunion, but will probably do a brief review of it in this week’s episode review.
I actually had an afternoon to myself this Friday, and decided to go to this great used bookstore a couple towns over called the Montague Bookmill. I’ve always liked browsing books there, but they don’t often have many Star Wars books in their Fantasy/Science Fiction section (although I see plenty of Star Trek books). I managed to scour around and found a couple of middle grade books, which I don’t usually read, but hey, they’re Star Wars and I figured I’d just add them to my collection: Jedi Apprentice #15–The Death of Hope (a series with Qui Gon and Padawan Obi-Wan Kenobi) by Jude Watson (a series I’d actually like to read), and the young reader’s version of The Phantom Menace (with pictures from the film in the middle!) by Patricia C. Wrede.
I also found The Making of The Phantom Menace by Laurent Bouzereau and Jody Duncan, which is pretty cool. I don’t have many reference books in my collection–in fact, I don’t have any, lol, and this is a great first. I got them all for twenty bucks.
So that’s about it. Looking forward to getting back to Star Wars (but can’t wait until next Wednesday to see how Loki and Sylvie get off that doomed planet, lol).
Happy weekend, and let me know what you’ve been up to lately in the comments!
This week I’ve been charging through Clone Wars: Wild Space, a Legends novel by Karen Miller. It’s part of a series of Clone Wars books she wrote in the early 2000’s. I’m not quite sure how I feel about it yet, lol. It’s compulsively readable, and that’s why I’m tearing through it; but the characters seem to be a bit…off, I don’t know. All they seem to do is argue with one another, constantly, for one reason or another. I picked up the book because of some fan art I’d seen a few weeks ago, of Bail Organa and Obi-Wan Kenobi:
Mission to Zigoola, by Chris Trevas on Twitter.com
Naturally, I had to know what was going on here. The plot seems promising, if they could all just calm down and stop butting heads with one another. It’s kind of annoying. But we’ll see; I’ll probably finish it this week and post my thoughts on it on The Star Wars Reader.
I’ve also started to re-read Light of the Jedi, by Charles Soule, just to refresh my memory on the events of the book, in preparation for The Rising Storm, coming out June 29th. Man, I can’t wait for this book! I need to know what’s going to happen to my guy, Loden Greatstorm. As I mentioned before, I’m quite anxious about him. He’s my favorite High Republic Jedi, and at the end of LOTJ he was captured by the nefarious Nihil. (Don’t you hurt him, you sleemos! Lol. But oh, I know they will).
On the Disney+ front, I enjoyed the latest Bad Batch episode “Cornered,” and will have my thoughts on it posted probably Monday. And I finally finished Resistance–yay! As I mentioned earlier, the last few episodes of Season One got more compelling, and all of Season Two was quite good. I’ll write a post about both seasons sometime this week.
The podcast continues to be fun, and this week I’ll do one on Heir to the Jedi, by Kevin Hearne. It’s a Luke-centric story, taking place between ANH and ESB.
So on Thursday, I got my second Covid-19 shot and planned to take it easy on Friday, maybe watch a few movies (I was in a prequel kind of mood), since a lot of people report feeling tired, etc. the next day after the second shot. Well, I was tired–so much so, that I slept most of the day! Not even enough energy to watch a movie. In truth, I felt like I got hit by a truck, lol. Some body aches, headache, no appetite, etc., but mostly exhausted. So no Star Wars, just dreamland. By Saturday, I was completely fine and back to work. Totally worth a lost day to finally feel safe against Covid.
Finally, for my non-Star Wars indulgence, I watched Halston on Netflix, and I LOVED it. I suppose it’s not for everyone, but Ewan McGregor proves (as if he has to) that he’s an actor on an Emmy Award-level. He just blew me away with is portrayal of fashion designer Roy Halston, a brilliant, tragically flawed man who “changed the face of American fashion.” The five-episode series was quite a ride!
What have you been up to this past week? Let me know in the comments and we’ll talk about it!
So I usually review Star Wars books on my other blog, The Star Wars Reader, and I try to make them spoiler-free in case people haven’t read them yet and think they might want to. The point is to give a general idea of what the book is about so one can decide if they want to read it, without giving away major spoilers.
If you’re looking for a spoiler-free review of Light of the Jedi, you can go here to read it. Go there now, and don’t read any further. You’ve been warned.
But I wanted to also write a spoiler review for anyone who’s curious about the High Republic and what it’s all about, but doesn’t necessarily want to read the books. It’s a big, new addition to the Star Wars universe, and kind of a big deal as far as Canon goes. But not everyone wants to get into the books. If you’re that person, this post is for you.
This is more like a recap rather than a review, so to prevent this from being one looooong post, I’ve decided to break it up into three parts. This post will cover Part One of the book, The Great Disaster; another one will cover Part Two: The Paths; and another will cover Part Three: The Storm. Ready? Here we go:
Part One: The Great Disaster
Light of the Jedi takes place during the High Republic, roughly 200 years before The Phantom Menace. It’s a golden age–the Republic is at peace (their motto is “We are all the Republic”) and the Jedi are at the height of their powers.
But then the “Great Disaster” occurs: a transport ship called the Legacy Run encounters something in their path during hyperspace–something that is supposed to be impossible. In trying to avoid it the ship falls apart, and its debris scatters throughout neighboring space at near-lightspeed, threatening billions of lives in inhabited nearby systems.
One such system is the Hetzal system: an agricultural planet called Hetzal Prime, and its two moons, the Fruited Moon and the Rooted Moon. Minister Ecka on Hetzal Prime sends out a distress call, knowing full well there’s probably no time for anyone from the Core to arrive in time to help. He also knows there’s not enough time or ships to evacuate the billions of people on the planet, but all he can do is send out an evacuation order anyway and hope for the best. He and a group of techs, including a young genius named Keven Tarr, decide to stay on the planet and do what they can.
Luckily, a Republic ship called the Third Horizon is nearby, on its way back to Coruscant from the new space station called Starlight Beacon. It’s headed by Admiral Kronara, and a group of Jedi led by Jedi Master Avar Kriss.
Avar stays aboard the Third Horizon while a group of Jedi fly out in their Vectors, mosquito-like ships that the Jedi can control with the Force. They and a couple of pilots, Joss and Pikka, are planning on destroying a piece of debris headed straight for one of the moons. Avar, on board the Third Horizon connects to the Force and mind-links with the Jedi, to support and guide them. (In Legends, I believe this is called Battle Meditation).
One of the teams include the Jedi Master Te’Ami (a Duros), Nib Assek and her Padawan Burryaga, and Mikkel Sutmani (an Ithorian). The Padawan Burryaga, a young Wookie, has a special talent for feeling the emotions of others to a very strong degree. He tells his master, Nib Assek (who has learned Shyriiwook to better communicate with her Padawan), that there are people inside the debris fragment, terrified people who had been travelling on the Legacy Run.
Suddenly the mission has gotten much more complicated–not only must they prevent the fragment from smashing into the moon, but now they must somehow save the people inside that fragment.
Meanwhile, Jedi Master Loden Greatstorm and his Padawan Bell Zettifar fly down to the surface of Hetzal to help in any way they can. They find a mob of people trying to get through a tall gate surrounding a private residence that harbors a ship–one that can hold many more people than the family that owns it. But the family have put armed guards on the wall to keep the desperate people out. Loden confronts the guards and nearly convinces them to let the people in, but then they are attacked from behind by another group wanting to get on the ship. Meanwhile, time is running out as the debris fragments get ever nearer.
In another part of the system, Captain Bright, a Nautolan, of the Republic ship Aurora IX, and his two lieutenants Peebles and Innamen, arrive at a solar array that has been hit by a fragment. The array is quite unstable, but Captain Bright feels they must look for survivors. They do find injured survivors, but the array is dangerously close to exploding. They find a way to delay the explosion, and Captain Bright sacrifices himself to give the others time to get the injured off the station and onto the Aurora.
Meanwhile, Te’Ami’s team have come up with a plan to save the moon and the people on board the fragment: together, the Jedi will slow and hold the fragment with the Force, while Joss and Pikka attach cables to it to further slow and stop it. It would be difficult, but they have to try.
It works, but there’s a new threat: Avar Kriss senses a fragment heading toward one of Hetzal’s three suns, but there’s something about it that makes her uneasy; she senses something through the Force. After consulting some scans from Keven Tarr, it’s shown to contain liquid Tibanna. The LegacyRun had been hauling it, but now it was careening toward the sun and once it reaches it, it will explode–and the sun along with it, and presumably the rest of the system. Total annihilation.
Jedi Vector, starwars.com
Avar again links all the Jedi in the system, and then even more Jedi farther away, in different systems. Together, they all strain to move the fragment enough to make it miss the sun. It’s immensely difficult, and some Jedi even die in the attempt–but they make it work. Through the Force, they manage to move the fragment so it misses the sun, and continues on harmlessly into space.
I found this line interesting: “Across the galaxy, cheers of relief and joy. Yes, scowls from those who lived in darkness, hoping for the Jedi to fail, to be crushed, to die–but they were few.” A reference to the Sith in hiding? That’s what I’m assuming, an acknowledgment that they’re out there somewhere, but they’re not a part of this story. So far, anyway.
The Great Disaser is over–at least in Hetzal. But in the Ab Dalis system further along the hyperlane the Legacy Run had been traveling on, more fragments emerge. One hits a densely populated world in the system, and twenty million people die. This is the first Emergence. It’s assumed that many other Emergences will occur, and this is obviously a problem.
During the Ab Dalis Emergence, we are introduced to the Nihil. These are the space mauraders that are the villains of the story, and they take advantage of the situation here to raid some transports trying to get away from the destruction of the planet. The Nihil destroy several of the transports, then use poison gas kill the passengers of the others as they board them, wearing their terrifying masks.
So, going into Part Two, the Republic and the Jedi have two problems: the Emergences, and how to predict and deal with them, as well as the Nihil, who have become a growing threat to the galaxy.
I’ve recently started reading the new canon Star Wars books, and I’ve been loving them. I’ve posted a few reviews on this blog: Bloodline, Rebel Rising, and Kenobi. I’ve loved doing them so much, and have gotten so intrigued by the world of Star Wars books, that I decided to create a new blog just for them.
Introducing The Star Wars Reader. My aim is to read one Star Wars book a week and review it on this new blog. My intention is to possibly help Star Wars fans who want to start reading and exploring the books, but maybe don’t know where to start or what they might like.
As a newbie myself, I know the world of Star Wars books can be a bit confusing. Canon? Expanded Universe? Legends? What does it all mean? Hopefully, as I read more books and review them, I can shed a little light on these questions and make it a little less confusing.
I’m really excited to start this new adventure, and I’d love it if you’d join me at The Star Wars Reader. Click the link and hit the follow button or sign up with your email for every new book review.
Upcoming books include Heir to the Jedi, Catalyst, and Phasma, to name just a few.
Maybe it’s because I’m excited about the upcoming Kenobi series on Disney+ (although we have to wait until 2022); or maybe it’s because, after 20 years, I’m starting to warm to the prequels. Whatever the reason, I’m really starting to love the character of Obi-Wan Kenobi.
So in my Star Wars book perusal, I knew I had to read this one. It takes place right after Revenge of the Sith, when Obi-Wan delivers baby Luke to the Lars’ on Tattoine, with the intention of starting his long watch over the boy.
Beyond that, there isn’t much of Luke or Owen and Beru Lars; instead, we get Obi-Wan getting involved in some local drama between moisture farmers and Tusken Raiders. It sounds a bit dull, and it did take a while to get going. But Miller was laying the groundwork for a superb story, in my opinion.
The novel isn’t told from Obi-Wan’s point of view. Rather, we see him as the strange newcomer in the eyes of the locals. After all, we already know who he is and why he’s there, but they don’t. Like any isolated, small community, they’re all over “Ben,” peppering him with questions that he expertly evades, which only makes him more mysterious.
One of the point of view characters is Annileen Calwell, a widow with two teenage children. She runs her late husband’s store, Danner’s Claim; she’s a feisty, capable woman who takes an interest in the new arrival. She runs the store in honor of her late husband, Danner, but once upon a time she dreamed of something more.
Another POV character is Orrin Gault, a moisture farmer and entrepreneur, and a family friend of the Calwells. Orrin has created a defense system called the Settler’s Call, a kind of alarm and rescue organization to help any settlers attacked by the Tusken Raiders. But Orrin has secrets, and he’s willing to do whatever he has to in order to protect them.
The third POV character is a leader of one of the Tusken clans (or “Sand People”, as the locals call them) named A’Yark. It was interesting to get into the mind of one of these beings who I never really thought about before. Through A’Yark, we get a sense of their culture, how they think, and why they do the things they do. A’Yark becomes a principal player in the story thread that is expertly woven by Miller, and I was drawn in completely.
We do get to hear Obi-Wan’s voice in the form of occasional “Meditations” at the end of chapters, where he “speaks” to Qui Gon Jinn, his former master. If you recall, at the end of Revenge of the Sith, Yoda had told Obi-Wan that he would tell him how to contact the Force Ghost of Qui Gon. These meditations are Obi-Wan’s attempts at just that, but Qui Gon never answers. Obi-Wan speaks to him anyway, telling him what’s happened to him since his arrival, and his failure at trying to remain obscure.
Notably, he’s still upset about what happened with Anakin, and obsesses about how he might have prevented Anakin’s fall. But being Obi-Wan, he doesn’t allow himself to wallow too long. He finds himself in the center of a conflict between the settlers and the Tuskens, and applies his Jedi skills (discreetly, of course) to navigate the fallout.
“Kenobi” is labelled as “Legends” rather than the new canon, but no matter. I don’t think it changes or contradicts anything that has come before or may come in the future; it can simply be seen as one of Ben Kenobi’s adventures during his long tenure on Tattoine.
I loved this book; I loved its parallels to a Clint Eastwood kind of spaghetti western; I just love Obi-Wan Kenobi. If you do, too, I recommend this book highly.
Your source for everything Obi-Wan Kenobi. This is the companion blog to the @AllThingsKenobi Twitter. Because our love doesn't always fit into 280 characters.
Star Wars and Other Obsessions 