Category: Simple Tricks

Fatal Faves: The Jedi Academy Trilogy–Fond (?) Memories

Posted on June 8, 2016by and Not A Committee

jatcoverFor the latest piece in our Fatal Faves series, Megan Crouse of This Blog is Full of Words/HoloNet Digest and I got together to talk about the Jedi Academy trilogy! We both have fond memories of this much-maligned trilogy from our younger days, and we revisited them together. With much laughter, mocking, and nostalgia, here’s our conversation!

Megan: So I think maybe the first thing to discuss is whether the series even holds up – obviously we’re doing this because we’ll defend it, but would you recommend it to a fan who has maybe never read Expanded Universe material before?

Rocky: Hmm. I’d say probably not. I got into the EU due to JAT, but I also wasn’t super familiar with Star Wars before then, and didn’t know what other Star Wars books were out there. I think one of the reasons this series holds up for me is because when I first read it, I didn’t have a point of reference. But for most people, who have had at least some exposure to Star Wars? Probably not.

Megan: That’s funny that you say that, since it was one of my first exposures to the EU too. Reading it after seeing the sequel trilogy makes me realize how many parallels there are – Luke’s fears about his own power (which isn’t directly confirmed in the ST but could be a factor in his exile), Mon Mothma’s illness, Han being a father figure to a dark-haired ball of rage. That said, the corny moments are very corny and the awkward moments are very awkward (…everything, everything about Moruth Doole) so it might be a better introduction thematically than tonally?

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Worldbuilding 102 with Jason Fry

Posted on June 1, 2016by

jasonfry-classroom

Welcome to the second half of Worldbuilding with Jason Fry! In lieu of imminent Star Wars news, this interview serves any aspiring authors out there as a primer on the development of a fictional universe, based on the lessons Jason has learned from his ongoing series The Jupiter Pirates. On Friday, we began with the broadest of strokes, namely the fictional history of a future-set story and how you get from Point A to Point B (spoiler: start with B), and moved on to original characters, and how to approach the morality of your protagonist and supporting characters. Below we’ll continue that line of thought, then move on to superficial details (or are they?) like character names, and what to do when you’re tempted to retcon something. Enjoy!

While we’re discussing morality, I want to close out this section with something that’s been in the back of my head since I read the first book, Hunt for the Hydra. Even in a universe that’s billed as space fantasy—meaning not especially subject to realism—it’s always sort of uncomfortable for me to read a story set in a future that’s not explicitly dystopian but nevertheless seems to have regressed in social areas.  What I’m thinking of specifically is the crewers aboard the Shadow Comet; they come across very clearly as a lower class than the Hashoones, often if not always less educated and mannered, and in some cases are even the second or third or god-knows-what generation of their family to serve as gunners or cooks or what-have-you for the Hashoone family. There’s no indication that they’re particularly unhappy or underpaid, but nevertheless it’s very easy to get a whiff of “indentured servitude” here—and I can only imagine how much worse it is on other ships.

In an historically-set pirate story I’m sure this kind of thing would be very accurate, but I have to admit it’s sort of depressing to read about a society this far in the future that still has such gigantic class disparities, and it’s always in the back of my head when Tycho and Yana are ordering around people two or three times their age, or visiting slums on what seems like every moon they come across, or fending off press gangs in your short story “The Trouble With Crimps”. Am I overthinking this? Do you see it as a necessary evil for a pirate story that you worked backwards to justify, or worse, do you think the story is subtlely making the case that this is something we’ll never get past? Read More

Worldbuilding 101 with Jason Fry

Posted on May 27, 2016by Interviews

jasonfry-classroom

The last time Jason Fry and I digitally sat down together, The Force Awakens was right around the corner and a deluge of Force Friday books had just swept away everybody’s mental real estate. Even in a two-part interview, it was a huge challenge to cover everything Jason was then involved with in the world of Star Wars without asking a hundred questions. So it was actually kind of a relief that this time the decks were nice and clear—we know he’ll have things coming out this fall in conjunction with Rogue One, but it’s a mite too soon for any real detail on those (hell, even any fake detail).

What, then, should we talk about? Well, he does have one thing coming out just around the corner (June 14th, to be precise), something with a long history of coming up in these interviews of ours—The Rise of Earth, the third book in his original series The Jupiter Pirates. Something that’s also come up a lot is Jason’s advice on designing a world like JP’s from scratch; how that process was informed by his Star Wars experiences, and vice-versa. I know a lot of us SW fans have dabbled in original fiction inspired by our fandom (some, like Bryan Young and Tricia Barr, have even released their own stories and gotten invited to do SW as a result), so I thought rather than do a straight interview entirely about a non-SW series, it would be fun to frame this as sort of a seminar in worldbuilding, covering everything from the first steps to the finishing details, and even post-publishing.

First up we’ll discuss the foundations of the Jupiter Pirates universe—why it is the way that it is—and how they inform the messages present in the work, both deliberate and happenstance. Then in the second part on Wednesday (we’ll be off for Memorial Day) we’ll look at smaller stuff like naming characters, and how to handle errors that come up once a book is committed to paper. Read More

The Quick and Easy Path: Politics and the Force

Posted on May 23, 2016by Feature Articles, The Works

or-senate

Politics have been part of Star Wars since the opening pages of Alan Dean Foster’s novelization of A New Hope told the story of how the Old Republic became the Empire not through a military coup, but because it rotted from within due to corruption. With the publication of Claudia Gray’s political drama Bloodline, and the revelation that its central conflict arose from suggestions by Episode VIII director Rian Johnson, politics are once again at the forefront of the Star Wars universe. But does the saga have a core political philosophy, or make a political statement? If it does, how does it relate to the overall philosophy of Star Wars? And can we use it to predict where the franchise might take us next?

Harmony and corruption in the old Republic

The Phantom Menace is the clearest statement of George Lucas’s political outlook, and we can use it as a starting point to follow this thread through the rest of his six-episode saga. On a narrative level, TPM is the story of Padmé Amidala, told mainly through the eyes of Qui-Gon Jinn: the core conflict against the Trade Federation is Padmé’s, and it is her choices – first to leave Naboo and appeal to the Senate, then to return and unite her people with the Gungans – that drive the story and give it shape. It is unlike any other film in the saga – not the mythic hero’s journey of a Jedi-to-be, but the story of a young woman’s political coming-of-age.

Padmé leaves Naboo because she believes in the ability of the Senate to save her people from the Federation. Arriving on Tatooine, however, Padmé is shocked to discover that there is still slavery in the galaxy, and that there are places where the laws of the Republic simply do not exist. Even Republic money is worthless out here, and the entire planet is controlled by gangsters. The implication is clear: the Republic doesn’t care about what happens on the galactic frontier. When we reach Coruscant, we discover that the Trade Federation, a corporation driven by profit, has its own seat in the Senate, giving it a voice in galactic affairs that is equal to any Republic system, and stronger than worlds such as Tatooine. Taking advantage of legalism and bureaucracy, the Federation is able to stall the Senate’s actions. Read More

A civil chat about the uncivil politics of Bloodline

Posted on May 9, 2016by , and Not A Committee

john-boehner[1]

 

Here at ETE, we’ve been waiting for Bloodline with scarcely contained anticipation. Politics is a favorite subject matter of ours, and you can bet that a pre-The Force Awakens politics book with Leia as its main character basically checks off all of our boxes. So as the second of what’s looking to be five pieces on Claudia Gray’s latest contribution to the Star Wars universe, we have a little chat about different aspects and observations we’ve made about the book.

Sarah, Rocky, and I each couldn’t wait to start talking about the book. We’ve already heard some of Sarah’s thoughts on disparate points of view and how that affects the political dialogue in the New Republic. We’ll definitely have to chat some more about that. But first let’s start with some general observations on Bloodline.

Jay: It’s a book we’ve waited so long for (excitement built for it even before TFA, before any of us had any idea what the book would be about, simply because of the “New Republic” tag it originally had). Being on the other side of that is still odd to me, but it’s a good feeling because we got the novel we wanted. We got the Leia political novel that not only teased the developing politics of TFA, that not only featured an excellent portrayal of Leia, but surprised a lot of us with the nuanced characterization of Ransolm Casterfo. We expected the intrigue and the politics, but I don’t know that we expected so many feelings from this book. I’m glad to get to know what Hosnian was like before it got blown up, glad to meet my apparent doppelgänger Casterfo, and will be on the #VoteLeia train for all eternity.

Rocky, what are your opening thoughts about the book?

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