#1

I was a bit worried to be interested to a completely new character again without the support of the characters I already know, but I shouldn't have been worried at all. This book was quick and clever and just so sensitively done. It always is, but it felt more noticeable in this story, which starts off with some commonplace childhood bullying and just as commonplace issues surrounding puberty and what it is supposedly required to be a boy or girl. And while I'm certainly no horse girl, I have a lot of respect for just how well that identity fit into the hoof-filled setting.

It's always a pleasure to see how the kids learn to make decisions and process the consequences of their actions. I hope we get to see Regan again in later books!

[Art and Inspiration] Marvel Star Wars #1-6 (1977)

I was just thinking how people completely miss out on one of the most interesting aspects of this comic series. Marvel Star Wars ran for 108 issues, concluding in 1986. But at the beginning the first few issues adapted Episode IV A New Hope, or as it was then known “Star Wars” into comic form.

But the interesting thing was that it was not adapting the movie as such, it was clearly working from the screenplay, as there are scenes in there that never got used, and the designs of the movie were not finalized yet, so we encounter lots of interesting things in there which never, or nearly never, showed up again. These get less over the course of the adaption already, but the usual Marvel style and colors of the day never really disappear.

By the way, regarding the cover: at what point is Luke in this movie ever in a position to destroy the galaxy?! Also why is Vader green? I mean, it suits him, but still…

This looks much more like an action movie than the movie actually ended up looking like, despite it being Star Wars and everything.

You might not know that there’s a hole scene set in Anchorhead where we are introduced to Biggs (who we meet later on Yavin IV) and Luke’s other friends. The scene can be found on YouTube, unfortunately the only footage is so destroyed that they didn’t even attempt to put it into the Special Edition, leaving Biggs as a somewhat obscure character forevermore. On the other hand the scene was called “American Grafitti in space” before, and it would have sucked out a lot of energy from the beginning of the story.

I just want to note that this is the torture droid that comes into Leia’s cell. Another one of these designs that don’t come from the movie itself. Also note the pink walls of the Death Star.

Oh look! It’s our favorite Huttese… ape… person?

Yeah, the scene was filmed back in the day, and it was intended to replace the stand-in they used for filming it with special effects monster (although who knows if that wasn’t Lucas fibbing again), before simply giving up on the scene altogether. They later redid the scene with the worm-like Jabba for the Special Edition in 1997 and used a CGI overlay for that.

The ape-like Jabba the Hutt from the comics reappeared in the comics a few times more, before the release of Return of the Jedi and the slug-like Jabba made him disappear into a puff of retcon-scented smoke.

The fun thing here is that we don’t have a clue how big those star destroyers actually are from the picture. If we hadn’t seen one in the very first issue I’d have thought these are way smaller crafts and not the massive dreadnoughts that appear on screen. In fact the previous issue doesn’t really help with that either, as unlike the movie you don’t get a sense of scale in there. Likely because besides some basic design the artist didn’t have a clue what size they were supposed to be. Actually…

…look at this panel from the first issue. This makes the Star Destroyer look tiny, tinier than the Tantive IV. I assume the artists didn’t know until the film actually came out how the sizes of these ships were to relate to each other.

By the way this makes it look very much like a S-Type scout from Traveller, which came about just a few months prior.

This is a way more trippy way to depict hyperspace than the movie, and I think we all lost something when this was replaced with the usual starfield turning into stripes design. Yeah sure, they did it because they didn’t have a clue how it’d look in the movie. But look at it! It’s amazing!

I do have to say that the fight between Vader and Obi Wan is way more epic than what we get in the actual movie. The movie makes it look like the fight between an old man and a paraplegic that it actually is, but of course back in the day it was the height of excitement. It wasn’t every day you saw a samurai cyborg battle a space warrior monk with laser swords after all. Unlike today where the glut of Star Wars media lately seems to have brought up excactly that.

This implies a very different story than what the prequels in the end gave us, yet it still fits with what we got in Episode 3 and the Clone Wars TV series.

By the way the series is very interesting to read even after this. Clearly they were struggling with finding any story to tell, but the comic book was too successful to just end it. So the next few issues were about Han reenacting The Glorious Seven/The Seven Samurai with a green space rabbit and a delusional Don Quixote who believed himself to be a Jedi knight. It did get better, but the first few years seemed like a desperate attempt to somehow squeeze more material out of this one movie.

Rate this:

#1 #Art #comics #marvel #starwars #starwarscomics

Adam finished reading The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón(Cemetery of Forgotten Books, 1) Adam finished reading The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1)

#1

Adam started reading The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1) by Carlos Ruiz Zafón(Cemetery of Forgotten Books, 1)

I was gifted a copy of this for my birthday. I’m about 5 chapters in. Enjoying it so far.

(comment on The Shadow of the Wind (The Cemetery of Forgotten Books, #1))

#1

You must read this book if you own your home before beginning HVAC work. Sadly I made the mistake of doing my HVAC work BEFORE I read this book but luckily I was not too far off the mark. Most HVAC professionals sadly do not actually know the "whys" of what they are doing and simply offer cookie cutter solutions that do not fit what your house needs – especially an existing home.

Things to remember - If you want to do anything, ensure you also insulate your home! Ensure there are no leaks in or out of the home. Otherwise, all of the other work will have to use more energy due to leaks of air. - A ductless mini split is highly recommended to condition air around your homes - A ventilated dehumidifier is highly recommended to bring in fresh air & dehumidify it - Ensure you always run the ventilator in the bathroom / kitchen when you are using them - Water moisture is the #1 villain and try to not have temperature differences in surfaces that will cause moisture to develop - A manifold is a way to send hot water through a smaller plastic pipe such that less water looses heat as it stays in the piping - Try to prevent thermal bridges to ensure home is fully insulated

Found as EN "boxed set" and read the trilogy (with Old Man's War & The Last Colony) in less than a week (nights mainly). Less entertaining than #1 IMHO, but "needed" to jump into #3

This is book #4 in the series, but it's not the fourth part. Apparently there's a short story, "Omega Night", and it contained both plot and character developments that significantly impact this book. However, even on the official author's website it's not listed between books 3 and 4. It's listed after the final book, among other "related works".

And the author doesn't really do a good job of recapping what happened, it's just an abrupt jump, and now Hope/Astra's angsting over a new crush that started during that book, freaking out over a danger to one of her friends that's due to events in that book, and a number of other sudden changes.

And these changes continue to casually come up over the course of the entire book, so that put a serious damper on my enjoyment of it.

Beyond that, the premise/setting was unique and somewhat interesting, but a lot of it felt like repeating "same song, different verse." Just marking things off a checklist. Astra has a crush that she doesn't want to act on (thankfully not the same one as at the end of book #3). Astra asks for advice, then ignores it in a way that could cause trouble for the one who gave it. Astra manages to get separated from her team (but thankfully not abducted this time). Astra makes mistakes and spends time berating herself. Important rules get massively broken but a loophole means it's okay. And the Perfect Defenses get destroyed via the most plausible method, which somehow no-one saw coming.

I did really like that, after introducing a terrifying Islamic terrorist supervillain in book #1, the author chose to introduce a character that showcases the more peaceful side of Islam. I wish the character was ongoing, but it doesn't look like he will be.

I really didn't like the friend drama for this book - it felt pretty contrived, but Astra was utterly poleaxed. Honestly, the number of times something relatively trivial knocks Astra so off her stride that she can't think straight for several days should probably be cause for serious concern among the team leadership.

Despite the two main characters having the same character, this was fun and fresh and slightly silly. It reminds me of Unsouled (Cradle #1) but also a bit of Ed Greenwood's Band of Four series.

I will admit that, when I was first offered a review copy of Postcards From Beyond Reality, I wasn't sure how well the project would work out. I knew how convincingly Bernard Jan had managed to inhabit Michael Daniels' personality within the novel Cruel Summer, but to repeat the feat for a whole poetry collection did seem ambitious to say the least. I should have had more faith!

I loved being given deeper insights into Michael's character through his poetry. It often felt as though I was surreptitiously reading his journal or diary instead. The work is so personal yet also addresses universal themes, particularly those that are important to young people. On remembering how the events of Cruel Summer affected Michael, I could see echoes within the poems however I don't think it is necessary to have already read the novel in order to appreciate Postcards From Beyond Reality. The two works are very much companions rather than a series so I can imagine that it would be just as rewarding to experience Michael's poetry before learning more about his life.

P.S. It's not often that I'm up on reading trends, but I spotted, on the day after Bernard Jan announced Postcards From Beyond Reality was available for pre-order, that it was already the #1 New Release in Amazon.com's Teen & Young Adult Poetry eBooks category!