From the Butlerniverse

Each time a new episode of The EU Review is released, I am hoping that I will find time to provide a few added notes to supplement comments in each episode.

The EU Review: Episode 8

• The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance (novel, Sean Williams)
• Legacy: Volumes 1 and 2 (comics, John Ostrander)
  
• 2010 Star Wars Hyperspace Fan Club Membership Kit (various, various)
• Listener Feedback (Andrew Halliday)

I should kick off this set of show notes with a couple of general impressions.

First, this ended up being a very Nathan-centric episode. It wasn’t planned that way, but it seems as though my continuity “mini-rant,” the fact that I pre-recorded the letters in the listener feedback portion, and my pre-recorded review of that rather large Fan Club Kit created a general overload of content from me instead of Andrew. I don’t know if Andrew felt this imbalance, but I certainly noticed it after the fact.

Second, we did record this prior to Celebration V, hence Andrew’s very general comments about C5 at the beginning (pretending that it already happened) and my own slip later when I seem to keep switching tenses when referring to the trivia contest for charity held by Arnie Carvalho, which had also not happened yet as of the time we were recording. (For what it’s worth, I recorded the questions and answers independently, so Andrew never even heard them until after Celebration 5 had ended, so that he could not have been given an unfair advantage if he had chosen to attend the trivia contest.)

Within our introductory comments, I mentioned the new release of The Star Wars Timeline Gold, which can be found here. Andrew then mentions Celebration 5, and I would be remiss if I did not mention that I had been stressing over being able to get Tales from the Clone Wars and Knight Errant #0 from C5 this year. Fortunately, even though both Andrew and Arnie were willing to help me get them, I was able to get Tales from the Clone Wars from StarWarsShop.com right as C5 was gearing up, and fellow Republic Force Radio Network personality Dan “The Rockstar” Beasley was kind enough to snag me a copy of Knight Errant #0 on the very first morning of C5.

Regarding the trivia: I truly did know each of those off the top of my head, hence feeling like they were all fair game. The aforementioned Dan Beasley actually texted me during the trivia contest to say “ARGH!” to some questions and note that the wording definitely sounded like me (whatever that means!).

Regarding Fatal Alliance: The whole issue of when it takes place became a major concern for me when it came out. I ended up going around in circles yet again about certain fact-screening policies with Wookieepedia at the time, as I was able to get significant information from Leland Chee to help clarify that the 3,650 BBY date was incorrect, yet those over at “the Wook” were unwilling to accept that new information without some kind of publicly-posted statement from Leland or me showing them the original emails (which Leland does not want done) as proof. Fortunately, after all the turmoil, Leland popped up on the forums at StarWars.com and confirmed that the novel is “some years” after the Treaty of Coruscant.

For those curious, yes, I did contact Leland directly about the “Rahm Kota saying cloning a Jedi isn’t possible” issue in relation to Elite Squadron before making any tweaks to the timing of Elite Squadron on the Star Wars Timeline Gold release for August 2010. You should consider that placement accurate, though he could not confirm whether Kota was telling the truth or lying to Starkiller in that scene.

And, yes, the “mini-rant” was actually scripted out ahead of time so I could keep it all straight and pithy.

Regarding Legacy: It really is my favorite Star Wars comic of all time, with Tales of the Jedi (at least the 4,000 BBY era stuff) comes in a close second. I made a note about how it is odd for them to end the series at #50, only to have to use a six-issue mini-series (War) to wrap it all up. Sue Rostoni confirmed to me via the StarWars.com forums that, yes, she believes that the reason War is a mini-series instead of just issues #51 – 56 is because of this new trend in Star Wars comics to return to numbered story arcs, rather than numbering for the full series. Another example of this is Invasion: Rescues starting with #1, when it is actually Invasion #6. An oddity, however, is The Old Republic, which recently launched. That series features Threat of Peace in #1 – 3, but its first issue of Blood of the Empire is #4, not BOTE #1.

Regarding the Membership Kit: I actually recorded this segment three times. The third time was the most pithy and efficient, if you can believe it. It still ended up being about half an hour long. I have, by the way, been a member of Hyperspace (minus that brief lapse when I didn’t realize I’d lost the subscription for about a month that I mention) since the first day it was available.

Regarding the letter(s) from Andrew Halliday: The issue of chemical/biological weapons is, in fact, something I teach, though not until near the end of the school year in World History.

I partly feel as though I should apologize for not wanting to include “just released,” “just announced,” or “coming this month” listings in episodes of the show, even though my reasons for not wanting to include them are sound. I suppose I should just allow my comments in the episode to speak for themselves.

I was tempted to include the letter mentioned very early in the show that prompted me to mention the SWT-G, but it made more sense only to refer to it, rather than to include it.

As for the next episode, we can only currently confirm that we’ll be covering the third and fourth volumes of Legacy. Beyond that, we have not yet discussed what we intend to cover for September. You can expect us to do some major coverage of The Force Unleashed II in the coming months, but I’m betting on November for that one, since we’ll need time to play through multiple versions of the game, while also reading the comic and novel adaptations thereof.

Thanks for listening to the 10th regular episode (and 14th overall episode) of The EU Review. We look forward to releasing our next few episodes, which include episodes of The Obscure Side and our next regular episode in September.

Let us know what you think of the episode: You can email the show at eureview@solosound.net or leave us a voicemail at (530) EUT-K421. Get it? “EU . . . TK-421?” Yeah, clever on the other guys’ part, not mine. Credit where due. The number otherwise is (530) 388-5421. We welcome your feedback and your iTunes reviews if so inclined.

Last week marked the release of the third episode of The EU Review’s side series, The Obscure Side.

The goal with this series is to focus on short reviews, which cover obscure Star Wars items that we might not otherwise cover in regular episodes of the show.  Since the release of the first episode, we have tweaked the concept a little bit. Rather than swapping hosts with each episode, The Obscure Side will be hosted entirely by Nathan (me), while Andrew is considering a different possible side series for the future.

The series continues this time with . . .

The EU Review: The Obscure Side #3

• Ewoks (comic series, Marvel Comics, Star Comics imprint)
  

I have little else to note other than what I said in the episode.  If you supplemented listening to the second episode of The Obscure Side, which featured the Droids comics from Marvel, by listening to my thoughts on the Droids cartoon on Republic Forces Radio Network, then I’d suggest keeping an eye out next summer. We are considering (though it may end up with out brains oozing out of our ears) creating a similar review series next summer to cover Ewoks, though its larger number of episodes makes that a bit up in the air right now.

This episode marks the second part of a three-part “cycle” within The Obscure Side. Having already looked at the Marvel (Star) Comics’ Droids series, we now check out the Ewoks series. The next episode will feature other Marvel reprints (particularly the original black and white, prestige format Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago). As previously mentioned (in the last show notes), the one after that is also already recorded, and it also attacks a topic with a three-part approach (though just in the one episode). In that case, the topic will be Star Wars manga reprints (cinemanga AKA photo comics, the manga film adaptations, and Tokyopop’s Star Wars Manga Black and Silver). Look for those in the coming months.

I would note that collecting the Ewoks comics is a lot more difficult than collecting the Droids comics. Droids had only eight issues, which you can often find in lots on Ebay, while Ewoks had fourteen issues, and it appears that the later issues in the series are much harder to find than the earlier ones. It is probably actually easier to collect the entire regular Marvel series (#1 – 107, Annual #1 – 3, and ROTJ #1 – 4) than it is to collect the fourteen issues of Ewoks. Expect to find yourself buying lots at least once or twice that have more comics than you actually need, as many issues only rarely show up on Ebay as single issues.

Let us know what you think of the episode: You can email the show at eureview@solosound.net or leave us a voicemail at (530) EUT-K421 (530-388-5421). We welcome your feedback and your iTunes reviews if so inclined.

Today marks the release of the second episode of The EU Review’s side series, The Obscure Side.

The goal with this series is to focus on short reviews, which cover obscure Star Wars items that we might not otherwise cover in regular episodes of the show.  Since the release of the first episode, we have tweaked the concept a little bit. Rather than swapping hosts with each episode, The Obscure Side will be hosted entirely by Nathan (me), while Andrew is considering a different possible side series for the future.

The series continues this time with . . .

The EU Review: The Obscure Side #2

• Droids (comic series, Marvel Comics, Star Comics imprint)
  

I have little else to note other than what I said in the episode.  I would simply add that if you want to hear my thoughts on the Droids cartoon series, rather than the comics, you should check out the summer programming at Republic Forces Radio Network.

Also, this episode marks the beginning of a three-part “cycle” within The Obscure Side. The next episode will feature Marvel (Star) Comics’ Ewoks series, then the following episode will feature other Marvel reprints (particularly the original black and white, prestige format Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago). The one after that is also already recorded, and it also attacks a topic with a three-part approach (though just in the one episode). In that case, the topic will be Star Wars manga reprints (cinemanga AKA photo comics, the manga film adaptations, and Tokyopop’s Star Wars Manga Black and Silver). Look for those in the coming months.

Let us know what you think of the episode: You can email the show at eureview@solosound.net or leave us a voicemail at (530) EUT-K421 (530-388-5421). We welcome your feedback and your iTunes reviews if so inclined.

Each time a new episode of The EU Review is released, I am hoping that I will find time to provide a few added notes to supplement comments in each episode.

The EU Review: Episode 7

• The Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia (book, Jason Fry)
• Gambit: Siege (novel, Karen Miller)
• Star Wars Omnibus: A Long Time Ago, Volume I (comic, various)
• Listener Feedback (multiple)

First off, I should note that we recorded the first half or so of this episode twice and very close to release. Usually we record episodes with a week or more to go before release, but I was out of town for part of the week prior to this episode’s release, which meant that we had to record it on Thursday or Friday, July 15 or 16, when it was set to go online the following Tuesday (July 20). With my schedule, that meant that I would have a very quick turnaround time for editing the episode.

To make matters worse, we tried to record the episode on Thursday evening, but I was suffering from a migraine and Andrew wasn’t really feeling up to par either. As such, we recorded the introductory segment and the first two reviews, only to run out of both time and “steam.” We decided to wait to finish the rest on Friday, then simply decided to dump everything we’d already recorded to give it a fresh, better run the second time around. It worked out well, as my migraine left me rambling more than normal.

Now, on to the actual episode contents.

With regard to Celebration and its predecessors. This year, we have some form of so-called “Professional Learning Days” for teachers during the first two days of Celebration V. That knocked out this year. Celebration IV was during the very last days of school that year, and Celebration III was right around the state-mandated End of Course Tests. Celebration II the same weekend I graduated from college (undergraduate, that is), and Celebration I was halfway across the country in the waning days of my first year of college. My luck with Celebration timing sucks. Still, though, huge conventions usually aren’t my thing. I prefer the smaller, more personal conventions like ConCarolinas.

As for the new edition of the Star Wars Timeline Gold, you’ll find it here when released, and you can find more information about the WARS novella on the Grail Quest Books website.

Regarding the contests: When I say “all six” Starter Decks for the WARS Trading Card Game, I do mean all six: the four released in the Incursion set and the two released for Nowhere to Hide. I also have tons of other cards I could possibly include, as I picked up several booster boxes when I first began researching for the novella. As far as the comic pack, I would, of course, sign the package for the winner, and I actually have a few of those here for various contests down the line.

In the review of The Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia, I refer to other DK books that I thought it would resemble. One such example is the Ultimate Guide to Transformers, which you can see here. Meanwhile, the article that I mentioned on StarWars.com that features Jason Fry’s comments on the book and what he was unable to include can be found here. (It literally showed up on the website while we were recording for the first time on Thursday. That also screwed up some of my comments because I had no way to explain the lack of Boba Fett, etc. It worked out better all around to record everything over again on Friday.) Oh, and, for those who are too young to know what I was talking about when I referred to G.I. Joe file cards, I’m referring to the cut-out profiles on action figure packaging from the 1980s toys that you can find and example of (Cobra Commander) here.

Regarding my criticisms of Siege, I would urge you to remember that I recommended the novel. I really did like it, but those blemishes were truly bizarre. To give you some links on each:

First, when I refer to the covers not helping the casual reader when finding both in a bookstore, you’ll see what I mean when you check out the covers for Stealth and for Siege. Is there anything other than the “author of” note that would even remotely point you to one or the other as the first novel in the series if you were coming in cold?

Second, if you’re looking for more information on Star Wars in-universe swear words and slang in general, see this somewhat comprehensive list.

Third, Lok Durd is not the first character with issues about escaping from custody. In the feature film The Clone Wars, Ziro the Hutt is arrested, and he remains in jail until being freed by Cad Bane in Hostage Crisis as the first season of The Clone Wars ended. That’s lovely and all, but Ziro shows up free from prison in the Jedi Alliance video game for Nintendo DS. That pushed the game for certain into the post-Hostage Crisis era, or it necessitated that he was somehow freed (to be in Jedi Alliance), then arrested again, only to be freed in Hostage Crisis. I’m afraid that we may see that happen with Lok Durd. (Minor spoiler for the end of Siege in the next paragraph only!)

(Begin Spoiler!)

What I mean by that is that Lok Durd is still free at the end of Siege. He escapes from the Republic force sent to capture Lanteeb. That basically means that he was captured on film and then freed in a novel, only to still be free because of a novel. If and when Lok Durd is revisited in the cartoon series, what happens if they decide to show another “breakout” scenario like Hostage Crisis, rather than having him simply be free for no apparent (televised) reason? We will end up with a situation where they will have to retcon him being captured again, so that he can be freed again, or they would have to somehow work that episode in between his capture in Defenders of Peace and his release prior to Stealth, which is a very tight space, it seems. They are creating potential problems for themselves.

(End Spoilers!)

As far as Queen Jamillia . . . I have no answer for why on earth she would have been the queen in Siege, but not in Blue Shadow Virus. Then again, there is no obvious reason why Jamillia would have been the queen in Attack of the Clones, but not in Blue Shadow Virus. I can only assume (as I have for the SWT-G) that Jamillia dies or steps down for some reason before her term should end, shortly after Siege, so that Neyutnee can step up prior to Blue Shadow Virus. Perhaps there’s a story in there somewhere. Still, I’d love to know why Miller used Jamillia or the TCW team decided to drop Jamillia in favor of a totally new queen out of the blue in Season 1.

Regarding A Long Time Ago:

I referred to a future episode of The Obscure Side. Let me lay out the Marvel content for The Obscure Side. I don’t know when they will be released, but my second, third, and fourth episodes of that side series will cover the Marvel Droids, Ewoks, and Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago prestige format series, respectively. The latter will also include a brief comment on the seven-volume Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago trade paperback series, Classic Star Wars: The Vandelhelm Mission, the reprints of the Marvel film adaptations, and more. Keep an eye out for those in the coming months.

I also mentioned the absence of the “Marvel Comics Group” on the top of the issue covers. That was something I would never have thought to look for if I had not been reading IDW’s recent reprint collections of the 1980s and 1990s issues of Marvel’s G.I. Joe and G.I. Joe: Special Missions comics (in the form of IDW’s Classic G.I. Joe trade paperbacks and Special Missions trade paperbacks). In the Special Missions, Volume I trade paperback, I noticed a lot of extra space above Duke in the cover images and realized that the “Marvel Comics” logo had been removed (which makes sense, given that it isn’t Marvel reprinting these). That prompted me to flip through the A Long Time Ago omnibus to look for a similar approach, and, sure enough, they had removed the “Marvel Comics Group.” It’s not very noticeable, unless you know to look for it.

In the listener feedback section, in the response to Graham, I referenced the 2003 comments from Randy Stradley about continuity, editorial items, and so forth, along with the ChronoRadio episode that sparked a lot of controversy at the time. If you would like to hear the original episode, it is ChronoRadio: Episode VII.V: My Show Runneth Over. Bear in mind that it was released in February 2003, over seven years ago.

And, yes, if you’re sick of hearing about the continuity errors in Coruscant Nights . . . I won’t stop using it as the poster child for continuity errors until there’s a better mainstream example. (Heh.)

The medical condition being referenced in John’s letter is Capgras syndrome. The Radiolab podcast episode he points out can be found here.

When discussing the letter from Jim, I pointed out that I still need the following two comics to complete that collection: Full of Surprises and Most Precious Weapon. Help me, dear listeners! Also, if you are interested in picking up any of my Star Wars comics or vintage Star Wars action figure and vehicle toys (and some others), click on the links (in this sentence) to see my lists of those on the Star Wars Action News “Bounty Hunting” forum.

I think that pretty much wraps up my thoughts on this episode, though I should mention that we were supposed to review Fatal Alliance this time around, but it was released the same day as this episode, and we were unable to gain review copies of the novel as expected. As such, we’ll be covering that novel in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to the 9th regular episode (and 12th overall episode) of The EU Review. We look forward to releasing our next few episodes, which include numerous episodes of The Obscure Side and our next regular episode in August. So far, much of the August content has not yet been determined, but we should be covering Fatal Alliance, the first tie-in novel to The Old Republic.

Let us know what you think of the episode: You can email the show at eureview@solosound.net or leave us a voicemail at (530) EUT-K421. Get it? “EU . . . TK-421?” Yeah, clever on the other guys’ part, not mine. Credit where due. The number otherwise is (530) 388-5421. We welcome your feedback and your iTunes reviews if so inclined.

July 13, 2010 marked the release of the first episode of The EU Review side series, The Obscure Side.

The goal with this series is to focus on short reviews, hosted by only one of the show’s regular hosts (Nathan P. Butler or Andrew Lupi), which cover obscure Star Wars items that we might not otherwise cover in regular episodes of the show.

The current plan is to alternate between who hosts each episode, and all episodes are being recorded well ahead of release in order to have a backlog of new material to supplement our regularly-scheduled recording sessions.

We begin this time with . . .

The EU Review: The Obscure Side #1

• Introduction to The Obscure Side
• Star Wars 3-D (comic series, Blackthorne Publishing)
  

I have little else to note other than what I said in the episode. The only part I didn’t really get into was how I first collected these particular comics.

As you might know, I collect all mainstream (and most non-mainstream) Star Wars Expanded Universe books and comics. Years ago, someone pointed out these 3-D comics to me, and I later found a set of scans of these issues. Needless to say, reading a 3-D comic without glasses is tough, but doing so on a computer screen is downright brutal. Fortunately, I was able to grayscale them and tweak the images enough to make the red lines mostly disappear. That allowed me to at least read them and summarize them for the Star Wars Timeline Gold.

I then pretty much ignored Star Wars 3-D for quite a while. It was only in summer of 2010, when I started to really make an effort to finish my Star Wars comic collection with a lot of Ebay purchases, that I stumbled across them again. I wound up able to purchase two of the issues in a “lot” for a great price (with two pair of 3-D glasses to boot!), and the other issue at a decent price.

It was actually that process of acquiring the Star Wars 3-D comics and some other oddball items that finally convinced me to suggest the concept for The Obscure Side to Andrew. I figured that something like this, which I owned but I didn’t think he owned (which was later confirmed), would make an interesting review, but I didn’t want to have more of those segments on the regular show where one of us has read something and the other has not. It made more sense to come up with a new way to feature things like these with solo hosting, and the ball got rolling to eventually lead to The Obscure Side.

The EU Review: The Obscure Side will return in August with its second episode, featuring Andrew’s take on the first batch of Star Wars ebooks (not including Lost Tribe of the Sith). I’ll then return with the third episode in September, which will feature a look at the Marvel (Star) Comics Droids series. Andrew’s episode for October should include the second portion of the ebook review, while my episodes in November and January will focus on Marvel Comics’ Ewoks series and reprints in the original prestige format Classic Star Wars: A Long Time Ago (that will also act as a sort of history lesson on Marvel Star Wars reprints).

In theory, any of these episodes could be pushed up from their current schedule, and some probably will be. We are simply assuming one per month, since each month has one regular episode, and we should have some interviews on the way at the moment.

I hope you enjoy this new side series.

Let us know what you think of the episode: You can email the show at eureview@solosound.net or leave us a voicemail at (530) EUT-K421 (530-388-5421). We welcome your feedback and your iTunes reviews if so inclined.

July 3, 2010 marked the release of the fourth “irregular” episode of The EU Review. This episode is our third to feature an interview with a current Star Wars author. This time, we interviewed Knights of the Old Republic and Knight Errant (etc.) series author John Jackson Miller.

The EU Review: Episode 6.5

• Interview: John Jackson Miller (author)

I don’t have much to add for this episode beyond what you would have heard in the episode itself. I would say three quick things, however.

First, I know that I flat-out announced that JJM was one of my favorite Star Wars authors during the show, directly to him. I’m sure some will criticize that as either flattery or sucking up during the show. I saw it as neither. I simply considered it a statement of fact to help give context to my part in the interview.

Second, we had actually not intended to talk much about Knight Errant yet because we figured that JJM wouldn’t be able to say much about it at this point. That’s when Andrew made the call to toss out Knight Errant questions at the start as a means of providing some information, while also creating a baseline for comparisons to other projects as questions progressed.

Third, some have said they were surprised that I admitted to JJM in the interview that I was among those who, prior to Demon’s ending, thought the KOTOR series should have ended with Vindication perhaps. Frankly, that’s a matter of record (since it’s been said plenty on the show), and I found that my happy relief in seeing a great payoff with Demon was something that other fans experienced and made a nice basis for a question about pacing in the interview.

Overall, it was a great interview, and I’m happy that all of our interviews for the show, thus far, have been some of the most interesting I’ve conducted since launching ChronoRadio back in 2002.

Thanks for listening to this special episode of The EU Review. We look forward to releasing our next episode, which is The EU Review: Episode 7, which is slated to include our take on the following:

• Gambit: Siege (novel, Karen Miller)
• The Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia (guide, Jason Fry)
• Star Wars Omnibus: A Long Time Ago, Vol. 1 (comic, various)
• Listener Feedback (if time permits)

I should note that this list for the next episode does not include The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance by Sean Williams. We had hoped to receive review copies of this one from Del Rey, but it does not look like that is happening, as far as I know. Given that The EU Review: Episode 7 should be online the very same day as the novel’s release date, I’m almost certain that we will have to push it back to the August episode.

Take heart, though! Our new side-series, The EU Review: The Obscure Side, will premiere on July 13 with its first episode, featuring my take on Blackthorne Publishing’s Star Wars 3-D comic series.

Let us know what you think of the episode: You can email the show at eureview@solosound.net or leave us a voicemail at (530) EUT-K421 (530-388-5421). We welcome your feedback and your iTunes reviews if so inclined.

Just a few quick updates for those trying to follow my happenings:

1. We have not heard back yet on the WARS Earther novella still. Decipher is busy with the relaunch of one of their properties, so we’re in a sort of waiting period or holding pattern. We just passed the two month mark in Decipher having the manuscripts for approvals, so we are hopeful we will hear something soon. At this point, I do still plan (hope) to write the second Earther novella, but it will end up being during the hectic school year again, most likely, which is fine, just stressful.

2. A while back, I reviewed the video game The Eye of Judgment and its PSP quasi-sequel, The Eye of Judgment: Legends. If you were intrigued by those reviews, but you have not picked up the original PS3 EOJ game, I would now pass on that purchase if you intend to play online multiplayer. That functionality is soon going to be terminated when the servers are shut down. The PSP version, however, is still going quite strong and will continue to allow multiplayer.

3. A new episode of The EU Review (our John Jackson Miller interview) went up on July 3. I’m hoping to have show notes up for it sometime on July 4 or 5. I’m a tad behind on that.

4. Expect the first episode of The Obscure Side to hit sometime between now and July 20, either on July 6 or 13. It will be the one covering Star Wars 3-D.

5. We are probably putting off reviewing Fatal Alliance until the August episode. It doesn’t look like we’re getting review copies of this one from Del Rey, so we’ll end up buying them ourselves.  Unfortunately, the release date of The EU Review: Episode 7 is the same day that Fatal Alliance is released, so we can’t review it in this episode without review copies this time around.

6. The new edition of the Star Wars Timeline Gold should arrive sometime in the first week or so of August, I believe. I want to be sure Fatal Alliance gets on that one as well, along with, if possible, the final issue of Legacy.

7. On the collecting front, I have now finished my Ewoks collection. I now only still need, as far as I can tell, two comics to complete my Star Wars single-issue comic collection. Those are two of the 2002 Toys R Us exclusive tie-in comics for AOTC, entitled Most Precious Weapon and Full of Surprises.

8. I will be continuing my coverage of Playstation Plus as it rolls along. For what it’s worth, I’ve gotten a lot of use out of Wipeout HD (the free game of Month 1), certainly the $19.99 worth that the game would cost by itself. I have also gotten quite a bit of enjoyment out of Cuboid, which I bought with the PS+ discount, which, along with its DLC, turned a $20 game into an $8 game. Thus, I’ve gotten about $32 in value (not counting Age of Zombies or anything else this month) for my $50 in just those two items. So far, it’s worthwhile for me.

Never let it be said that The EU Review does not listen to its fans. Fellow host Andrew Lupi and I have been collaborating recently on new ideas for the show.

The one request we seem to hear most often is that we review Star Wars material that is not “brand new.” We have touched upon that from time to time with some of our reviews, but fans seem to want more “old stuff” being reviewed.

Meanwhile, I am still producing segments for the Star Wars collecting podcast Star Wars Action News, which puts me in a collecting mindset from time to time. Much of my collecting lately, though, has been in hunting down older, more obscure Star Wars Expanded Universe materials, such as the Ewoks comic book series.

Together, the idea of reviewing older materials and my hunt for oddball items has led us to the conclusion that we will be launching a new side series of episodes for The EU Review, entitled The Obscure Side. In these new, much shorter episodes, Andrew and I will take turns hosting an episode solo (rather than together) for short reviews of oddball items like, for example, Blackthorne Publishing’s Star Wars 3-D comic book series from 1987.

You should expect the first of these episodes sometime in the next month or so, but there will not be a set schedule for The Obscure Side. They will appear as time permits, making them a bit elusive, much like the items they cover.

Each time a new episode of The EU Review is released, I am hoping that I will find time to provide a few added notes to supplement comments in each episode.

The EU Review: Episode 6

• Adventures in Hyperspace (book series, Ryder Windham)
• Purge (comic series, John Ostrander and Haden Blackman)
• Star Wars Omnibus: Boba Fett (comic, various)
• Invasion: Volume 1 (comic, Tom Taylor)
• Knights of the Old Republic: Volume 9 (comic, John Jackson Miller)
• Listener Feedback (multiple)

We begin this episode with a few brief notes from yours truly:

As far as my purchasing an Xbox 360: I am seriously considering doing so by the time that the Star Wars game for Kinect arrives. However, as much as I was excited to see the new Xbox 360 “S” model that was released right after we recorded the episode, I have discovered that the very same thing that was causing me not to purchase an earlier Xbox 360 is rearing its head again. Back then, it was the “Red Ring of Death” (RROD) that was killing Xbox 360 systems. Yesterday, after less than a week on the market, I began hearing (and seeing YouTube proof) about brand new “S” model Xbox 360s failing with a sort of “Red Dot of Death.” At this point, I’m not willing to put $300+ into a system that I can expect to fail on me. I already had that experience with the original Xbox. Microsoft is going to have to do better with these this time around. Still, I have until sometime in 2011 before the Star Wars Kinect game arrives, so we shall see.

Ironically, right around the time that we learned that Al Williamson had passed away, I had just purchased the twenty-issue Classic Star Wars series from Dark Horse, which I bought to finally replace my previous set of the three trade paperbacks (TPBs) for the series.

As for the quick comment about those other podcasts, I’ll provide links here:

• Star Wars Action News Book Club
• Marvel Star Wars
  

The former is where you’ll hear that Donald F. Glut interview once they’re able to release their (our) very next episode. The latter is the show by Joshua Lapin-Bertone, which reviews each issue of the Marvel series, and he’s the one who reminded me about Glut writing Behemoth from the World Below.

If you are wanting to see that collection of my Expanded Universe materials, you can follow this direct link to the Facebook page for The EU Review. I have updated it since we recorded. I’m currently only waiting on the arrival of: Ewoks #1, 2, and 11; Jason Fry’s The Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia; a hardback copy of Shadow Star; and the three-issue Willow comic book adaptation. These are all on their way via Ebay or Amazon right now.

Regarding Adventures in Hyperspace: The official Star Wars website released a preview of the first book soon after we recorded. If you want to get a sense of what I mean as far as text per page and the use of pictures, check out this link. That very short preview (which seems to be about 650 words, give or take) represents an entire chapter in the book, taking up a full eight pages out of the 92 story pages in Fire Ring Race.  Still, though, with a line from Han like “I happen to like to shoot first,” there’s some nice little references in there by Windham.

Regarding the Purge comics, if you want to see a preview of each (so you can see the differing art styles, especially they totally out-of-place art in Seconds to Die and the great art in The Hidden Blade), Dark Horse has previews of each: Purge; Seconds to Die; and The Hidden Blade.

Regarding the Star Wars Omnibus: Boba Fett, let me break this one down in text here for you.

The Star Wars Omnibus: Boba Fett includes all of the following:

• Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire
• Underworld: The Yavin Vassilika
• Empire: Sacrifice
• Empire: Wreckage
• Boba Fett: Overkill
• Boba Fett: Salvage
• Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction
• Boba Fett: Bounty on Bar-Kooda
• Boba Fett: When the Fat Lady Swings
• Boba Fett: Murder Most Foul
• Boba Fett: Agent of Doom
  

The Boba Fett: Death, Lies, and Treachery trade paperback includes:

• Boba Fett: Bounty on Bar-Kooda
• Boba Fett: When the Fat Lady Swings
• Boba Fett: Murder Most Foul

The Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire trade paperback includes:

• Boba Fett: Enemy of the Empire
• Boba Fett: Salvage
• Empire: Sacrifice
• Empire: Wreckage
  

The Boba Fett: Man with a Mission trade paperback includes:

• Boba Fett: Overkill
• Boba Fett: Agent of Doom
  

The Underworld: The Yavin Vassilika trade paperback includes only that story, while Boba Fett: Twin Engines of Destruction appears in the trade paperback of The Bounty Hunters.

Hopefully that will help you keep those straight if looking at whether the omnibus is worth the purchase price, relative to your own previous Boba Fett purchases.

Regarding Invasion, the online preview that I mentioned (which becomes Invasion #0 or Refugees: Prologue) that has the continuity error can still be found online here.

It feels good to finally finish our reviews of Knights of the Old Republic. I look forward to being able to deal with Legacy at some point. If you are wanting more information behind the scenes about KOTOR, see John Jackson Miller’s website or our upcoming interview with JJM  himself.

That brings us into the mailbag segment. I feel as though we might be perceived as short-changing Ian Campbell’s letter, but we just didn’t find anything we took issue with. Our response was more in line with “wow, it’s Ian.” (Ian was the host of Ian’s Sci-Fi Review.)

The mailbag this time helped to show, I hope, how many ways you can send in feedback. You can provide feedback via email, voicemail, iTunes reviews, Facebook, and so forth. Be sure to do so!

Regarding Dan Fuller’s email: the other shows of mine that he mentions are ChronoRadio, The Butlerniverse, and the Star Wars EU Primer.

Dan’s email opened up the door for a bit of a “rant” on my part (familiar to my listeners over the years) about the issue of writers reusing the same characters and so forth, while also discussing the overall concept behind authorial voice in Star Wars novels. This does negate the need for a separate episode on that topic, so consider that episode dropped from our potential episode lineup.

(And, yes, I am definitely “part of the problem.” See those Facebook photo albums. I can’t help buying the mainstream stuff, though I avoid the children’s books and such.)

Regarding the email from Dan Wright: I actually do end up getting kind of embarrassed to read such highly-complimentary emails. I may not seem like it, but I’m often more humble than I should be, I’m told. : shrug :

By the way, we weren’t intending to cover feedback this time, as we thought the show would run long. Instead, we were more concise than we usually have been. Thus, this is the first time when I have read the emails as we recorded, rather than pre-recording them, which is why the audio quality does not shift at all when we move into the emails this time, whereas in previous episodes it did.

If you want to check out Andrew’s blog, check it out right here on EUCantinaBlogs.net.

Thanks for listening to the sixth regular episode (and ninth overall episode) of The EU Review. We look forward to releasing our next few episodes, which include special interviews and, of course, our next regular episode in July. So far, much of the July content has not yet been determined, but we should be covering Fatal Alliance, the first tie-in novel to The Old Republic. I would bet that we will end up covering Clone Wars Gambit: Siege and/or The Clone Wars Character Encyclopedia, but I can’t say for certain.

Keep an eye out in early July for our interview with John Jackson Miller, along with the first episode of a new side series that I’ll be announcing and describing in my very next blog entry today.

Let us know what you think of the episode: You can email the show at eureview@solosound.net or leave us a voicemail at (530) EUT-K421. Get it? “EU . . . TK-421?” Yeah, clever on the other guys’ part, not mine. Credit where due. The number otherwise is (530) 388-5421. We welcome your feedback and your iTunes reviews if so inclined.

If you’ve been following The EU Review, but not following the show’s page on Facebook, then you should check it out. Yesterday, I added 29 new images to a new photo album. The images represent most of my Star Wars comic book collection. This is in answer to those who have been asking for more supplemental images and/or video content or to see my rather extensive collection at a glance.

When I have time, I’m going to also do the same with my Star Wars books, then probably move on to home video releases, and perhaps other oddball items.

A brief note, however, is due on the pictures that are currently up. There are some items that I have purposely left out of the pictures because they are either still being wrapped up by Dark Horse Comics or I am still finishing those collections.

This week, I finally made a big push toward replacing all of my trade paperbacks (collected editions, as they are often called these days) with single issues. While some of them (the original DHC Droids mini-series and Classic Star Wars) have arrived via online sellers, allowing me to show them in the current pictures, some have not arrived yet.

In the next week (I hope), I should be able to show the full comic runs of Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command, the second Dark Horse Droids series (for which I’m awaiting two issues), Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, and the Dark Empire cycle (for which I’m awaiting only Dark Empire II #2).

I am also waiting on the last two issues of Legacy before taking a picture of the latter half of that series. I await the rest of Invasion: Rescues before I show that story arc, along with the final issue of Dark Times: Blue Harvest before showing that one.

I will soon also have all but issues #11 and #14 of Ewoks from Marvel’s Star Comics imprint, but I have no idea if or when I’ll ever be able to find those two missing issues. I will take a picture of all but those two when the last eight arrive through various shipments.

With that in mind, I should also note two things forthcoming:

1. A “want list.” I’m going to post a list of the few Star Wars comics that I don’t have as single issues in hopes that someone who listens to the show or reads this blog might possibly have a way to find them. I know for certain that Ewoks #11 and #14 will be among them. Beyond that, I am still checking.

2. A “sell list.” With so many trade paperbacks being replaced by single issues, I am going to have several TPBs (and some extra duplicate comic issues in some cases) to sell off. For those interested, I won’t be looking for a  huge financial haul from the comics, so much as I’ll just be wanting to find them a new “home” and to get at least a little bit out of them to offset the price of replacing them with the single issues. For example, I know for certain that I’ll have all three volumes of Classic Star Wars available.

In any event, head on over to the Facebook page for The EU Review to check out the first round of images.