Books Journey to TLJ: Canto Bight

I grabbed it some time back and it's a nice little book.

 

Uh... no it's not?

I mean, it's a moot point since there's really no substantive differences except that YA novels are typically a little shorter, but I don't recall it ever being advertised or marketed that way.

 

Seriously? We're policing recommendations for factual accuracy now? I don't know what they marketed the book as hence the hedging.

It's the same type of size book that they issued Guardians of the Whills as, so whatever that is - classify it however the hell you like I'm not going to care.

 

Yeah, that's entirely unfounded paranoid skepticism.

 

Right? So much got cut out of the movie...or too be fair just wasn't in it so those JTTFA was kind of a bust.

 

You're giving skepticism a bad name It's good to be skeptical and employ critical thinking.

Sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

Skepticism is good.

But skepticism without evidence isn't skepticism. It's ignorance.

 

Hooray, excerpt time.

For those interested in reading excerpts, here's one from JJM's story THE RIDE.

For those not into excerpts, here are 3 random facts about this story:

1. There is only 1 confirmed human character in the entire story. Of the entire book of Canto Bight, there are 85 characters (named or referenced in some way). Only 14% are human, and only 2 who could be considered anything of a "main" character.
2. JJM created a new SW card game for this story, and brings back an old favorite.
3. There may or may not be a reference to one of JJM's previous works.

 

That's fantastic, definitely a move in the right direction IMO. The more focus on non-humans the better!

KOTOR

Lost Tribe of the Sith

Knight Errant

Kenobi

You know what, it's JJM, which ever story of his is referenced it's gonna be awesome!

 

Another excerpt posted for Canto Bight, this time from Saladin Ahmed's story "Rules of the Game." Saladin makes his Star Wars author debut in Canto Bight.

For those that don't like excerpts, 3 more facts for you:

• Kedpin (the main character) is a brand new alien species, a Wermal. He does not wear clothes.
• We'll learn about another new alien species in this story as well. Hint: you saw one of them in the background of Maz' castle in Ep 7...
• There is are 2 deep deep cut Legends references in this story. I doubt anyone will find them.

 

Spoiler

As the Cantonican Dream dropped out of hyperspace, Kedpin Shoklop sneezed loudly and blew his nose-slits, then smiled apologetically, blinking his big single eye in what he hoped his seatmate would understand was a placating gesture.
His seatmate, a well-dressed, broad-shouldered specimen of some fanged-and-horned species Kedpin didn’t recognize, growled. But Kedpin had plenty of experience dealing with grumpy customers. The key, he always told his co-workers, was a cheerful attitude.
“So! Canto Bight!” Kedpin said to his seatmate, filling his voice with fellow-feeling. “Playground of the most glamorous beings in the galaxy! Big-money card games and high-stakes fathier races! The galaxy’s biggest artificial ocean! And the fanciest food this side of Coruscant. I can’t believe I won this trip!” Against all odds, Kedpin had been named VaporTech’s Salesbeing of the Year and received an all-expenses-paid two-standard-week getaway to Canto Bight! Everyone had been so shocked! When the admin-droid had read his name out loud, Kedpin had hardly believed it himself, though he’d imagined the moment ten thousand times over the decades. He’d won. He’d doubted the competition for years, wondered whether he was getting a fair shake. But Kedpin kept on following the rules and doing his best, like he’d always been taught. Like he’d done for a hundred years.
And now he was on his way to claim his reward. The voyage had already been more luxurious than anything Kedpin had ever experienced. Such snacks they had! But that was nothing compared with what was coming. He would finally get to see the legendary Canto Casino, get a zero-g massage at Zord’s Spa and Bathhouse, and, most exciting of all, watch a live fathier race!
“I can’t believe I’m really here!” Kedpin said again. His seatmate simply ignored him now, turning away rudely to stare out the viewport. But Kedpin was on his first vacation in a hundred years, and he wasn’t going to let anything bring him down.
The captain of the Cantonican Dream announced that they were now in orbit around Cantonica. Kedpin’s seatmate had brusquely claimed the viewport seat when the trip began, but by twisting and craning Kedpin could get a decent view. What he saw made all three of his hearts race.
Pink, blue, and green nebulae shimmered against the jet-black space-scape, which went on forever. Every bit of it was studded with sparkling stars. Closer—so close Kedpin felt he could reach out and touch them—Cantonica’s moons hung glowing in the darkness. Kedpin had been offworld a few times to meet with VaporTech clients or to attend conferences, but the company had always booked him in cramped, viewportless personnel transports. He’d never seen space like this. It was beautiful.
Cantonica itself was a dull yellow-brown orb swirling with sand-colored clouds. As they began to descend, the bright lights of a massive city—Canto Bight itself, Kedpin realized!—formed a glowing patch on the planetscape. But one feature dominated the view: a great turquoise spot, unnaturally precise in its borders. The Sea of Cantonica.
The viewport shutters lowered and Kedpin was instructed to sit back as the ship came in to land. A short while later, after a brief struggle with his luggage floater, Kedpin was herded into the line for Cantonican Planetary Controls. He was called to a booth staffed by a uniformed human male with a neat beard and an irritated expression.
“Good morning and welcome to Cantonica,” the man said, though he didn’t at all sound as if he meant it. He took Kedpin’s datapad. “Name?”
“Kedpin Shoklop.” Turn their growl into a grin, Kedpin repeated to himself silently. He smiled at the annoyed-looking officer and added, putting extra nectar into his words, “But call me Ked! All my friends do!”
“No,” the man in the uniform said. “Species?”
“Wermal.”
“Homeworld?”
“Werma Lesser.”
“Sponsoring agent?”
“VaporTech! I won this trip, you see. I’m the VaporTech Vaporator Salesbeing of the Year!”
For the first time the man really looked up from his terminal, and Kedpin wished he hadn’t. “Yeah, that sounds about right.” He looked as if Kedpin were a pest he wanted to squash! “Is it your intent to act as an active agent of any political, parapolitical, military, or paramilitary organization while on Cantonica?” he asked finally.
Kedpin blinked his eye. He didn’t quite know what he was being asked. He blinked again.
“He wants to know if you’re a spy for the First Order or the Resistance,” someone in the line behind Kedpin said.
“Ha! Ha!” Kedpin laughed. “A spy?” There was no fighting on his homeworld—not yet. But Kedpin had heard unbelievable stories from VaporTech salesbeings who’d been caught in the battles. It all sounded perfectly terrible, and Kedpin wanted nothing to do with any of it. “No, no of course not!”
The man looked at his datapad. “You work for VaporTech, huh?”
“Yes, sir! One hundred and two years selling vaporators! Cut me and I bleed VaporTech processed moisture!” Kedpin laughed a small laugh. “That’s just a little joke I make.”
“Uh-huh,” the officer said. “Well, you’re missing your sponsorship chip.”
“My what?”
The man ran his thick hand through his thick beard and sighed, even more annoyed for some reason Kedpin didn’t understand. “Come with me, sir.”

 

Spoiler

As someone who recently got a job selling humidifiers, I find myself relating to Kedpin, and it kind of scares me.

 

Sounds like a challenge!

 

Spoiler

“The Wine in Dreams” by Mira Grant
THE GREATEST JOY OF HYPERSPACE IS THE BRILLIANCE OF ITS LIGHT. There is a radiance that can never be matched, or even truly described to those who have never seen it. Derla Pidys closes her lower eyes as her ship drops from the glory of hyperspace into orbit above Cantonica. The stars flash into being, dazzling bright in their own right, if not the impossible glory of their hyperspace shadows.

The planet below her is dark, the sky a dizzying web of ships being pulled into place around the curve of the horizon. She presses the trigger for her prearranged docking, and feels the ship shudder around her as the autopilot engages with the beacon. Relaxing into her seat, she adjusts the folds of her sommelier’s robes and allows herself to anticipate the glory that is to come.

Hyperspace cannot be matched, but it can be challenged. And the architects who set the sky above Canto Bight ablaze will never cease their efforts. The legend of the city grows, its seeds planted by moments such as this—and perhaps, to someone with more limited vision than her own, the challenge is a closer one.

Her ship sails smoothly along the beacon’s route. The world curves below her, dark, purposeless Cantonica, and then, in the time it takes for a millitile to vanish into its hidey-hole, the horizon catches fire.

It is the burn of uncounted lights, of beams slashing high into the atmosphere, as if they would sever the stars and take them for their own. It is the rainbow radiance of Canto Bight, the only reason any sensible creature would travel to this otherwise pointless planet. Canto Bight, the city of dreams, the destination of uncounted sentients, all of them following one legend or another, most chasing a lie. Derla smiles, wishing she were not on her way to work, so she might toast the brilliance of the story unfolding in front of her.

She is not the only sommelier working this sector, but she is, without question, the best. Any wine merchant and liquor trader can claim her title as their own, if they like; she’s not the one to stop them. What they can’t claim is her peerless skill, her ability to assess the quality of any alcoholic beverage from a single sip. Nor can they claim her track record. Despite peddling her wares to representatives from dozens of species, she has never been the source of an accidental poisoning. It is a point of pride, and part of what has grown her reputation—her legend—to its current heights. She is a sommelier. She is the sommelier, the one to call when everything must be perfect.

Arriving on the dark side of the world merely for the sake of this moment is a small indulgence. It wastes time, which is the only resource more limited than wine itself. But the time is hers to waste. Time that is never spent in any frivolous way will turn to vinegar even as wine does, as wasted as too much time spent heedlessly. Balance in all things.

She could never live here—the costs, in every sense, are simply too high—but there is a sweetness to the lie of Canto Bight that sings to her sommelier’s soul. It began, as most beautiful things do, with money, with ambition, and with deceit. “Come to Canto Bight, the greatest city of pleasures the galaxy has ever known,” they cried, and if they lied in the beginning, the ones who carry the cry now are telling the complete and utter truth. They crafted reality out of story.

Derla respects that. She has carried wines that her more sophisticated customers would consider little better than vinegar to backward farming planets where the names on their labels and the scent of distance clinging to their corks rendered them the finest vintages anyone had ever seen. She has taken the wines of those same worlds— common, ordinary things to the gawping farmers who press the grapes in their basements, who bottle their own harvests simply for the sake of having something to wash the dust away—and sold them for profits that would stun their vintners into silence. It is the story that moves the bottle, as much as the taste of what’s within.

This came from a city so far away and famous that its name would burn your uncultured tongue if you tried to speak it, she says, and hands reach out to grasp the glass, currency spilling from their palms.

This was crafted by simple farmers, aged on a world untouched by modern notions, as pure as the Force itself, she says, and people who would never step foot on that world’s soil stumble over themselves to claim it first.

Everything is the legend. Everything is the lie.

http://ew.com/books/2017/11/17/star-wars-canto-bight-excerpt/

 

Sorry, I should have posted this last week. I owe you 3 facts on Mira Grant's story.

• Two characters in this story claim to be from another dimension. Are they really, or are they just lying liars who lie? Does SW even really have other dimensions? *shrug* (have fun with that one)
• Two more new species to learn about.
• Originally a character from JJM's story was going to make an appearance in this one (all 4 novellas take place over the same day/night). However, we couldn't make it work without breaking both stories, and weren't going to force one just to say we made a connection. There are, however, still some connections to the other stories, they're just a bit more subtle.

 

Another possible timeline for my list? I hope so.

 

And the Rozzum. And the Charons. And perhaps Mnggal-Mnggal.

 

In the nu-canon Han Solo racing comic, the race features a wormhole and an interdimensional creature makes an appearance.

 

For anyone who has the money, as Wordery take the cash at point of order:

This offer expires at the end of 30 November

Buy 1 book full price, get 15% off the rest.

For Star Wars, it works as:

• Canto Bight - £14
• The Last Jedi - £11.90
• Thrawn: Alliances £11.90

 

This is out tomorrow, I believe. Not much talk about it. But there are some really great authors here that I'm excited to hear chime in with their take on SW lore. Writers who love SW. Whose works were influenced by SW.

That a cool thing. We all know JJM, of course. SW fan favorite. Anyone read his Trek book, BTW? Worth driving into?

Also Mira Grant. Pretty big name. I've read a couple of her books. They were excellent.

The other two I had to look up. But I'm impressed.

I get why not so much discussion. SW fans like the "pop" of big, galaxy shaping events. Plot tends to be more important than story. I'd argue the new Cannon is more story focused. A refreshing change, in my opinion. More character development and exploration. Way more interesting. And it just makes for better story.

FACPOV was similar in ways. But that was also an event with a lot of hype. A 40 story love letter to A New Hope. Cool as hell.

But this is being snuck in right before the new movie. So it's drowned out in ways. Nothing other than a vague movie reference to connect it too.

But I'm pretty excited about it. And I really appreciate the new direction SW fiction has been taking.

I look forward to the inevitable counter-take on why I'm wrong and the new Canon is the worse thing ever and that I must have bad taste for possibly believing otherwise.

I apologise for my transgressions and short comings in advance.

Sent from my Moto X-Wing

 

John's Trek books are really solid, recommend for Trek fans, particularly Next Gen fans.

 

Unfortunately they stuck him with some less than stellar covers for the Prey trilogy.

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Yup, both Takedown and the Prey trilogy are great.

True, but who cares about the covers when the innards are so good? Qapla!

 

I think only one trilogy is available via audiobook.... unfortunately.

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