Cora Buhlert's Blog, page 13

Non-Fiction Spotlight: Hither Came Conan, edited by Bob Byrne, Bill Ward, Howard Andrew Jones and Jason M. Waltz

Nominations for the 2023 Hugo Awards closed April 30 and the finalists are expected to be announced later this month.

However, after the Hugos is before the next Hugos, so I’m continuing my Non-Fiction Spotlight project, where I interview the authors/editors of SFF-related non-fiction books that come out in 2023 and are eligible for the 2024 Hugo Awards. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

For more recommendations for SFF-related non-fiction, also check out this Facebook group set up by the always excellent Farah Mendlesohn, who is a champion (and author) of SFF-related non-fiction.

Today’s non-fiction spotlight is a collection of essays focussed on one of the most recognisable and influential characters of our genre, namely Robert E. Howard’s Conan. Have you ever found yourself arguing which Conan story is best or wondered whether someone else out there also loves that lesser known Conan story you love? Then Hither Came Conan, edited by Bob Byrne, Bill Ward, Howard Andrew Jones and Jason M. Waltz, is the book for you.

Therefore, I am thrilled to welcome Jason M. Waltz, one of the editors of Hither Came Conan, to my blog today:

Tell us about your book.

HITHER CAME CONAN is a compilation of two successful examinations of all of Robert E. Howard’s original Conan the Cimmerian stories (and one story fragment) with about 15 additional essays included. It is also the single most-inclusive repository of REH Conan story data to date. This alone makes this title invaluable; coupled with the almost 60 essays it makes this THE BOOK to shelve alongside your Wandering Star/DelRey Conan trilogy. The majority of essays (and opinions!) come from the Bob Byrne led ‘Hither Came Conan’ series hosted by Black Gate Magazine and the ‘Conan Re-Read’ of Bill Ward and Howard Andrew Jones in conversation on Howard’s blog. Data compiled for each story by Dierk Günther includes tidbits such as the probable age of both Conan and Howard, the location, the major characters, the word count, date and source of first publication, and the first recorded public reaction to be found. HITHER CAME CONAN is a wealth of all the information any reader of Conan could desire.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I am a proponent of heroic literature: I read, write, edit, publish, collect, speak, and preserve it. I’m also just a fellow who happened to lend a hand one day back in 2005 when a few small press people solicited help. Things led to other things, and in 2008 I was suddenly the micro publisher Rogue Blades Entertainment, publisher of all that is heroic, specifically heroic fantasy. Several well-regarded (though never as many as intended) anthologies–such as RETURN OF THE SWORD, RAGE OF THE BEHEMOTH, CROSSBONES & CROSSES, REACH FOR THE SKY–and the popular non-fiction how-to WRITING FANTASY HEROES later, Rogue Blades Foundation was established specifically to take on larger scale projects and titles, such as the award-winning REH CHANGED MY LIFE you featured in 2022.

What prompted you to write/edit this book?

HITHER CAME CONAN was a natural fit for the mission of Rogue Blades Foundation: Exploring Heroics! As a not-for-profit literary publisher of heroics, RBF puts explorations of the heroic into your hands and hearts through books that are well-read and not just on your shelves. We put heroes into print. With the almost-always on-going conversation of what truly is Sword & Sorcery and its foundations, Robert E. Howard and Conan naturally come to the center of attention. Bob Byrne had led a series at BLACK GATE MAGAZINE online in 2019 wherein he had Howard Conan scholarly types (somehow I made the cut!) randomly defend each original Conan story as the ‘Best’ of the lot. That initiated a long, on-and-off again conversation about putting the series into print between he, I, and John O’Neill (of BLACK GATE). When Bob won a REH Foundation award for the series, conversations heated and we came up with the idea of including the Howard Andrew Jones and Bill Ward re-read discussion Howard had hosted on his blog back in 2015 during which they closely examined each Howard Conan tale. Once Howard and Bill agreed, the train had a head of steam and was already powering down the tracks. I am a gent who enjoys adding special features to my books and as this book as it currently stood consisted of all previously released material, I worked out ways to add more value for the reader. I hit the jackpot when Dierk agreed to helm the research into each story and find those first public reactions. This then became the largest tome I have ever published and in addition, I believe it is beyond reasonable to claim it is THE Conan of Cimmeria reference title.

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters in particular read this book?

HITHER CAME CONAN  covers ALL 21 Robert E. Howard original tales plus 1 story fragment with at least 2 essays of examination, many extra essays as further examinations of stories or additional aspects of the Conan Saga, and the single most inclusive story database of information such as important characters, age of Conan and Howard, setting and synopsis, word count, and first publication and reaction, and comes wrapped in a gorgeous Didier Normand cover that embraces and conveys the spirit of homage. THIS is the book you shelve alongside your Wandering Star/Del Rey Conan trilogy!

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

Ha, no! That’s why it’s so huge and heavy! Seriously, I added just about everything. Dierk’s work on tracking down the first recorded public reaction to each story was phenomenal and super exhilirating. When I followed his lead and started reading all the letters in Weird Tales’ ‘The Eyrie’ I was hard pressed not to keep adding reactions. So that is about all that didn’t make it into the final version: EVERY public reaction we could find. I don’t think we could have lifted HCC if I had added them all. I did choose to add a closing Memorium section though, wherein I gathered all the public responses to Howard’s suicide and the then-end of Conan’s story.

SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

Oh, we can learn so much through non-fiction examinations! HITHER CAME CONAN holds far more value than just talking about the character of Conan. This is actually a very good exploration of the writing of one of American’s most influential fantastical creators of all time! In-depth dicussions of writing styles, purposes, plots, world-building, character creation, market writing…other than perhaps writing habits, there really is no aspect of speculative, heroic writing left unturned. Anyone dreaming of, trying to write, anything action-packed could definitely improve their chances of delivering popular heroic adventure readers want by picking up this book. I will close by repeating what I said before: the analysis of creativity, of motivation, and of legacy should be a regular genre consideration.

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

There is lots of work going on in the pulp and heroic fantastical non-fiction arena. Will Oliver is working on his own Robert E. Howard biography; there is a recent Clark Ashton Smith documentary worth viewing; Jason Ray Carney is the force behind numerous non-fiction and fiction projects, including his recent TED Talk on Sword & Sorcery; the Glenn Lord Symposium at the annual Howard Days in Cross Plains, Texas, always has scholarly presentations and readings. There is a lot to find out there if people are interested in seeking it out.

Where can people buy your book?

HITHER CAME CONAN is available on Amazon at dp/B0BZFJ4CHN – the US link https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BZFJ4CHN and German https://www.amazon.de/dp/B0BZFJ4CHN

Where can people find you?

Rogue Blades is found at https://rogue-blades.com/ and https://www.facebook.com/RogueBladesFoundation

Thank you, Jason, for stopping by and answering my questions. Check out Hither Came Conan, if you’re at all interested in Conan of the Cimmeria, Robert E. Howard and the history of sword and sorcery. And if you haven’t picked them up already, get those Del Rey Conan collections, too, because they are currently the best and most affordable way to experience Conan.

About Hither Came Conan:

HITHER CAME CONAN is a collection of essays examining each of the 21 original Conan stories plus 1 of the story fragments from the Father of Sword & Sorcery, Robert E. Howard!

This title collects Bob Byrne’s Award-winning series ‘Hither Came Conan’ hosted by John O’Neill at www.blackgate.com alongside the famous Bill Ward and Howard Andrew Jones ‘Conan Re-read’ discussion hosted by Howard at www.howardandrewjones.com. Numerous extra essays appear as further examinations of stories or additional aspects of the Conan Saga. Also includes the GREATEST EVER compilation of story data such as important characters, age of Conan and Howard, setting and synopsis, word count, and first publication and reaction! ALL WRAPPED in a gorgeous Didier Normand cover that embraces and conveys the spirit of homage.

Contributors include: Fred Adams, Jr., John Bullard, Bob Byrne, Jason Ray Carney, Vincent Darlage, Bobby Derie, Woelf Dietrich, Jason Durall, Gabe Dybing, Mark Finn, Dierk Günther, David Hardy, Ryan Harvey, John C. Hocking, Morgan Holmes, Matthew John, Howard Andrew Jones, Patrice Louinet, James C. McGlothlin, Brian Murphy, Scott Oden, James Reasoner, Deuce Richardson, Jeffrey Shanks, Steven H Silver, David C. Smith, S.M. Stirling, Keith J. Taylor, G.W. Thomas, Fletcher A. Vredenburgh, Jason M Waltz, Bill Ward, Clint Werner, and Keith West.

THE book you shelve alongside your Wandering Star/Del Rey Conan trilogy!

About Jason M. Waltz:

Jason M Waltz is THE RogueBlade, owner/editor at Rogue Blades Entertainment, a high octane adventure publisher sharing heroic literature, and founder/publisher at Rogue Blades Foundation, a literary publisher exploring heroics. As such, he gets to produce the wonderful titles from RBE & RBF listed here. In addition, you’ll find a few adventures of his own, mostly within the speculative and grand adventure genres.

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Are you publishing a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2023 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu Celebrate “The Return”

Welcome to the somewhta belated final instalment of my episode by episode reviews of season three of The Mandalorian. Previous installments may be found here.

Warning! Spoilers behind the cut!

The previous episode ended on a huge cliffhanger with Din captured, Paz Vizla dead and the rest of the Mandalorians on the run and in mortal danger from Moff Gideon and his Imperial forces enhanced with Mandalorian technology. Things do not look good for our heroes at all.

The episodes opens with Bo-Katan and what remains of her exploration force on the run from Moff Gideon’s enhanced Stormtroopers. Bo-Katan hails Axe Woves, who managed to escape and is en route to the Mandalorian fleet in orbit. Bo-Katan tells Axe that there’s an Imperial base on Mandalore and that Moff Gideon has launched TIE interceptors and bombers to take out the fleet. Axe is to use the command cruiser as a decoy for the TIE fighters and evacuate all the Mandalorians to the surface in the smaller Gauntlet ships (apparently, Gauntlet is the name of the type of ship and not specifically of Bo-Katan’s ship), because there’s no way they can beat the Empire in orbit. Axe barely manages to acknowledge Bo-Katan’s orders before contact breaks off due to the atmospheric disturbances. BTW, I found it quite impressive that Mandalorian armour is space-worthy and that his jetpack allows Axe Woves to fly from the surface all the way into orbit, escaping the planet’s gravity well.

Axe does as he is ordered and boards the command cruiser, ordering the bridge crew and everybody else to evacuate into the Gauntlets. I hope they remembered to evacuate the weakened and wounded survivors the Armourer took back to the fleet, too. We also get some more scenes showing us that yes, Mandalorian armour is space-worthy. Which surprised me, because almost all Mandalorians have armour joints and parts of their body covered only in fabric. Mandalorian fabric must surely be tough.

Axe Woves remains on the bridge alone, having automated many functions of the cruiser to hold off the TIE interceptors and bombers as long as possible. He doesn’t do too badly a job either and manages to take out several TIE interceptors and bombers with the cruiser’s cannons, though it’s obvious that he doesn’t stand a chance. And in fact, I strongly suspected that this would be the heroic last stand of Axe Woves, just as we saw the heroic last stand of Paz Vizla last episode. Tor.com Emmet Asher-Perrin also points out that all the cues for a heroic last stand/suicide mission are there. However, Axe Woves is still alive by the end of the episode.

Meanwhile, back at the Imperial base, some of the new model beskar Stormtroopers are dragging Din away for “debriefing”. Din is briefly unconscious, but he comes to and starts taking out his captors. He does pretty well, too, considering that his hands are bound, but eventually the Stormtroopers gain the upper hand. At one point, the new model Stormtroopers attack Din with a flamethrower – which is after all a weapon that a lot of Mandalorians have installed into their armour. The flames don’t harm Din thanks to his armour, but his fabric cape miraculously survives unscathed as well. Like I said, Mandalorian fabric is tough.

What saves Din in the end is the timely arrival of Grogu in his IG-12 droid. He crushes the blaster in the hand of a Stormtrooper, saying “no”, “no”, “no” over and over again. Together, Din and Grogu make short work of the Stormtroopers. Din holds up his bound hands and asks Grogu “Are you going to cut me loose?” “Yes”, Grogu says.

Even though he just saved his Daddy’s life, it’s very obvious that Grogu is scared and just wants to get away from this terrifying place. However, Din asks him to be brave, because the mission is not yet over. There’s still something they have to do and that’s take out Moff Gideon once and for all. Grogu nods, for even though he’s very scared, he trusts Daddy.

Din now contacts R5-D4 and tells him that he needs his help and that R5 needs to get into the Imperial stronghold, log into their system and find out where Moff Gideon is. Of course, sneaking through Imperial strongholds and trying to sabotage and/or locate the bad guy and using a droid plugged into the Imperial system is absolutely classic Star Wars. Though considering how often rebel affiliated astromech droids plug into Imperial bases to find and transmit crucial data, I honestly wonder why the Empire hasn’t installed some kind of protection yet. A firewall or even just using different ports – since astromech droids don’t seem to have Bluetooth or Wi-Fi or the Star Wars universe equivalent thereof – would do the trick.

Another issue is that R5 appears literally out of nowhere, since the last we saw him was in “The Pirate” on the nameless planet which looks a lot like the Southwestern US. We haven’t seen him in Nevarro, let alone on Mandalore. I guess a scene showing R5 travelling with the other Mandalorians to Mandalore ended up on the cutting room floor, so R5’s appearance feels very deus-ex-machina. Though it is ironic that R5 finally gets to have the great adventure that he lost out on, when he blew his motivator and Owen Lars purchased R2-D2 instead. Though I suspect R5 wouldn’t see that as much of a loss, since he’s not really an adventurer, though he is a rebel droid.

R5 also does pretty well for himself on his first big adventure infiltrating an Imperial base. He sneaks into the base, finds an unsecured port, plugs in and transmits Gideon’s location to Din, marked on a handy map of the base. However, in order to get to Moff Gideon, Din first has to pass along the walkways with the laser barriers that is guarded by more new model Stormtroopers. So Din tells Grogu to stay back and orders R5 to open and close the barriers one by one. Then Din goes in and takes out the new model Stormtroopers one by one or rather two by two, since there’s always two stationed in every section.

As many reviewers point out, the fight in the laser corridor is very reminiscent of videogames, because Din is unarmed at the start – obviously, he was disarmed, when he was captured –  and so takes the weapons of the Stormtroopers he defeats. And the Stormtroopers have successively better weapons. This doesn’t make a whole lot of sense – why wouldn’t all the same Stormtroopers have the same weapons? – but it does make for some fun action scenes. One bit I particularly liked is when Din stabs a Stormtrooper with a knife and then struggles (and fails) to pull the knife out of the body, before the Stormtrooper falls into a bottomless abyss.  So does AV-Club reviewer Sam Barsanti.

There’s a bit of extra tension, when R5 fails to open a laser barrier on time, because he’s got a problem of his own in the form of a mouse droid who has discovered him. R5 manages to fight off one mouse droid, but he comes back with a bunch of friends, forcing R5 to engage his jets to escape across a bottomless abyss (It’s Star Wars, so there’s always a bottomless abyss). That’s the last we see of R5 in this episode and season. I really hope he escaped and will live his best droid life somewhere.

Eventually, Din has dealt with all the Stormtroopers and Grogu comes traipsing along the corridor in his IG-12 droid. However, they still haven’t reached Moff Gideon. First, they have to cross another room, which is lined with rows of bacta tanks with bodies in them. We saw a similar row of tanks in the season 2 episode “The Siege” and the season 2 finale, where they contained clone troopers. So it stands to reason that this row of tanks will contain clone troopers as well. Which it does – with a twist, because it turns out that all of the clones are clones of Moff Gideon – yes, the guy is so full of himself that he cloned himself. Worse, they seem to be waking up, so Din hacks into the control console and destroys them all.

Meanwhile, Moff Gideon learns that “the Mandalorian” has escaped. He fumes, struts around his base and decides to deal with the problem of Din Djarin once and for all. Giancarlo Esposito really makes a great villain, though I found it a bit weird that he keeps referring to Din as “the Mandalorian”. Dude, you’ve got approx. twenty Mandalorians running around your base with more inbound and “the Mandalorian” could theoretically refer to every single one of them. So why doesn’t Moff Gideon use Din’s name, especially since we know he knows who Din is? After all, Moff Gideon is the one who first addressed Din by his name in the season one finale.

While Din and Grogu are going after Moff Gideon, the Mandalorian survivors lead Bo-Katan and her exploration force to some subterranean caves, where they have been cultivating native fauna. Bo-Katan is surprised, since she didn’t believe that any native flora was still growing on Mandalore. The leader of the survivors replies that life finds a way.

As for me, I wonder what happened to the native flora on Mandalore in the first place. In “The Mines of Mandalore”, Bo-Katan tell Grogu that Mandalore was once a beautiful world, but her surprise at seeing native flora thrive and grow underground suggests that it wasn’t the Imperial bombing that killed off most native flora, but that this happened sometime before, likely due to extensive industrial activity (all that mining, smelting and weapons making) and pollution. Come to think of it, if Trask – the aquatic homeworld of the Mon Calamari and Quarren species – is the Bremerhaven of the Star Wars universe, does this mean that Mandalore is the Ruhrgebiet of the Star Wars universe? Highly industralialised and a centre of traditional heavy industry, originally very religious, repeatedly fought over and eventually ignored and abandoned, when the coal and steel it had to offer cease to be important. For Ruhrgebiet, you can also insert the coal and steel region of Pennsylvania (i.e. the region Billy Joel described so perfectly in “Allentown” to the point that even as a young kid who had no idea where Allentown was, I recognised what he was singing about, because I knew the Ruhrgebiet) or the industrial towns of middle and northern England or any other decaying and rusting industrial area in the world.

The sojourn of Bo-Katan and the exploration force in the caves is short-lived, because the Armourer and the rest of the Mandalorians have arrived. “Let’s take back our planet”, Bo-Katan calls out and then there’s a massive free-for-all aerial battle between the Mandalorians and the new model Stormtroopers. Bo-Katan leads her forces into battle, brandishing the darksabre, while the Armourer uses her forging tools to knock out and demolish enemies. nerds of a feather reviewer Haley Zapal points out how awesome both the Armourer and Bo-Katan are in this fight, but then Star Wars has always been about awesome women being awesome.

The various Star Wars TV series have taken inspiration both from the movies and TV shows that are known to have inspired the original Star Wars – westerns, Kurosawa films, Flash Gordon – as well as from movies and TV shows that were popular around the same time as Star Wars – biker movies, the Billy Jack films, really depressing 1970s dystopian science fiction films starring a guy a in a turtleneck, 1980s kids cartoons, Cyberpunk – and influenced the landscape into which the films were released. However, for the season finales, The Mandalorian has always used Star Wars itself as its model. We have our heroes sneaking around Imperial bases, fighting Stormtroopers and bad guys with laser weapons, we have droids hacking into Imperial systems and we have a massive aerial battle, though this one features armoured humans with jetpacks rather spaceships. Still, it’s all very classic Star Wars, but it works.

While the massive Mandalorian vs. new model Stormtrooper battle is going on above, Din and Grogu finally find Moff Gideon, who is wearing a brand-new Mandalorian inspired super-suit – basically as if Darth Vader were wearing Mandalorian armour. Moff Gideon is also in a murderous mood, since Din just blew up all of the clones he laboured so hard to create.

In true supervillain mode, Moff Gideon also explains his evil plan of evil once again. Basically, he wants to rebuild the Empire with himself at the top, using useful bits of technology from all the people the Empire conquered and exterminated, because “everybody has something to offer”. The cloning technology the people of Camino used to create the original Stormtroopers, the late mind-flayed Dr Pershing’s gene-splicing methods, Mandalorian armour and weapons technology and the Jedi’s command of the Force. And because Moff Gideon is really, really full of himself, he used himself as the model for his clone army, but gave his clones the one thing he always lacked, namely Force abilities. That’s also why he wanted Grogu in the first place to get his genes and his Force abilities.

Now Giancarlo Esposito plays Moff Gideon as a delightfully evil villain. However, he also is a supervillain driven by deep insecurity. You can just imagine Moff Gideon, standing somewhere in the second row at some Imperial propaganda parade and wishing he were Darth Vader, while knowing that he will never be Darth Vader, because Vader has one thing Moff Gideon doesn’t have, namely his Force powers. Tor.com reviewer Emmet Asher-Perrin points out that Moff Gideon’s new armoured supersuit also makes odd clanking noises, as he moves, suggesting that Moff Gideon is quite possibly as much machine as man at this point.  And since Moff Gideon did not have an unfortunate accident involving a lava pit like Anakin Skywalker, it suggests that he did this to himself to become more like Darth Vader. It’s really quite pitiful, if you think about it.

Not that Din has much time to think about that or anything else, because Moff Gideon summons his three Praetorian Guards and the fight is on. Din is a good fighter, but against a beskar-armoured and possibly cybernetically enhanced Moff Gideon and three Praetorian Guards, who already killed Paz Vizla, he is quickly outnumbered. However, Din is not alone and so Grogu and IG-12 join the fray to rescue Din from the Praetorian Guards, while Grogu hammers the “no” button over and over again, because those Praetorians are hurting Daddy and frightening Grogu.

The Praetorian Guards drag IG-12 and Grogu into an adjacent room, so Din is left alone with Moff Gideon and unable to help Grogu. However, from above Bo-Katan notices that Din is in trouble and swoops in to take on Moff Gideon. “Go save your kid”, she tells Din, which Din promptly does.

Even though he has a mech suit, Grogu is no match for three Praetorian Guards and so poor IG-12 is chopped to pieces. However, Grogu has the Force and he uses it to jump out of reach of the Praetorians onto the light fixtures. Infuriated, the Praetorians start chopping at the light fixtures, until Din shows up and takes them out – with a little help from Grogu and the Force. As Haley Zapal of nerds of a feather points out, Grogu uses the Force not to attack – something we absolutely know he can do, since we have seen him using the Force offensively in season 1 and season 2 – but only defensively, to move weapons out of reach and confuse the Praetorians. I strongly suspect that this is the influence of Luke Skywalker’s Jedi teaching. In many ways, Grogu truly is both Mandalorian and Jedi and may well be the way forward for both groups.

While Din is busy rescuing Grogu from the Praetorian Guards, Bo-Katan finally has her rematch with Moff Gideon. She handles herself well, too, but then Bo-Katan is an excellent fighter, probably better than Din. And she certainly knows how to use the darksabre, since she has been trained how to use it since childhood. However, Moff Gideon eventually gains the upper hand – quite literally – and crushes the darksabre in Bo-Katan’s hand. Crushing it into scrap metal is certainly a new way of defeating a lightsabre (or darksabre) wielding opponent and also another hint that Moff Gideon is at least part machine at this point, because even with beskar armour, no normal human would have the strength to crush a lightsabre.

So the darksabre, subject of so much conflict, strife and angst, is no more and so it seems is Bo-Katan. Moff Gideon has one more gloating supervillain moment, where he tells Bo-Katan that she can’t defeat him. Bo-Katan replies that he forgot something. Mandalorians are stronger together. At the same moment, Din reappears behind Moff Gideon, carrying Grogu. It’s his turn to save Bo-Katan now and save her he does. Tor.com‘s Emmet Asher-Perrin points out that the line “Mandalorians are stronger together”, though fairly rote in itself, is pretty much the mission statement of the entire season 3.

But though Moff Gideon may be down for the count, Din and Bo-Katan have another problem. Because Axe Woves is still aboard the Mandalorian light cruiser battling a squadron of TIE Interceptors and Bombers. However, the cruiser is shot to hell by now and Axe can no longer hold it in orbit. So he aims the cruiser at Moff Gideon’s base and contacts Bo-Katan and Koska Reeves (and I still think that Axe and Koska are a couple) to tell them to get the hell out of there, because he’s coming in hot. Once again, it seems as if this is the end of Axe Woves. But no, he uses his handy jetpack to escape through a broken cockpit window and survives.

Koska Reeves, the Armourer and the other Mandalorians escape the base, but Bo-Katan, Din and Grogu are not so lucky and cannot get out in time. And so the base is consumed by flames all around them. Bo-Katan activates her arm forceshield – which is almost identical in design to the arm shield that King Randor uses in the 2002 He-Man and the Masters of the Universe cartoon, so maybe a Mandalorian crashlanded on Eternia – to protect Din and Grogu, but it’s not enough. However, then Grogu uses the Force to protect Din and Bo-Katan. Afterwards, he is very exhausted and has to sit down. io9 reviewer Germain Lussier points out that Grogu does pretty much the same thing – use the Force to shield Din, Cara Dune (whose name Lussier refuses to mention for some reason), Greef Karga and IG-11 from fire – in the season 1 finale, but it’s still a great moment and also once more illustrates the motto of this season, namely that Mandalorians are stronger together.

As for Moff Gideon, we last see him engulfed in flames. Is he dead? Well, we never see a body and Moff Gideon does have beskar armour and is very likely at least part machine, though he’ll probably be back. Besides, he is too good a villain to kill off.

The main conflict has been resolved by this point, but the episode still has quite a bit of runtime left and so we get a series of codas. First of all, the Armourer and Bo-Katan as leaders of their respective factions relight the Great Forge on Mandalore. The Mandalorians have returned to their home world and in true Star Wars fashion, they’re being led by a pair of awesome women.

Next, the Armourer finally completes the ceremony she began way back in the first episode of the season, only this time at the living waters underneath the city, and formally accepts Ragnar Vizla as a Mandalorian apprentice. I feel sorry for Ragnar, because he lost his Dad in the battle for Mandalore and is now an orphan. Though knowing the Mandalorians and their commitment to raising lost children, he will be well taken care of.

Din steps forward with Grogu in his arms and requests that the Armourer perform the ceremony for Grogu as well. However, the Armourer points out that Grogu can’t speak and therefore can’t say the creed. Din insists what if Grogu’s parents gave permission, whereupon the Armourer points out that they have no idea who Grogu’s parents are and if they’re even still alive. If my theory that Grogu is the secret love child of Yoda and possibly Yaddle is correct, then the answer is “no”. However, the Mandalorians have no way of knowing that. So Din says, “Well, what if I formally adopt the kid and give permission?” “THIS is the way”, the Armourer replies and the way she says it pretty much implies that what she really wants to say to Din is, “Dude, you are a little slow, aren’t you? This kid is yours now and has been since the moment you found him.”

Still, Din finally formally adopts Grogu, who shall henceforth be known as Din Grogu, which is a bit confusing because so far, all Mandalorians we’ve seen have had a given name – surname naming pattern, e.g. Jango and Boba Fett or Paz and Ragnar Vizla. So why do Din and Grogu seem to have a surname – given name naming pattern? Of course, it’s possible that Din’s original people – he was not born a Mandalorian, after all – use a surname first naming pattern, but it’s still an odd departure. Also, apparently we should have been calling him Djarin all along.

Grogu also gets formally accepted as a Mandalorian apprentice, which means that he and his mentor/father Din must travel around the Galaxy for Grogu to learn the way of the Mandalore. Thus, there is no quiet retirement on the newly rebuilt Mandalore for Din and Grogu – at least not for now – and also no romantic future for Bo-Katan and Din – at least not for now. Still, Din and Grogu can always visit.

During Grogu’s intiation ritual, Grogu is dipping his little toes into the living waters and suddenly closes his eyes, a sure sign that he is using the Force, in this case to contact someone. The camera then appears to dive into the living waters and there, far below the surface, Grogu’s Force call is answered by none other than a mythosaur, who briefly opens its eye and then closes it again. So there definitely still is at least on mythosaur living in the waters under Mandalore, though it isn’t interested in wrestling with anybody or giving them a ride or even just surfacing to freak out the assembled Mandalorians, at least not today. But considering how important the mythosaur is to Mandalorian lore, I suspect we might have seen yet another clue that Grogu rather than Din or Bo-Katan or the Armourer is the future of the Mandalorians.

But in the present day, Grogu is still a toddler, even though he is officially a Mandalorian apprentice now. And since Grogu needs to have some adventures around the Galaxy with his Dad, we see Din land his shiny spaceship at the New Republic base on Adelphi to seek out Captain Teva, who is happy enough to see Din and Grogu again.

As for why Din has come to see Captain Teva, he has a proposition for him. Now that he’s a father, Din wants to become more selective in his choice of clients and bounties (and yes, that’s exactly what he says). Therefore, he offers Captain Teva to do some jobs for the New Republic, deal with the sort of problems that the New Republic doesn’t have the resources or the will to solve. Captain Teva is clearly interested, but points out that he’d never ever get approval for such a scheme. “Well, it’s not as if you have to tell them”, Din says.

Meanwhile, Grogu is nibbling on the bar snacks, which happen to be rice crackers, specifically these hot and spicy rice crackers. This little moment made me ridiculously happy, because I discovered the joy of rice crackers and Star Wars around the same time, so both are forever linked in my mind.

I first found rice crackers at the nut bar in the Hema department in Rotterdam in December 1983, when Return of the Jedi was in European cinemas (the Star Wars films were always winter movies here). At the time, snack foods in Germany were limited to potato chips, almost always paprika flavoured, and tinned peanuts, so a Dutch nut bar was an unimaginable delight. An incredible variety of nuts, dried fruit, licorice and candy on offer and you just had to point at something (I didn’t yet speak Dutch at that point) and the nice person behind the counter would dip in a metal shovel and fill your choice into a paperbag and the result would taste better than anything on offer in a German supermarket.

And then there were rice crackers, little bite-sized bits, brightly coloured and shaped like stars, squares, crescents and spheres. I’d literally never seen anything like it before. I don’t quite remember why I decided that I wanted some of those crackers rather than any of the other fabulous things on offer. I think the nice lady behind the counter of Hema‘s nut bar let me try some, because she must have noticed how fascinated I was. And damn, they tasted good. Spicy, savoury, crunchy, a little sweet and unlike any snack food you could find in Germany at the time. At any rate, I fell hard for rice crackers, much to the dismay of my parents who never particularly liked them. And since the rice crackers looked like food from an alien planet, I pretended that they were just that, crackers from an alien planet and what the people in the Star Wars universe (remember, it was 1983, Return of the Jedi was in theatres and Star Wars was everywhere) would eat inbetween missions. So rice crackers and Star Wars not just became linked in my mind, but for many years it was also a personal tradition that whenever I settled down to watch a Star Wars movie or TV show, I’d have a bowl of rice crackers by my side. To me, rice crackers are the taste of Star Wars.

However, Star Wars has never been very good about depicting food. Yes, there is the famous blue milk and there are fennel bulbs of all things in Aunt Beru’s kitchen, we see Luke eating a ration bar and Mandalorians sipping soup, Grogu will pop anything into his mouth and Elia Kane tempts Dr. Pershing with crackers. However, food isn’t really a big part of Star Wars worldbuilding and we’ve never ever seen anybody eat the one thing they should have been eating all along, namely rice crackers. Until Grogu decided to pop a handful of rice crackers into his mouth at Adelphi base and trust me, kid, I would have loved to share that bowl of rice crackers with you (I no longer eat them as much as I used to, because unfortunately rice crackers tend to trigger blisters, aphtous ulcers and other adverse reactions in my mouth, so I have to be careful).

While Grogu is nibbling rice crackers, he also becomes very fascinated by a display of war trophies, i.e. Stormtrooper helmets and the like, above the bar, which also includes the head of an IG droid. Captain Teva notices Grogu’s interest and even remarks on it. “That head just reminds him of someone he used to know”, Din replies and then he has an idea. He asks Captain Teva if he may have the IG droid head. “What do you want it for?” Teva asks. Din replied that he needs the memory circuit and that he will take the droid head in  lieu of a fee for his first job for the New Republic.

The scene then shifts to Nevarro, where Greef Karga is only to happy to welcome Din and Grogu and the gift that Din has brought for the people of Nevarro, namely a restored IG-11, thanks to the droid head and memory circuit he got from Captain Teva. And since Nevarro needs protection – after all, the Mandalorians buggered off back to Mandalore –  IG-11 will now serve as Nevarro’s marshal – with some backup from Din and Grogu, if necessary.

Greef Karga also points out that the offer he made Din for a plot of land on Nevarro still stands and that it will make a great place to rest and relax inbetween missions. Which is exactly what we see Din doing in the very last scene, sitting in front of a housing container somewhere on Nevarro, while Grogu Force-lifts a frog from a pond, but refrains from eating it, which is progress.

If the series had ended here, it would be a good ending. The Mandalorians are back on Mandalore, Din and Grogu are officially a family and have a home of their own and everybody is happy. True, there are still a few loose ends, but not too many.

That said, since Din and Grogu will still go on missions for Captain Teva, the powers that be could easily make another season or five. Or Din and Grogu could pop up in other Star Wars films and series set during the same time period such as the upcoming Ahsoka series. Apparently, there’s also a movie in the works that will tie up loose ends from The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett and Ahsoka and will likely feature the battle against Grand Admiral Thrawn. Though I’m pretty confident that we’ll see our favourite Clan of Two again.

A lot of people seem to have been disssatisfied with season 3 of The Mandalorian, but I quite enjoyed it, even though it was not the story I expected to see. Because what I expected, based on the trailers, was a quest for Din to bathe in the living waters of Mandalore to redeem himself in the eyes of his people as well as a conflict between Din and Bo-Katan about the darksabre. However, both plotlines are resolved by episode 2 and Din and Bo-Katan bury their differences and become a team – almost a family, in fact. In many ways, the season we actually got – namely the story of how the various Mandalorian groups set aside their differences and retake their planet – was better than what I expected and also a perfect illustration of this season’s motto that Mandalorians are stronger together.

At io9, Bryant Francis points out how the story of disparate groups of Mandalorians working together to find a new, old home mirrors the story of the Jewish people and the founding of the state Israel. Apparently, the title of the penultimate episode of the season “The Spies” is an Old Testament reference, though I completely missed that. However, I certainly picked up on the Jewish parallels and found it interesting, especially since neither Jon Favreau nor Dave Filoni are Jewish as far as I know.

And yes, season 3 of The Mandalorian was meandering, but then the show has always been meandering from day one and always took plenty of detours to get where it’s going. But unlike the mess that was The Book of Boba Fett, The Mandalorian knows whose story it wants to tell, namely the story of Din Djarin and his adopted son Grogu, whose journey occasionally intersects with big intergalactic politics, though they’d much rather be left alone to watch the sunset and play with frogs.

Andor was a huge success and a lot of fans really liked it (I liked it, too, though I didn’t get around to reviewing it), because it told a story about fighting a fascist regime that a lot of people needed to see right now. Plus, it was a very good show. However, it seems that as a result a lot of folks were disappointed by season 3 of The Mandalorian, because they wanted something more in the style of Andor and that’s not what The Mandalorian is or will ever be.

Of course, The Mandalorian can be very political at times – the season 2 episode “The Believer” is the most blatant example – because Star Wars is always political. However, The Mandalorian is not as in your face political as Andor nor are its politics as straightforward. Because at their heart, Andor‘s politics are very straightforward: Those are the bad guys, the fascists, so let’s fight them. Here’s a brick, let’s throw it at the nearest cop. And considering that Andor is set at the height of the Empire’s power, in the darkest hour just before the dawn (literally), that makes sense.

The Mandalorian‘s politics, on the other hand, are far less clear. For starters, the most blatantly political episode of The Mandalorian also an episode which gives us the POV of the Empire or what’s left of it and which has a character utter the very nihilistic statement that it doesn’t matter for what grand political ideal Rebels, Stormtroopers, Mandalorians, Ewoks, etc… died, because they’re still dead. What is more, The Mandalorian also consistently portrays the New Republic not as a force for good and the restoration of justice and order to the galaxy, but as ineffective at best and barely better than the Empire it replaced at worst. And yes, that’s not how any Star Wars fan wanted the story to go. We all wanted the battles and sacrifices of Luke, Leia, Han, Chewie, R2-D2 and C-3PO to mean something, we all wanted them to build a better world and live happily ever after.  However, in the real world countries that managed to shake off and kick out tyrannical regimes often slide back into tyranny and end up with leaders worse than the one they kicked out within a generation. The 1980s were a long story of liberation as country after country got rid of terrible dictators – the military dictatorship in Argentina, Ferdinand Marcos in the Phillippines, Jean-Claude Duvalier in Haiti, etc… – and then the impossible happened: the Iron Curtain just collapsed and all those countries in Eastern Europe kicked out their shitty leaders. As a bonus, Augusto Pinochet in Chile was kicked out of office and Apartheid ended in South Africa, too. As someone who was a teenager during those years, it was literally seeing the end of Star Wars become true. All the bad guys were going one by one and we’d get the rest of the bunch – the Admiral Thrawns of the world – too. The future looked bright and happy for everybody.

Except that’s not how it went. A lot of countries now have regimes that are as bad or worse as those of the 1980s, though they have nicer cars and clothes and more stuff to buy now. But the brave people who fought for freedom in those countries saw all their hard work crumble to nothing. And yesterday’s good guys are all too often today’s bad guys. Dave Filoni and Jon Favreau are about my age (Filoni is a year younger, Favreu six years older) and lived through all this as well and saw it happen. They literally saw the “This time, we’ll get it right” feeling of 1989/1990 crumble to dust.

The US is currently having a problem with creeping fascism and one of its two political parties turning steadily more fascist, so it’s no wonder that Andor resonated with US viewers. However, in Germany and other European countries, we are having both a problem with creeping fascism and the rise of the Far Right, but also with an equally creeping and far more disturbing (because everybody expects fascists to be evil) strain of leftwing and green authoritarianism, coupled with a government that’s either completely incompetent or actively evil or both. And though you’re not supposed to talk about any of that – and I may well get in trouble for writing this, vaguely worded as it is – but everybody who’s not a complete idiot can see it happening. So that’s probably why The Mandalorian with its messy politics and its good guys going bad due to incompetence or malice or both resonated with me so much, because it matches what I see happening around me.

The greatest strength of Star Wars has always been that it’s so very easy to project the politics of a galaxy far away onto our own world. Plus, Star Wars has always been fuelled by anger, anger at a world that could be better and that authorities, media, propaganda and parents insist is better, only that it isn’t. It’s that anger paired with the glimpses of hope of things getting better somewhere – the Mandalorians uniting and getting their planet back, Greef Karga rebuilding Nevarro, Boba Fett doing the same on Tatooine, Captain Bombardier and the Duchess installing a direct democracy on their ridiculous planet – which has always been why Star Wars resonated with me so much, more than Star Trek or any other science fiction franchise.

So yes, I thoroughly enjoyed season 3 of Tha Mandalorian. If this is the last we’ll ever see of Din Djarin and Grogu, it’s fine. But if Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have more adventures for our favourite Clan of Two up their sleeves, I certainly will be watching.

An Open Letter to the 2023 Hugo Finalists, Whoever They May Be

This is an updated repost of this post from 2021 and this one from last year, which a lot of people found helpful.

Nominations for the 2023 Hugo Awards closed yesterday and the finalists are expected to be announced sometime in May.

Right now, no one except for possibly the Hugo administrators knows who those finalists will be. And yes, I deliberately posted this so shortly after the Hugo nominations closed that the e-mails won’t have gone out yet and no one know who the finalists are.

However, sometime in the next two weeks or so, some of you will receive an e-mail from the Chengdu Worldcon, informing you that you are a finalist for the 2023 Hugo Award and asking you whether you want to accept the nomination. Some of you will have received such e-mails before, for others it will be the first time.

But whether it’s your first or your twentieth nomination, congratulations! That’s awesome.

As a first time recipient of such an e-mail in 2020 as well as a Hugo finalist in 2021 and Hugo winner in 2022, here are a few things I’ve learned:

The e-mail may not look like you think it will. When I got the e-mail from CoNZealand in 2020, the subject line was “CoNZealand Hugo Awards Confidential”. I was exhausted that day and waiting for two important e-mails, so I scanned right past that subject line, because I assumed it was the convention newsletter. I only opened the mail, because none of the two important e-mails had come yet, so I thought I might as well check out the CoNZealand e-mail while I was waiting. Good thing that I did.If you receive an e-mail from the Chengdu Worldcon, please reply as soon as you can whether you accept the nomination or not. If there are questions with regard to eligibility, answer them as soon as possible. The Hugo administrator and their team work very hard, so don’t make their job any harder than it has to be.The Chengdu team will also ask you to keep quiet about your nomination until the official announcement. Please don’t violate this, because you don’t want to steal Chengdu’s thunder!The period between the time when the finalists are notified and when the Hugo finalists are officially announced can be weird, because while you know that you’re a finalist, almost nobody else does. I blogged a bit about my experiences in 2020 here. Basically, I kept having the niggling fear that there had been some terrible mistake and that I wasn’t a finalist after all or that I only was a finalist because all twenty people who would have been ahead of me had withdrawn. From talking to other first time finalists, I learned that I wasn’t alone in this. And while I can’t guarantee that terrible mistakes won’t happen, the chance that the wrong person is notified about being a Hugo finalist is extremely small. So relax. You really are a Hugo finalist, even if nobody else knows it yet.Do something nice for yourself to celebrate. Have an ice cream, a nice box of chocolates, a glass of champagne, a good beer, a bubble bath, whatever it is that makes you happy. You’re a Hugo finalist, so you damn well deserve to celebrate in private.You can tell a few people you trust about your nomination as long as you know they won’t blab it all over the internet. Before the official announcement, a handful of people knew I was a Hugo finalist. These include my parents (whose reaction was, “That’s nice,” before turning back to watch a rerun of Midsomer Murders), some folks from Galactic Journey and others in the SFF community, who knew not to say anything before the official announcement, as well as my accountant (because I asked her if buying an evening gown for the Hugo ceremony was tax-deductible – it’s not BTW) and the guy who repaired my patio, because he just happened to be there, when I got the e-mail. Neither the accountant nor the patio guy are SFF fans, so chances of a leak were zero. They both also probably thought I was quite mad.If you are nominated in a fiction category – i.e. short story, novelette, novella, novel, Series, Lodestar or Astounding – or nominated for a non-fiction book or essay in Best Related Work, you should let your editor and/or publisher know that you’re a finalist. They work in the industry and therefore know not to say anything and they may want to prepare some kind of congratulatory tweet, post or other promotion effort. Finally, editors are also thrilled when one of their authors is nominated.One thing I did not do is tell people about my nomination who might be up in the same category. Because I didn’t know who else was nominated (you don’t before the official announcement) and didn’t want anybody to feel disappointed, because I was a finalist and they were not.Even if you can’t publicly talk about your Hugo nomination just yet, there are still a few things you can do in the meantime. For example, you can update your bio to mention that you’re a Hugo finalist or write a bio, if you don’t have one yet. Important: Don’t upload your updated bio anywhere until the official announcement has been made! In fact, I spent a chunk of the evening after the Hugo finalists had been announced updating my bio everywhere it appears.In fact – and this is important – don’t upload anything that mentions your Hugo nomination anywhere on the internet, until the official announcement has been made. Even if you set a Tweet or blogpost to go live after the announcement has been made, don’t upload it yet. Because mistakes happen, you accidentally hit “publish” rather than “schedule” or a post goes live too early. I had my celebratory blogpost ready to go in Word, but I only uploaded it with links and a few comments added once the announcement had been made.Another thing you can do in the meantime is prepare a media kit, if you haven’t got one already. You can see mine here and there are also plenty of pages around the web that tell you what a media kit is supposed to contain. Important: Get permission to use any photos that you did not take yourself.Another thing you can do is write a press release about your Hugo nomination. It doesn’t matter which category you’re nominated in, whether it’s Best Novel or a fan category. Write a press release anyway. There are plenty of places around the web which tell you how to write a press release. It varies from country to country, so make sure you get the correct format for your country. My press releases from 2020, 2o21 and 2022 (in German) are here. Then make a list of the contact info for the relevant newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets in your region or country. Once the nominations have been announced, send your press release as well as the link to your media kit to those media outlets. The press release linked above netted me two in-depth profiles and a bonus article in two different newspapers in 2020 and two more in-depth profiles in 2021 as well as an article and an interview in 2022, which is much more than I’d hoped for.Consider whether you want to attend Worldcon and the ceremony. And yes, I know it’s difficult, because of covid  and because conditions and restrictions are very different in different parts of the world. For Chengdu, high travel costs and difficulties getting a visa may also be a problem for many. Nonetheless, get a Worldcon membership, if you haven’t got one already. Like most recent Worldcons, Chengdu offers a reduced rate for people attending their first ever Worldcon. You can also start looking for flights, hotels, etc…. If you need to apply for a visa, do so now. If money is an issue, as it’s for many of us, think about crowdfunding your Worldcon trip, as several finalists have done in recent years. However, don’t start your crowdfunding campaign, until after the finalists have been announced.If you want to participate in programming, contact Chengdu, since I can’t find a program participation form on their website. Do this as early as possible, so the programming team doesn’t have to find suitable programming for you at the last minute.Finally, start thinking about the Hugo voter packet. If you need to get permission to include certain texts or images, contact the relevant people.

Finally, here are a few observations regarding what happens after the Hugo finalists are announced:

A lot of people will congratulate you. These will be people you expect – friends, peers, etc… – but also people you don’t expect. After the newspaper articles mentioned above came out, I suddenly got congratulations from translation customers, various relatives, neighbours, former classmates, my plumber and my Dad’s diabetes doctor among others. Enjoy the experience, thank everybody and don’t forget to congratulate your fellow finalists.Some people will also not congratulate you and again, some of these will be people you don’t expect. There are several reasons why someone might not congratulate you and most of them are not malicious. For example, some people might simply not have seen the news yet. Or they may not understand the significance, since not everybody is plugged into the SFF community and knows how important the Hugos are. Of course, there will also be a few people who think that you don’t deserve your nomination. Ignore them!Your fellow Hugo finalists are not your rivals, they are your peers. You’ll probably know some of them already and if not, you’ll quickly get to know them. And yes, only one of you will get to take home the rocket in the end, but all six of you are amazing and in a way, you’re all winners. This also applies across categories. I met a lot of great people in the SFF community and even made new friends, just because we were on the Hugo ballot in the same year.In general, there is a sense of community to siblinghood among Hugo finalists. Whether you’re a bestselling author or a first-time finalist in a fan category, you’re all in this together. There is usually a private group for Hugo finalists to chat, ask questions, share gripes, post photos of Hugo gowns, tiaras and pets, etc…If you’re not part of the Worldcon SFF community and don’t know anybody else on the ballot, don’t worry! You’ll get to know the others soon enough and pretty much everybody in this community is lovely and very welcoming. If you’re a repeat finalist, reach out to the first-timers to make them welcome. This year, we will likely see at least some Chinese finalists, so please try to reach out to them as well.As a Hugo finalist, you will get plenty of e-mails from Chengdu about anything from the Hugo voter packet via the program book to the ceremony itself. Pay attention to those e-mails, send any information requested in time and check your spam folder. You don’t accidentally want to miss something important.Once the Hugo finalists have been announced, there will be people who have opinions about the ballot. Most will be positive or at least fair – I always try to be fair in my own Hugo and Nebula finalist commentaries, even if I don’t care for some of the finalists – but some will be not. There are always people who think that your category or the entire ballot is too male, not male enough, too white, not white enough, too queer, not queer enough, too American, not American enough, too bestselling, not bestselling enough – you get the idea. There will be people who complain that only people no one knows got nominated or that only the usual suspects got nominated – and multiple bestsellers and Hugo winners can be “people no one knows”, while first or second time finalists can be “the usual suspects”. Some of these people won’t even wait 24 hours after the Hugo finalists have been announced to air their opinions – at least they didn’t in 2021. Some will even tag you, just to make sure you don’t miss their very important opinions. The best thing to do is ignore those people.A handful of people seem to have made it their life’s mission to mock and harass Hugo finalists. Ignore them and block them on social media and don’t let them get you down. Most of them are just jealous.There will be drama. So far, I’ve never seen a Worldcon that did not have at least some degree of drama and I have been a Worldcon member since 2014. Often, this drama affects the Hugo finalists in some way. Sometimes, the Hugo finalists even band together and try to resolve this drama. How you engages with whatever this year’s drama will be is up to you. However, don’t let it get you down. Drama is normal. At this point, I would be more surprised at a Worldcon without drama than at one which has some degree of drama. And usually, everybody winds up having a great time anyway.

So what happens, if you win?

Basically more of the same. Lots of people will congratulate you, most of them with genuine enthusiasm, a few very grudgingly (one in my case, not a fellow finalist) and some not at all.Make sure to have your acceptance speech ready before the ceremony with the names of all the people you want to thank. Check with people how their names are pronounced, if you aren’t sure. Always have a printed paper copy of your speech, because phones can and do break down, run out of juice, fail to have reception or get overloaded with messages at the crucial moment.After you win a Hugo, you should prepare another press release and send it to all the local, regional and national media you can think of. I actually wrote mine at six AM in the morning after the winners had been announced.Don’t forget to update your bio wherever it appears. That includes anthologies or magazines where you’ve been accepted, but which aren’t out yet.Your “market value” (for lack of a better word) does go up with your first nomination, goes up even further with your second and even more, if you win. For example, I got a story acceptance in the mail literally the day after I won. Of course, the story might have been accepted anyway, but the timing was still interesting. I also gained a bunch of new Twitter followers with every nomination and winning a Hugo pushed me over the 3000 follower mark for the first time. You’ll also notice that your name will start to show up on covers of anthologies or magazines, sometimes with “Hugo winner” attached. However, you’ll still get rejections as well, because even Hugo winners get rejected and that’s perfectly normal.You’ll also find that you have acquired more clout in the SFF community, something which also happens once you get nominated. Use what influence you have in the SFF community for good, to uplift and support others.One thing I noticed is that I would sometimes find myself thinking, “Wait a minute, I have a Hugo and [insert name of vastly more important genre person here] doesn’t? How on Earth did that happen?”That said, certain people will still call you a nobody who barely sells any books or a fake fan or whatever. This literally happened to me approx. a month after I won the Hugo, when I got into an argument about a TV show with the adherents of one of those “We hate everything” outrage clickbait YouTube channels. I pointed out that I really enjoyed the object of their rage du jour and so did many others and was called “not a real fan” in response. When I said, “Dude, I’m the 2022 Hugo winner for Best Fan Writer”, I was told that awards didn’t matter, that I was clearly not a real fan, because I didn’t hate the thing. Best just ignore those people and privately think, “Guess who has a shiny rocket? Hint, it’s not you.”

Finally – and this is the most important point – enjoy your experience! You’re a Hugo finalist, i.e. your peers consider you and your work one of the six best in your respective category. That’s amazing, so celebrate!

If anybody wants to translate this into Chinese for the benefit of Chinese Hugo finalists, please feel free to do so.

Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre: “The Story of Keldor (In His Own Words)”

It’s time for another Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre photo story. The name “Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre” was coined by Kevin Beckett at the Whetstone Discord server.

This story was inspired by getting a new toy in the mail, namely the Masters of the Universe Origins He-Skeletor figure. So who is He-Skeletor? Well, best let him tell his story himself.

This is not actually the Keldor who becomes He-Skeletor, but the evil Keldor from the 2002 cartoon. However, Keldor figures are rather rare, so he will have to do.

“I am Keldor, Prince of Eternia and defender of the secrets of Castle Grayskull…”

“…and this is Panthor, my fearless friend.”

“Meow.”

“And yes, I know you think you know how this story goes, but trust me, you don’t.”

“Fabulous secret powers were revealed to me the day I held aloft my magic sword and said…”

“By the Power of Grayskull…”

“…I can have the Power.”

Panthor is on loan from regular Skeletor, but I will eventually get a second one for Keldor.

“Panthor became the mighty Battle Panther…”

ROAR!

“…and I became He-Skeletor, the most powerful Keldor in the Multiverse.”

“Only two others share the secret. Our friends Lyn and Red Beast.”

Yup, King Randor is Keldor’s half-brother, though they both prefer not to talk about that.

“You didn’t think I’d tell my shitty brother, did you?”

“Don’t think that I don’t know that it was you who sprayed ‘King Randor is a poopy head’ on the palace wall, Keldor. You’re a disappointment and a disgrace to the throne. And now get out of my sight and take that mangy Beast-Man and that useless sorceress Lyn along!”

“See what I mean? That’s my brother Randy – pardon, King Randor. He’s an idiot in every universe I visited – and I visited a lot of them. Still, he’s my brother and I love him.”

In the audio dramas and comics, Anti-Eternia He-Man has all of his usual companions – in the same black and red colour scheme and also very evil. However, Mattel only ever made Anti-Eternia He-Man, so you have to imagine his evil forces.

“Together we defend the Multiverse from the Evil Forces of Anti-Eternia He-Man. Otherwise known as my nephew, Prince Adam.”

“Surrender or die, Uncle Keldor. All the Power in the Multiverse shall be mine.”

“That’s He-Skeletor to you, Adam.”

“That’s a terrible name.”

“Says the guy who calls himself Anti-Eternia He-Man.”

“Oh yes, and my friends and I also defend Castle Grayskull from this guy. Who’s me, sort of, but from a different universe and evil. Oh yes, and he got his face burned off, because he tried to throw acid at our brother Randor and it backfired on himself. So yeah, he’s an arsehole and an idiot.”

“Arsehole? Idiot? Watch your mouth, boy. It’s you who’s a disgrace to our name, weakling.”

“I may be a weakling, Skeletor, but you’re the disgrace. All of you. Or do you think I like having to apologise for what YOU did to every single He-Man I meet.”

“You should be helping me to conquer the Multiverse and Grayskull. But instead, you… you cavort about with Lyn and paint pictures and rescue He-Men. Honestly, I have no idea what’s wrong with you.”

“Like I said, he’s an arsehole. They’re all arseholes, every other Keldor in the Multiverse.”

A gathering of Skeletors from around the Multiverse, from left to right: Keldor, He-Skeletor, Skelegod from Masters of the Universe Revelation, regular Skeletor on Panthor, 200X Skeletor and Snake Armour Skeletor. Yes, I guess I have a Skeletor problem.

“The name is Skeletor, you blistering boob! And you are a loser, a weakling, a shame, a disgrace.”

“We should just kill him, comrades.”

“Yes, let’s kill the weakling.”

GRRR!

“See what I mean? I’ve always been my own worst enemy.”

From left to right, we have Snake Armour He-Man, Flying Fists He-Man, He-Skeletor, Savage He-Man, regular He-Man on Battle Cat, the 200X He-Man, Pince Adam and Anti-Eternia He-Man sneaking up on them all from behind. Yes, I think I might have a He-Man problem as well.

“Finally, I’m also sworn to protect all the other He-Men in the Multiverse from my wayward nephew – and to persuade them to marry that Teela girl they’re all in love with. Sometimes, I think I’m truly cursed.”

“So that’s who I am. Keldor, Prince, weakling, loser, disgrace and the last best hope that the Multiverse has to be saved from the rampage of Anti-Eternia He-Man. Which means we’re all doomed, I guess.”

***

So in short, He-Skeletor is Prince Keldor from another universe, where He-Man is evil and Keldor is not. The idea of an evil mirror universe version of He-Man is actually quite old and Anti-Eternia He-Man debuted in 1985 in episode 11 of the West German Masters of the Universe audio-drama series.

In the 1970s and 1980s, audio dramas aimed at children and teenagers and sold as cassette tapes were extremely popular in West Germany. These were very well made full cast audio dramas, complete with sound effects and some of Germany’s best voice actors (e.g. He-Man shared a voice – voice actor Norbert Langer – with Thomas Magnum and Inspector Barnaby from Midsumer Murders, which could be quite distracting). As a kid, I never really paid any attention to these audio dramas on cassette – they were just something that was there, something you popped into the tape recorder and played before bedtime or during long car trips. I also had no idea that other countries didn’t really have audio dramas aimed at kids the way (West) Germany did.

There was a huge variety of audio drama series, ranging from explicit kiddie fare featuring friendly elephants, bees, ghosts and witches via realistic tales about girls riding horses, boys playing football to kids solving mysteries all the way to science fiction, fantasy and horror. Some of them were based on licensed properties, e.g. I distinctly remember Star Wars audio dramas. There also were more than thirty Masters of the Universe audio dramas as well as a She-Ra spin-off series.

Legend has it that the head of the children’s audio drama department of the Europa production company took a stroll across the Nuremberg Toy Fair in 1982 or 1983 and saw the first run of Masters of the Universe figures on display at the Mattel booth. Intrigued, she went up to a Mattel representative and asked them about the figures, whether there was any tie-in media and whether they were interested in licensing the characters for audio dramas. Mattel said yes and so the (West) German Masters of the Universe audio dramas were born. The first few audio dramas deviated quite heavily from what passes for Masters of the Universe canon, because that canon hadn’t really been nailed down yet. After a few episodes, Mattel supplied Europa with their series bible and licensor kit and the audio dramas became more in line with the continuity of the Filmation cartoon, even though almost no one in Germany had seen those cartoons at the time. That said, the audio dramas were usually darker than the Filmation episodes.

As for Anti-Eternia He-Man, he debuted in episode 11, penned by science fiction and horror veteran author H.G. Francis and entitled simply “Anti-Eternia”. The episode is actually online and you can listen to it here. The plot is quite simple. Skeletor devises a new plan to conquer Eternia and opens a dimensional gate that brings Anti-Eternia He-Man, Man-at-Arms and (I think) Orko to Eternia to help Skeletor conquer Castle Grayskull. However, Anti-Eternia He-Man has other ideas and kicks Skeletor out of Snake Mountain and proceeds to conquer Eternia for himself, before our heroes stop him. It’s one of the more popular episodes of the series and probably introduced a lot of kids to the concept of parallel universes.

Since it was an audio drama, there were no visuals and no images of Anti-Eternia He-Man – just a description that his skin was jet black and that he had blood red eyes and blood red hair. He showed up in fan art and customs and eventually Mattel officially adopted him and turned him into a figure in various toylines, probably because Anti-Eternia He-Man is easy and cheap to make, since he’s basically He-Man in a different colour.

The original “Anti-Eternia” audio drama only featured the evil counterparts of He-Man, Man-at-Arms and Orko and never mentioned Skeletor and the Evil Warriors and what they were like in Anti-Eternia. Were they even more evil than the already very evil Anti-Eternia He-Man? Or were they actually the good guys?

That question would remain unanswered for more than thirty years, until the He-Man and the Masters of the Multiverse comic mini-series by Tim Seeley and Dan Fraga. That series brought all the different incarnations of He-Man from various media together by stating that the minicomics, the Filmation cartoon, the New Adventures of He-Man cartoon, the 2002 cartoon, the 1987 Masters of the Universe movie, the 2012 DC Comics run, the West German audio dramas of the 1980s, a He-Man videogame, etc… all take place in different universes, which is why they’re all slightly different from each other.

The series is kicked off by Anti-Eternia He-Man going on a rampage through the Multiverse to murder other versions of He-Man and steal their power swords, so he can rule supreme over the Multiverse. Eventually two surviving He-Men, the He-Man from the 1987 movie and a videogame He-Man use the cosmic key (a time, space and dimension hopping gadget from the 1987 movie) to enlist the help of the one person who might be able to stop Anti-Eternia He-Man, namely that universe’s version of Skeletor.

Yes, I have the Skeletor and He-Man from the 1987 movie, though these are the larger Masterverse figures and not in scale with the others. The cosmic key gadget is standing next to Skeletor.

There’s only one problem. Anti-Eternia Keldor is no Skeletor. He’s something of a goofball, crap at magic and not a very good fighter – unlike the versions of Keldor we’ve seen in the 2002 cartoon and the recent CGI cartoon, who are already skilled swordsmen and sorcerers well before they become Skeletor. He also has a massive case of imposter syndrome and is terrified of falling to the dark side, especially once he meets his other evil selves.

The comic miniseries is delightful, though also very dark, because a lot of He-Men, Skeletors and other beloved characters die over the course of six issues. The series does a great job of bringing together the many different Masters of the Universe continuities. Keldor is an incredibly likeable protagonist, from the way he differentiates between the various He-Men he meets (e.g. movie He-Man is “looking down He-Man”, because he’s very tall and rather aloof, while Filmation He-Man is “annoyingly chipper He-Man”) to the moment he employs a bit of Skeletor-like ruthlessness on a He-Man who wants nothing to do with his quest by using the one weakness all He-Men share, the fact that they all have a soft spot for Teela, against him. And once Keldor realises what his role is in this story and that it’s not the part of the villain, once he holds aloft the sword and says the magic words, it’s a true “Hell, yeah!” moment.

Mattel made a Masters of the Universe Origins He-Skeletor figure as an online exclusive – probably because he’s fairly easy and cheap to make, since he’s basically He-Man in a different colour scheme. Though I hope they eventually make an untransformed good guy Keldor as well, because he looks quite different from the 200X bad guy Keldor they already made.

When my He-Skeletor toy was delivered and I wanted to take some photos of him, I thought, “Why don’t I do a version of the classic Filmation intro, only starring Keldor?” And that’s how this story came about.

That’s it for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed this Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Toy Photo Story, because there will be more.

Bonus: Two Keldors and one Pathor raid the cookie platter.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, I just bought some toys, took photos of them and wrote little scenes to go with those photos. All characters are copyright and trademark their respective owners.

Non-Fiction Spotlight: Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West by Aidan Moher

Hugo season is upon us and nominations for the 2023 Hugo Awards will close on Sunday, so it’s time for another Non-Fiction Spotlight. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

For more recommendations for SFF-related non-fiction, also check out this Facebook group set up by the always excellent Farah Mendlesohn, who is a champion (and author) of SFF-related non-fiction.

Today’s Non-Fiction Spotlight is a book about video games, particularly SFF-related RPGs from Japan.

Therefore, I am thrilled to welcome Aidan Moher, author of Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West to my blog today.

Tell us about your book.

Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West is a book about the history of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the rise of Japanese RPGs in the west.

…

Uh, I mean, the title tells you exactly what you’re gonna get inside. Haha. “Fight, Magic, Items” explores the early days of RPGs like Ultima and Wizardry, and how they inspired young Japanese creators like Hironobu Sakaguchi, Yuji Horii, and Rieko Kodama to create their own spin on the RPG genre with an emphasis on living room play on low-powered gaming consoles. It follows the genre through its niche popularity in the West during the 16-bit era, and its meteoric rise to superstardom thanks to Final Fantasy VII’s immense global success, and beyond to current day and the rise of indie JRPGs and the cultural exchange between Western and Japanese creators that’s lead to games like Final Fantasy XVI. It’s the story of Japanese RPGs, the people who made them, and the people who played them.

What the title doesn’t tell you is that it’s also a personal story about growing up during the genre’s golden age. Through the lens of my experiences, I examine the cultural and creative impact these games had on generations of young Canadians and Americans, and try to show the reader just how magical this time was for the people living through it.

With video games becoming more and more entwined with SFF culture—and specifically the Hugo Awards themselves, with the new “Best Video Game” category—it’s essential that we broaden our search for the stories that shed light on our genre, communities, histories, and creators from all angles. We live in an age where Hugo-nominated books and stories are as likely to be influenced by Hironobu Sakaguchi and Rieko Kodama as they are J.R.R. Tolkien and Ursula K. Le Guin, and a book like “Fight, Magic, Items” celebrates the broad, global idea of how creators across the world inspire each other constantly and across mediums.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I’ve been kicking the tires in the SFF fan community for over 15 years, since starting my blog A Dribble of Ink, which ended up winning a Hugo in 2014 for “Best Fanzine.” Since I closed it in 2015, I’ve shifted over to freelance writing for places like WIRED, Washington Post, Tor.com, Uncanny Magazine, Game Informer, and many other places. I love to tell stories about creative communities, and the people who give back to the fandoms and creations that inspire them. In the past, I’ve written about the surging popularity of video game “book clubs,” the ethos of pixel art, how Hayao Miyazaki uses magic to examine the loss of childhood innocence, and what it was like to localize Japanese RPGs in the late 90s.

What prompted you to write/edit this book?

I grew up in a house packed full of books, a voracious reader like both my parents, with a particular love for science fiction, and, eventually, fantasy. One day, my babysitter came over to look after me and my brothers for the evening. He’d usually bring a game with him—for us to play after my younger brothers were asleep—but instead of DOOM deathmatch, this time he pulled out a cart for my Super NES: Final Fantasy III. From that day, I fell head over heels for Japanese RPGs. They were like epic fantasy books I could play, and they started to influence me and my writing in the same way as the novels I devouring. From that point forward, my two loves were JRPGs and books, and… that just never changed. Fast forward a few decades, and I’d started to carve out a niche as a games journalist with this Kotaku feature on how there’s a whole generation of SFF writers like me who were shaped by Final Fantasy, Phantasy Star, and similar games. Recognizing that this crossover between audiences not only existed, but was basically a given for many young SFF writers, I started writing more about the genre, including a piece about Trials of Mana for Uncanny Magazine (a traditionally book-focused SFF semi-prozine that’s won about a million Hugos), and exploring the intersection between SFF fandom and JRPGs/gaming.

Then, one day, my agent Eric Smith—also a writer, also a big JRPG nerd—emailed me and said, “Hey, dude, when are you gonna do a JRPG book?” I rolled with it, we started pitching the book, and eventually it found a home with the amazing Running Press team. It started life as an essay collection—a mixture of reprints and new stuff—but eventually I realized there was more than enough there for a full-fledged book about about creative drive, cultural exchange, and the history of JRPGs.

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters in particular read this book?

We’re at a point now where video games are decades old, and, no matter what anyone says or thinks, they’re not only here to stay, but they’re becoming an intrinsic part of our culture—just like books, just like film, just like music, art, sport, and so on. The Hugo Awards are doing their part to recognize this by creating the new “Best Video Game” category, which I think is wonderful because it helps illustrate that “SFF” isn’t just books. It’s every sort of creative medium that explores speculative storytelling, and JRPGs are full of that. These games trace a clear lineage back to Michael Moorcock and J.R.R. Tolkien, Dungeons & Dragons, and so forth—they’re a branch of the same tree already celebrated broadly by the SFF community and the Hugo Awards—and they’re inspiring new creators (of books, film, etc.) in turn. They’re deeply entwined with what we create and consume as a community, and “Fight, Magic, Items” tells a vital part of the story.

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

One of the book’s narrative pillars is the concept of cultural exchange—that JRPGs were initially inspired by western RPGs and TTRPGs, and eventually ended up inspiring future Western creators, in turn, to the point now where Western creators are creating RPGs in the style of Final Fantasy, and Final Fantasy’s Japanese creators are creating massively popular Western-style MMORPGs. What I didn’t realize before I set out to write the book—but which I explore with great enthusiasm within its pages—is how you can go back to the genre’s very origins to find the first examples of this cultural exchange.

For example, the first Final Fantasy game was programmed by a legendary Iranian American programmer named Nasir Gebelli. His work was so impressive, he got hired on to do Final Fantasy II and Final Fantasy III—but he had trouble extending his Japanese work visa. So, instead of hiring a new programmer based in Japane, the Square team moved development to Gebelli’s home of Sacramento, California, and finished the games there. From its very beginning, the Final Fantasy series has always been an exchange of Japanese and Western ideas, experiences, and philosophies.

SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

As a non-fiction writer and reporter, I think it’s vital to seek out the compelling and inspiring stories of the people who create the things we love. The number one thing I wanted for “Fight, Magic, Items” was to tell a story about people—those who create games, and those who play them. Every piece of non-fiction is, at its heart, about people and what drives them. Why do we create what we create? Why do we love what we love? What does that tell us about the time we’re living in? How can stories of the past help us understand the present and the future? Without non-fiction, we lose sight of who we are as creators, fans, and communities.

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

My friends Daniel Dockery and Mary Kenney wrote wonderful gaming books last year, also from Running Press. Dockery’s “Monster Kids” is a lot like “Fight, Magic, Items,” except instead of broadly looking at JRPG history, it focuses on the creation, success, and subsequent legacy of the Pokemon series. Kenney’s “Gamer Girls” looks at the role of women in game development through examinations of 20+ influential creators—it’s a joy to read.

Outside of books, I highly recommend various newsletters, like Matthew Claxton’s Unsettling Futures, Alasdair Stuart and Marguerite Kenner’s The Full Lid, Wendy Browne and Nola Pfau’s Women Write About Comics, and Jason Sanford’s Genre Grapevine. I’d also love to see Andrew Liptak’s Cosplay, Levar Burton Reads, and “Too Dystopian For Whom? A Continental Nigerian Writer’s Perspective” by Oghenechovwe Donald Ekpeki recognized with nominations. Any and all of these creators would look lovely on the “Best Fan Writer” ballot.

Where can people buy your book?

Anywhere you can buy books! Your favourite local bookstore, online at your vendor of choice, anywhere! For more information about “Fight, Magic, Items,” including excerpts, review blurbs, interviews, and more, you can also check out its official website.

Where can people find you?

Sigh. Twitter.

I also run a newsletter called Astrolabe (eligible for “Best Fanzine”!) where folks can sign up for free issues brimming with every geeky thing you can imagine: book reviews, gaming, writing, movies, etc. You name it, I write about it.

My award eligibility details (“Best Related Work” for “Fight, Magic, Items,” “Best Fanzine” for Astrolabe, and “Best Fan Writer” for me) and selected pieces for each category—along with more recommendations—can also be found on Astrolabe.

Thank you, Aidan, for stopping and answering my questions. Check out Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West, if you’ve ever played Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Pokémon or any other Japanese RPGs or are interested in the history of video games in general.

About Fight, Magic, Items: The History of Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, and the Rise of Japanese RPGs in the West:

Press start and discover the fascinating history of JRPGs.

The Japanese roleplaying game is a special genre that includes some of the most creative, influential, and beloved video games and series of all time. In Fight, Magic, Items, Aidan Moher guides you through the origin and evolution of the genre, beginning with the two games that started it all: Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Moher weaves in firsthand interviews and behind-the-scenes tales into a unique and entertaining tribute to a genre and games that inspired an industry and continues to capture the imagination of generations of fans including:

Chrono TriggerPhantasy StarEarthboundPokémonKingdom HeartsNieRFire EmblemPersonaTales of…SuikodenLunarand more.About Aidan Moher:

Aidan Moher (he/him) is a Hugo award-winning writer and editor who has written about almost every niche facet of geek culture you can think of from Terry Brooks to Dungeons & Dragons. And whether he’s penning wildly read essays on Lunar: Silver Star Story, the undeniable lasting power of Chrono Trigger (the best RPG ever made), or the forgotten history of Magic: the Gathering, he manages to infuse deep, personal, endearing hooks into every story he tells. He’s written for outlets like Wired, Kotaku, Electronic Gaming Monthly, Uncanny Magazine, Fanbyte, Tor.com, and more.

***

Did you publish a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2022 (and can answer my questions in three days) or are you publishing one in 2023 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu return to Mandalore and meet “The Spies”

Welcome to the latest instalment of my episode by episode reviews of season three of The Mandalorian. Previous installments may be found here.

Warning! Spoilers behind the cut!

In my review of the previous episode, I pointed out that based on the first two seasons, the various meandering plot threads should come together in the last two episodes of the season. And guess what? That’s exactly what happened.

The episode opens not on Nevarro or Mandalore or Plazir-15, but on Coruscant. Elia Kane, dressed in a conspirational trenchcoat, sneaks through the streets of Coruscant, clearly up to no good. She steps into a dark alley, where an Imperial probe droid descends from the sky for a clandestine meeting. The droid scans Elia and then projects a hologram of none other than Moff Gideon. Of course, we already knew that he escaped, but this is the first time we actually see him this season.

Moff Gideon isn’t thrilled to be called away from his very important scheming and he’s even less thrilled, when Elia tells him that the pirates were driven away from Nevarro. “But you assured me that the New Republic wouldn’t help them,” Moff Gideon grumbles. Elia Kane explains that no, the New Republic did not help Nevarro, but that the world was protected by Mandalorians, led by Din Djarin and Bo-Katan Kryze, two of Moff Gideon’s least favourite people. Moff Gideon vows to find them and finally exterminate the Mandalorians once and for all.

During the conversation with Elia Kane, the camera switches from Elia on Coruscant to Moff Gideon in an as of yet unknown location. The camera follows Moff Gideon as he walks along a black walkway – without any handrails, of course, it’s Star Wars – as red glowing force fields open and close. Furthermore, Stormtroopers in redesigned stand guard on outcroppings from the main walkway – also without handrails. It’s an impressive looking set and the red force fields were clearly inspired by the Duel of the Fates scene in The Phantom Menace, though I couldn’t help but think of the “chompers” scene from Galaxy Quest, because the whole design makes absolutely no sense and is clearly just there to look cool.

We also get a look at the very important scheming that Moff Gideon was called away from, which turns out to be a meeting of the Imperial Shadow Council. The Shadow Council consists of a number of unnamed Imperial officers turned warlords, Moff Gideon as well as one Commandant Brendol Hux, who sports a three days’ beard that would probably have gotten him Force-choked, if Darth Vader were still in charge, and one Captain Gilad Pellaeon. If the name Brendol Hux seems familiar, he’s the father of General Hux, who had a love/hate relationship with Kylo Ren in the sequel trilogy and was also a secret informer for the Rebellion, all to piss off Kylo Ren. The make the connection even more apparent, Brendol Hux is played by Brian Gleeson, brother of Domnhall Gleeson who played General. As for Captain Pellaeon, he is a character who was introduced in the 1991 Star Wars novel Heir to the Empire by Timothy Zahn as the right-hand man of …drumroll… Grand Admiral Thrawn. Of course, we’ve known for a while that Grand Admiral Thrawn would show up. In fact, the back of his head can already be glimpsed in the trailer for the upcoming Ahsoka series, which caused much squeeing across the Internet, though personally I will hold the squees until we finally see the face of Thrawn.

Of course, nobody can be expected to remember a secondary character from a 32-year-old tie-in novel, even one as popular as Heir to the Empire. And in fact, I remember almost nothing about the Thrawn trilogy, even though I eagerly devoured it back in the day. Oddly enough, I do remember exactly where I found the book (which in those pre-Internet days I had no idea existed) – in the window of a bookshop near Antwerpen Central Station. I think I went past that window two or three times, gazing at the book, that unimaginable thing, a brand-new Star Wars book, until I finally went in and bought it. Still, since most will have no idea who Captain Pellaeon is, he is introduced as a representative for Grand Admiral Thrawn and declares that everybody present is to prepare for the triumphant return of Grand Admiral Thrawn, who will then proceed to rebuilt the Empire. Meanwhile, Moff Gideon wants to know where exactly Thrawn is, since no one has seen hide nor hair of him (though we did see the back of his head) since the Fall of the Empire. As for Brendol Hux, he is engaged in something called Project Necromancy, which has something to do with cloning research. Gee, I wonder what Project Necromany could be? Could they maybe be… cloning Palpatine?

The meeting of the Shadow Council – nerds of a feather reviewer Haley Zapal calls it the galaxy’s most evil Zoom call – makes it very clear that Hux, Pellaeon (and Thrawn) and Moff Gideon don’t see eye to eye with regard to anything. Moff Gideon thinks that Hux and Pellaeon are hoarding resources that he and the other warlords should have. Hux doesn’t like Gideon and also wonders what happened to Doctor Pershing and his research (Elia Kane and a mindflayer happened) and suspects that Moff Gideon is using Doctor Pershing’s research for his own purposes (which, to be fair, he is). Captain Pellaeon, meanwhile, thinks that Grand Admiral Thrawn should head up the rebuilt Empire and that Moff Gideon seeks power for himself (which, to be fair, he does). Moff Gideon further irritates Hux and Pellaeon by demanding a squad of TIE interceptors and bombers and three Praetorian guards.

Coincidentally, the Post-Imperial Shadow Council is also the most diverse gathering of Imperial generals and dignitaries we’ve ever seen in Star Wars. This Shadow Council has several members of colour and two women members, including one woman of colour. And Grand Admiral Thrawn, though unseen for now, is not even human. This is a far cry from the councils and meetings seen in the original trilogy, which consisted solely of white British men, most of whom played by people you’d seen in dozens of movies and TV shows before. Come to think of it, Elia Kane is probably the first female Imperial officer in Star Wars, though the First Order had several women. And Moff Gideon is the first high-ranking Imperial of colour whom we’ve seen. It’s certainly telling that even blatant space Nazi analogues like the Empire now feature a diverse cast.

Meanwhile, back on Nevarro, the citizens are cleaning up after the pirate attack of two episodes ago, when a shadow falls onto their city. At the same time, Greef Karga’s protocol droid comes hurrying into his master’s office, announcing that “The Empire is here”. Greef Karga walks out onto his balcony just in time to see what the droid insists is a Star Destroyer flying by overhead, flanked by smaller ships. “That’s a light cruiser”, Greef corrects the droid (come to think of it, Star Destroyers are huge and this ship, while big, is not that big). At this moment, the sign of the mythosaur painted on the underside of the ship comes into view. “And it’s not the Empire, it’s Mandalorians and they’re our honoured guests”, Greef Karga continues, though he sounds a little bit doubtful, probably because he did not expect there to be that many Mandalorians with that many ships.

Bo-Katan is at the helm of her own ship, the Gauntlet, and directs the fleet to the Mandalorian camp on Nevarro. Grogu is sitting on her lap, showing how very comfortable he is with Bo-Katan by now. Bo-Katan, however, is a little worried how these Mandalorians will get along with the Armourer’s group. And indeed, there is some tension, once the fleet lands and the Mandalorians emerge and Axe Woves, being something of a jerk, demonstratively takes off his helmet. Paz Vizla, meanwhile, tells his son Ragnar to take the other kids inside and is clearly spoiling for a fight. However, before a fight can break out, the Armourer shows up and welcomes the newcomers and soon everybody is sitting by the campfire, content for now.

Greef Karga, meanwhile, comes to the camp to welcome Din – whom he still callos “Mando”, even though there must be more than a hundred Mandalorians on Nevarro by now. He has a bottle of some kind of drink – straight from Coruscant – and he has another surprise for Din as well, though Din will have to come to the city to see it.

The surprise turns out to be the largely rebuilt IG-11, now rechristened IG-12. However, Babu Frick took out the damaged memory circuit and instead installed a space for an organic, if very small pilot. Babu Frick is small enough to fit into the pilot seat and control the droid. So is Grogu and Greef Karga thinks that Grogu would be the perfect pilot for IG-12. Din, being the anxious Dad that he is, doesn’t like that idea at all and insists that Grogu is too young. Babu Frick, meanwhile, just hopes Grogu won’t try to hug him again and says, “Bad Baby. No squeezie” and then utters something which may or may not be the F-word.

Greef Karga insists that they at least give it a try, picks up Grogu and settles him into IG-12’s pilot seat. Din still claims that this is a terrible idea, while Grogu discovers another function of IG-12. Because Babu Frick also installed two buttons that allow the pilot to say “yes” and “no” in Taika Waititi’s voice. So when Din insists that Grogu is too young and wants him to come out of the droid at once, Grogu keeps on pushing the “no” buttton. Din initially assumes that Grogu is just hammering buttons at random, but Greef Karga points out that the “no” is actually a response to Din insisting that Grogu come out of the droid. “Yes”, IG-12 says. Din is clearly overruled and we see him and IG-12 walk through the streets of Nevarro with Grogu pushing the “yes” button over and over again. It’s a cute scene and also very reminiscent of how human toddlers react when they discover the word “no” and its impact. Indeed, the thing that makes Grogu so appealing – beyond the fact that he’s incredibly cute – is that he behaves very much like a human toddler.

Back at the camp, Bo-Katan announces her plan to retake Mandalore, now she knows that the planet is habitable. The entire Mandalorian fleet will move into orbit around Mandalore and Bo-Katan and a small team will head for the surface to locate the Great Forge, heart of their culture, and establish a secure perimeter. Then they will bring the rest of the Mandalorians down. If the pirates want to attack Nevarro again, now would be a great time, since the Mandalorian protectors of the planet are all buggering off to Mandalore. AV-Club reviewer Sam Barsanti clearly agree with me, especially since it’s made clear that there is something on Nevarro that Moff Gideon and that the pirates were only a front to allow him to get his hands on that planet.

But first, Bo-Katan needs volunteers. Din immediately volunteers himself and Grogu. Paz Vizla, Axe Woves, Koska Reeves, the Armourer and several other members of both groups volunteer as well and so Bo-Katan has a sizeable exploration force. They head for the surface in the Gauntlet and are dropped Starship Troopers style to land with their jetpacks.

The Mandalorians are shocked to see Mandalore in its ruined state and Axe Woves says that he was there when it happened. However, Mandalore isn’t as dead or deserted as everybody thinks, for the Mandalorians spot a moving structure on the horizon. The structure turns out to be a land glider/ship. Three figure in armour and jetpacks rise from the decks of the ship. Turns out that there still are Mandalorian survivors on Mandalore. They’re starved and clearly ill and the first thing they ask is “Do you have food?”

Bo-Katan’s forces do have food and so they soon have a feast on the deck of the land ship, which is a really impressive structure BTW and will probably be a crowdfunded playset on Hasbro Pulse eventually. The Mandalorian survivors are thrilled to see their once and former queen and tell her that they built the glider to escape the Imperial forces scouring the planet and picking off every ship that tried to leave and that they never surrendered.

“I did,” Bo-Katan says quietly, “I surrendered.” And now we finally get her full story. After the so-called Night of the Thousand Tears, when Mandalore was bombed to smithereens, Bo-Katan arranged a meeting with Moff Gideon to surrender and promise to cease all resistance and submit to Imperial rule in exchange for the Empire sparing the remains of her people. However, Moff Gideon tricked her, took the darksabre and proceeded to exterminate what was left of the Mandalorians anyway.

I don’t think it’s ever been established when the Empire attacked and destroyed Mandalore, but it makes sense if that would have happened shortly after the rise of the Empire, since wiping out anybody with a chance to stand against the Emperor like the Jedi or the Mandalorians would have been a priority. The Mandalorian is set approx. five years after Return of the Jedi and therefore about twenty-five years after the rise of the Empire. So Bo-Katan must have been very young, probably in her teens or early twenties based on Katee Sackhoff’s age, when she became ruler of Mandalore. In short, she was way too young for the burden placed upon her.

And indeed, shortly after admitting to everybody that she surrendered and that Moff Gideon tricked her, Bo-Katan is standing alone by the railing of the ship. Din joins her and Bo-Katan admits to him that she’s not sure if she truly fit to lead the Mandalorians, since she allowed Moff Gideon to trick her and lost the darksabre and besides, the various Mandalorian factions dislike her as much as they dislike each other, even though she wants to bring them all together. Din tells Bo-Katan that the darksabre and the whole royal bloodline stuff means nothing to his people. What does mean something to him are loyalty, honour and character and Bo-Katan has plenty of that, more than enough to win over Din and the rest of his group. “I serve you, Lady Kryze,” Din tells her, “Your song is not yet written. I will serve you until it is.”

It’s a powerful line and a powerful moment – Bo-Katan showing her vulnerability and Din offering his unwavering support – as most reviewers – Germain Lussier at io9, Sam Barsanti at The AV-Club and Haley Zapal at nerds of a feather – point out. Din’s definitely a keeper and I think Bo-Katan knows it, though I suspect Disney won’t allow them to be together, because Disney doesn’t want romantic relationships in Star Wars.

When Bo-Katan first showed up last season, I wasn’t particularly enamoured with the character. And in fact, I suspected that she would be an antagonist for Din this season, something the trailers seemed to hint at, since Din had the one thing she needed, the darksabre. However, I really like what they’ve done with Bo-Katan this season, portraying her as someone who was forced into responsibility at a much too young age, had to see her world destroyed and most of her people killed or scattered and has a massive case of survivor’s guilt as a result. In some ways, she reminds me of Prince Adam from Masters of the Universe, who also is forced to take on an enormous responsibility at a much too young age, who is also outwardly strong, but inwardly insecure and who wants nothing more than to protect his world and his people and who also has a handful of people who support him and believe in him no matter what. I’ve drawn quite a few comparisons to various animated series aimed at kids in the course of my episode by episode reviews and I now wonder whether the fact that co-producer/showrunner Dave Filoni comes from the animated Star Wars shows, which were aimed at younger viewers, has something to do with that.

I also noted in some of my earlier reviews that the Mandalorians seem to be matriarchal, since all of their leaders we’ve seen so far have been women. However, it only just occurred to me that it’s not just Mandalore that appears to be matriarchal, it’s the whole Star Wars universe. Because throughout Star Wars history, almost all of the political leaders who actually do a good job and aren’t dictators or incompetent have been women: Leia, Mon Mothma, Padme Armidala, Bo-Katan, the Armourer, Amilyn Holdo, even the Duchess from Plazir-15 – they’re all women, which is made even more remarkable by the fact that the Star Wars universe has a massively skewed gender ratio. But while there are a lot of important and heroic male characters in Star Wars, they are often muscle, who do the fighting, while the women govern.

When the Mandalorian survivors learn that Bo-Katan’s group are looking for the Great Forge, they offer to take them there. However, a lot of the survivors are too ill and weak to travel or fight, so the Armourer suggests transporting them aboard the Gauntlet to the fleet in orbit for treatment, while the others proceed to the Great Forge.

So now the exploration force continues to travel aboard the land glider/ship. It’s a lengthy trip and so Axe Woves and Paz Vizla, clearly the two most macho members of their respective factions, decide to pass the time by playing a type of chess. However, the rules of how the game is played have diverged between the two groups and so Axe Woves and Paz Vizla quickly come to blows. Din wants to intervene, but Bo-Katan insists that no members of either faction can intervene lest the conflict escalates. All they can do is watch and hope that Axe Woves and Paz Vizla come to their senses before they kill each other.

However, one person aboard the skiff does intervene and that Grogu. He steps between the two combatants in his droid body, uses IG-12’s strength to keep them apart and says “No”, “No”, “No” over and over again. It’s a great moment and also shows that even though Grogu has chosen to stay with Din and the Mandalorians, there’s still a lot of Jedi in him. Honestly, I think that Grogu is probably the best hope the Mandalorians and the Jedi have, once he’s grown up.

The skiff is attacked and destroyed by one of the giant monsters, which are so ubiquitous in the Star Wars universe. Tor.com reviewer Emmet Asher-Perrin feels that this is just payback for all the giant monsters Din killed over the course of three seasons of The Mandalorian. They’re not wrong, because while giant monsters lurking in every cave, lake or trash compactor have always been a feature of Star Wars, The Mandalorian really takes it to extremes to the point that there’s a giant monster in almost every single episode. It almost seems as if showrunners Jon Favreau and Dave Filoni have adapted Raymond Chandler’s famous writing advice “When in doubt, have a man come through the door with a gun in his hand” as “When in doubt, throw in a giant monster.”

At any rate, the Mandalorians are out of a ride and the Gauntlet is up in orbit transporting the injured. So they have to walk, though luckily, the Great Forge is not that far away. Once more, they descend into the underworld of Mandalore and find the Great Forge or what is left of it. However, before they can celebrate or establish a security perimeter, as planned, they hear the sound of jetpacks. “More survivors?” someone asks hopefully.

However, these jetpacks don’t belong to any Mandalorian survivors. They’re Stormtroopers of the type we saw in Moff Gideon’s hideout earlier and they’re equipped with jetpacks. A massive battle breaks out and the Mandalorians quickly find themselves outnumbered. Paz Vizla covers Axe Woves, as he escapes through a hole in the ceiling to get help from the fleet in orbit. Meanwhile, the Stormtroopers chase the rest of the Mandalorians deeper and deeper into the complex. They finally find themselves on a ledge overlooking a fully fledged Imperial base complete with TIE interceptors and bombers. Worse, blast doors close, trapping the rest of the Mandalorians, while Din is overpowered by the Stormtroopers.

The situation is dire enough, but it’s about to get worse, for who shows up – in midnight black Mandalorian inspired armour, complete with jetpack – but Moff Gideon. Moff Gideon delivers a classic supervillain monologue – and Giancarlo Esposito clearly has so much fun with the role – to explain his plan. He built a base on Mandalore to exploit the beskar mines and create an army of updated cloned Stormtroopers with beskar armour and Mandalorian tech. Because, Moff Gideon points out, all the various people that the Empire subjugated and/or exterminated had something to offer. The Mandalorians had beskar and weapons tech, the Jedi have the Force and so on. It’s not just a great supervillain monologue, it’s also an analogy for colonialism, because colonialists took what they wanted and needed from the people they subjugated while doing their best to destroy their cultures.

Moff Gideon orders the Stormtroopers to take Din away for “debriefing”, which very obviously is a euphemism for torture. He also orders his TIE interceptors and bombers to launch and take out the Mandalorian fleet in orbit. Then he spots Bo-Katan and demands the darksabre back. Bo-Katan, however, is not going to make the same mistake twice. “This is the way”, the Mandalorians say as one and open fire on Moff Gideon and his Stormtroopers, while Bo-Katan uses the darksabre to cut through the blast doors. She succeeds in creating an escape route for everybody.

In the end, Bo-Katan and Paz Vizla are the only ones left. Bo-Katan calls to Paz Vizla that everybody is clear and that he should make a run for it. But Paz Vizla shakes his head. “There’s too many of them”, he says and announces that he will hold them back. “This is the way”, Paz Vizla says, closes the blast doors and makes his last stand, allowing the rest of the Mandalorians to get away. In spite of their new beskar armour, Paz Vizla does manage to take down all of the Stormtroopers. But then, the three Elite Praetorian Guards Moff Gideon requested earlier arrives and proceed to cut him down. Paz Vizla is another character who wasn’t particularly likeable, when he was first introduced in The Book of Boba Fett, but who has really grown on me. And he does get to make a great heroic last stand, though I feel sorry for his son Ragnar. Though considering Ragnar has grown up with a Mandalorian faction who prize raising and protecting orphaned children above all else, I guess he’ll be well taken care of.

As I said before, so far all seasons of The Mandalorian have been somewhat meandering with all the elements only coming together in the last two or three episodes of the season and this one is no different. Even plot points such as the beskar fragment that Captain Teva found embedded in a bulkhead of the prison ship from which Moff Gideon was liberated and the weird blood-sucking vampire droid that Din ran afoul of have been explained. Okay, so the vampire droid hasn’t really been explained, though I suspect it’s a trap planted either by Moff Gideon or by the Imperial forces that destroyed Mandalore. The episode also ends on a great cliffhanger – Din has been captured, Moff Gideon is on Mandalore, the Mandalorians are on the run and outnumbered, the fleet in orbit is about to be attacked and Paz Vizla has died a hero’s death.

How will it all end? We’ll find out in the season finale.

The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu solve a mystery in “Guns For Hire”

Welcome to the latest instalment of my episode by episode reviews of season of The Mandalorian. Previous installments may be found here.

Warning! Spoilers behind the cut!

The last episode seemed to give a new quest to Bo-Katan and Din Djarin, namely to locate other Mandalorians and bring them to Nevarro to unite the people of Mandalore. That is, the Armourer gave the quest to Bo-Katan. Din and Grogu are just along for the ride, because it Din, Bo-Katan and Grogu seem to have become a inseparable trio in the meantime. Which is both interesting and unexpected.

But more about that later. Cause this episode opens not with Din, Grogu and Bo-Katan, but with an organic looking ship crewed entirely by Quarrens (those are the squid-headed creatures living on Trask, the planet that is the Bremerhaven of the Star Wars universe). The captain is a female Quarren named Shuggoth. AV-Club reviewer Sam Barsanti finds that giving a member of a tentacled species such a Lovecraftian name is overkill and I tend to agree.

Captain Shuggoth is just enjoying a fishy snack, when her ship finds itself faced by an old Star Destroyer. Captain Shuggoth is confused, since she had no idea that there were Imperial leftover operating in this part of space. So she hails the Star Destroyer and apologises for the oversight of failing to pay protection money to the local warlord. The crew of the Star Destroyer responds that they do not serve any local warlord and that they’re not Imperial either.

The episode then cuts to the bridge of the Star Destroyer to reveal that the crew are not Imperial. They’re Mandalorians. More precisely, they’re Bo-Katan’s old followers, the Nite Owls, now led by her former associate Axe Woves. Bo-Katan’s other former associate Koska Reeves is also present as are a bunch of Mandalorians we’ve never seen before.

Axe Woves and his friends absconded with the Imperial ships Bo-Katan had taken from Moff Gideon and other warlords and now ply their trade as mercenaries. As for why they’re after Captain Shuggoth, it turns out that she eloped with a young Mon Calamari nobleman. His mother disapproves of the relationship – the Quarren and Mon Calamari (that’s Admiral Akbar’s people) are ancient enemies, even though they live on the same world, and a Quarren captain is not considered a suitable partner for a Mon Calamari nobleman. So the mother hired Axe Woves to return her son. The son (I don’t think the character ever gets a name) doesn’t want to leave his lover, but the Captain tells him it will be okay and that they’ll see each other again. There is a touching farewell scene, which involves the Captain stroking her lover with her facial tentacles, then the Mon Calamari prince is dragged away.

This scene is a remarkably touching interlude, especially considering that Captain Shuggoth and her Mon Calamari lover are throwaway characters we’ll likely never see again. However, the episode makes you feel for those two and also makes you want to learn more about their story, how they fell in love and came to run off together. Tor.com reviewer Emmet Asher-Perrin points out that this love story is doubly unusual, first of all because both participants are aliens and secondly, because it reverses the genders of the typical pirate romance, where a dashing male pirate captain carries off a a princess or noblewoman who has fallen for him. In fact, I’ve written one of those myself.

Meanwhile, Axe Woves and his squad of Mandalorians are eager to return the wayward Mon Calamari prince to his mother, because they already have their next job lined up – on a world called Plazir-15. The name of the planet is pronounced like the French word “plaisir”, i.e. “pleasure”.

The scene shifts again and we see Din, Grogu and Bo-Katan aboard Bo-Katan’s ship, heading for – yes, you guessed it – Plazir-15.  Bo-Katan doesn’t know much about the planet and Din has never even heard of it. However, that’s where Bo-Katan’s former associates are, so that’s where they’ll go.

It’s notable how comfortable Din and Bo-Katan are with each other by now, especially considering that they didn’t particularly like each other up to the first episode of this season. I guess Bo-Katan’s time with Din’s people have softened these two towards each other. It’s also notable how comfortable Grogu is with Bo-Katan by now, to the point that his crib floats next to her in the pilot’s seat rather than next to where Din is seated. In general, we have seen Grogu’s world expand to include people who are not Daddy this season, whereas Grogu was very wary of anybody who was not Din but interacted with him in season 1 and also partly season 2. This matches the development of human children who start to become wary of strangers around six to eight months (which tends to express itself in crying bitterly when being held by grandparents, aunts, uncles and other relatives they don’t know very well) and then gradually become more independent of their parents and immediate caregivers and more open towards new people. As for Grogu, I suspect he decided that Bo-Katan was okay, after she saved Din’s life in “The Mines of Mandalore”.

Bo-Katan wants to land her ship next to the Mandalorian fleet and not interact with Plazir-15 and its people at all. However, Plazir-15 has other ideas. A robotic voice that’s so chipper it’s almost creepy welcomes Din, Bo-Katan and Grogu to Plazir-15, “the only direct democracy in the Outer Rim” and proceeds to direct them to a landing platform. And just to make sure that they land on the designated platform, the system promptly takes over the controls from Bo-Katan.

After landing, Din, Grogu and Bo-Katan get into a automated vacuum tube train, which requests to see their chain codes (a kind of personal ID) before it will even move. Bo-Katan once more tries to get the train to take her to the Mandalorian fleet, but once again the train has other ideas and informs them that the planetary government wants to see them and that the train will take them there. Din and Bo-Katan are not happy about this, but decide to go along for it for now.

The train takes them to the capital, where they are greeted by two droids, who look a lot like C-3PO and R2-D2 and stand there in the same pose as the famous publicity shot, only in all black. “If this is an independent democracy…” Bo-Katan wonders, “…why do they have Imperial droids?”

The black droids escort Din, Grogu and Bo-Katan to see the rulers of Plazir-15. They stand in front of a big white door, which slides open with a hiss to reveal a banquet table. At nerds of a feather, Haley Zapal points out that the scene is framed almost identically to the scene in The Empire Strikes Back, when another white door slides open to reveal a banquet table… and Darth Vader as well as Boba Fett.

Director Bryce Dallas-Howard has set the the scene up very well. Not just the framing, but also the slowly increasing feeling of dread that something is very off about Plazir-15. However, when the door slides open, there is no Darth Vader or Moff Gideon waiting. Instead, there’s a banquet table with lots of different alien species eating. A cheery female voice exclaims, “Oh look, it’s a family.”

The voice (I’ll go into who that voice belongs to later) is not all that wrong, because Din, Bo-Katan and Grogu very much look like a family in this scene. Now women have shown interest in Din ever since episode 4 of season 1, which is the first episode to air after Din has decided to keep Grogu (Grogu, of course, decided to keep Din by the end of episode 1) and coincidentally also the first episode to feature female characters other than the Armourer (also coincidentally, Bryce Dallas-Howard, director of “Guns for Hire”, also directed that episode). And ever since then, there has been no shortage of women who would love to be Grogu’s Mom. Talking of which, here is an article by Susanne Romanowski from the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung in which she attempts to explain why the entire Internet thinks that Pedro Pascal is sexy and why he is “the Internet’s Daddy”*. I initially assumed that Cara Dune would eventually be the one who ends up with Din, but since Cara is out for obvious reasons, it seems as if Bo-Katan might become Grogu’s Mom. At any rate, there are sparks flying between her and Din. And they would make a good couple. They’re both Mandalorians and they both want to restore Mandalore. And Din would be perfectly happy to let Bo-Katan lead the Mandalorians and be her house husband/consort. Provided that Disney does allow a Star Wars main character to be in a happy committed relationship.

In fact, AV-Club reviewer Sam Barsanti points out that “Guns For Hire” features not one but two committed couples (one of whom is happy and together by the end of the episode) in addition to the potential couple of Din and Bo-Katan. This is very unusual for Disney era Star Wars, which doesn’t seem to want romantic couples in its Star Wars movies. Hence, everybody is alone by the end of the sequel trilogy in spite of sparks flying in all directions. Jyn Erso and Cassian Andor don’t even get to kiss before they are blown up by the Death Star in Rogue One. In the same movie, Chirut Imwe and Baze Malbus also get killed and their relationship is barely hinted it. Boba Fett and Fennec Shand are very much just friends. Hell, Disney even broke up Han and Leia, the central couple of the original trilogy in The Force Awakens. Considering how central relationships of Han and Leia and Anakin and Padme respectively were to the original and the prequel trilogy, the absence of romance from Disney era Star Wars is really notable and IMO also lessens the films. True, not every story has to be about romance (e.g. The Mandalorian is about the love between parents and children, while Obi-Wan is about a man coming to terms with his own demons). But if no couple ever gets together and the most beloved couple of the entire franchise is broken up, it leaves a notable absence in the Disney era movies. I also don’t understand why Disney is apparently so opposed to romance in Star Wars, when it was an integral part of the franchise before. It’s probably some nonsense about being “family friendly” and how Star Wars is for little kids who don’t want romance in their entertainment. That last bit is a reason I’ve heard for why romantic content was (and continues to be in many cases) so dialed down in cartoons aimed at kids, ironically while the young viewers (both boys and girls) were scrutinising episodes for any hint of romantic attraction and were also shipping the characters like crazy.

As for the second committed couple of this episode, the voice who exclaims “Oh look, it’s a family” belongs to a woman known only as “the Duchess”, who is both the heriditary ruler of Plazir-15 as well as the elected leader, since Plazir-15 is a direct democracy (which normally means they have plebicites, but political systems in Star Wars have always been weird).  The actress playing the Duchess is none other than the singer, rapper and flautist Lizzo. And because one celebrity guest star in a scene isn’t enough, we also meet the Duchess’ husband Captain Bombardier (spelled and pronounced like the Canadian manufacturer of plans and train wagons), who is played by actor and comedian Jack Black. The story of the Duchess and Captain Bombardier is a true Romeo and Juliet tale – except with a happy ending. She was the daughter of the former aristocratic rulers of Plazir-15 and he was a former Imperial officer who was sent to Plazir-15 as part of the New Republic’s amnesty program. They fell in love and got married and now Captain Bombardier gets to live in the palace and wear an operetta uniform and have banquets and play crocket with plenty of colourful aliens. It’s a far cry from the depressing 1970s dystopian movie starring a guy in a turtleneck that Doctor Pershing wound up in.

Some people, such as io9 reviewer Germain Lussier, have complained that the celebrity guest stars are distracting and they have problems to stop seeing them as Jack Black and Lizzo. And indeed, it is notable that we’re seeing a lot more big name actors (and also directors) in the various Star Wars movies and TV shows, the various Marvel movies and TV shows, the various Star Trek shows, Doctor Who and other geeky properties (see the star-studded voice cast of Masters of the Universe: Revelation). But then, whole generations have grown up loving these properties. A lot of today’s big name stars watched Star Wars, Star Trek or Doctor Who and read Marvel comics as kids like the rest of us. And for these people, actually guest-starring in Star Wars, Star Trek, a Marvel movie or Doctor Who is a dream come true. There are so many celebrity guest stars in geeky movies and TV shows these days, because they want to do these films and shows. As for the producers, if a big name celebrity showed up on your doorstep and begged for a role, any role, in your movie or TV series, would you tell them to take a hike? No, of course not. And besides, Lizzo and Jack Black do a good job with their vaguely absurd roles.

The Duchess and Captain Bombardier invite Din and Bo-Katan to dinner and Din and Bo-Katan accept, at least party because they have no other choice, since it’s made very clear that they can’t go where they want to go, unless they listen to what the Duchess and Captain Bombardier have to say first. Like everybody else, the Duchess is also very taken by Grogu. “He does not take kindly to strangers”, Din grumbles, but Grogu clearly has other ideas and jumps out of his crib and straight into the Duchess’ arms, when she tempts him with what looks like a sardine. The way to Grogu’s heart still goes through his stomach.

During the dinner, the Duchess and Captain Bombardier also finally explain that they are of course happy for Bo-Katan and Din to pay a visit to the Mandalorian fleet, provided they do a little favour for them first. And what is that favour? Like much of the Star Wars universe, Plazir-15’s wealth, freedom and direct democracy rests on droid labour. More specifically, Imperial droids, including battle droids, that have been reprogrammed for peaceful purposes by Captain Bombardier. However, there is a problem. Because some of the droids have been malfunctioning of late, apparently returning to their aggressive original programming and attacking citizens. The Duchess and Captain Bombardier want to know why and they want Din and Bo-Katan to find the cause for the mysterious malfunctions.

Din quite reasonably asks why they don’t have their hired Mandalorian security force investigate the problem. It turns out that they can’t because the New Republic charter forbids armed mercenaries from entering the city. The same charter also forbids Plazir-15’s own security forces from bearing weapons or investigating the problem. After all, Captain Bombardier is a member of the amnesty program and can’t possibly be trusted (whereas Elia Kane, who really cannot be trusted, apparently enjoys a high degree of trust). So the New Republic won’t allow member worlds to protect themselves – in what is a very dangerous galaxy – and they also won’t respond to requests for help, as we saw last episode. Tell me again why anybody would want to join this bunch?

So Din and Bo-Katan go off to investigate the mystery of the malfunctioning droids – not that they have any other choice. As for why they are allowed to walk around the city armed, well, they’re Mandalorians and weapons are part of their culture. The episode now turns into a science fiction mystery. Sam Barsanti compares the investigation part to Law & Order, but Law & Order devotes at least half of every episode to the ‘law” part. A buddy cop show is a far better comparison. And the second half of “Guns for Hire” is very much structured like a buddy cop show with our mismatched partners questioning witnesses and suspects, gathering clues and finally cracking the case.

Grogu remains with the Duchess, while Din and Bo-Katan begin their investigation by talking to the head of Plazir-15’s unarmed security force, one Commissioner Helgait, whose name practically screams “villain”. We also get another celebrity guest star, because Commissioner Helgait is played by none other than Christopher Lloyd, who amazingly has never been in anything Star Wars to date, even though his career very much paralleled the course of Star Wars. Commissioner Helgait shows Din and Bo-Katan some security footage of droid malfunctions ranging from the funny (a droid throws boxes he’s supposed to carry at a random woman) to the dangerous (a multi-armed and knifed sushi chef droid tries to slice and dice the patrons of the sushi bar where he works). BTW, I totally want a sushi chef droid now.

Din, who has deep-seated issues with doids after all, asks Helgait why they don’t just shut all the droids down. Helgait shows them one of those big red buttons of doom and says that he could easily shut down every single droid on Plazir-15 by pressing that button. However, he can’t do that, because Plazir-15 is a direct democracy and the people voted against shutting down the droids, because then they would have to do all the menial work themselves. Ironically, Plazir-15 with its direct democracy is exactly what I wanted a post-Empire Star Wars universe to look like, when I was fifteen.

Now my teenaged years coincided with the long leaden reign of Helmut Kohl, who became chancellor when I was nine and governed until I was twenty-five. Now I did not like Kohl and I liked much of his cabinet even less. The four successive Kohl governments were dominated by conservative and xenophobic men who wanted to keep (West) Germany stuck in the 1950s forever. The Kohl era was grey and leaden and endless. No one liked Kohl, he was the butt of jokes, a gift to political cartoonists. Pretty much everybody of my generation and many of the older generation wanted nothing more than Kohl gone and yet someone (the Bavarians, the East Germans, the Catholics, old people, your Nazi uncle) kept electing the guy again and again and again.

For a teenager who was politically interested and had many ideas about how (West) Germany could be so much better, it was torture, because I couldn’t even vote. Even though I was certain that if I could only vote, Kohl would finally be gone (spoiler alert: it didn’t work). Meanwhile, politics class in school dutifully taught us about the difference between representative and direct democracy and why the West German system was the best ever, even though it was plain to see that it wasn’t. When I asked the teacher, “Why don’t we have plebicites like the Swiss, and why can’t we even directly elect our president like the Americans or the French, especially since that was possible in the Weimar Republic?” the answer was basically, “Because Germans can’t be trusted not to a elect a Hitler or Hindenburg again.” Which was as fucking offensive in 1988 as it is today.

Personally, I really, really liked the idea of direct democracy, because it meant you could vote on everything without having to trust that some elected politician would vote the way you wanted them to. And so I privately decided that of course the Rebellion would install a direct democracy in the galaxy, after defeating the Empire, because it was obviously the best and fairest form of government. I also decided that the Rebellion would obviously function like a direct democracy, because they were not the Empire. Mind you, none of this is even remotely implied in the movies or the early tie-in novels and I have no idea how a galactic scale direct democracy would function. However, it could function on a planet with a smallish population like Plazir-15 or coincidentally also among a small group like the Mandalorians. Coincidentally, I now wonder whether Jon Favreau or Dave Filoni also imagined the New Republic as a direct democracy.

Commissioner Helgait claims to have no idea why the droids malfunction. But maybe the Ugnaughts in charge of repairing the droids might know something. So Din and Bo-Katan go to see the Ugnaughts residing in the lower levels of the capital Plazir-15. Bo-Katan tries to question the Ugnaughts and gets precisely nowhere – the Ugnaughts just ignore her and continue their work. Din draws on his friendship with Kuill from season 1 and manages to get through to the Ugnaughts by using their communication style (“I have spoken”) and also by respecting and praising their work. The Ugnaughts, so Din tells Bo-Katan, would never admit to the droids malfunctioning, because that would be an insult to their hard work. However, Din gets the Ugnaughts to tell him where they expect the next droid problem to happen, namely at the spaceport loading docks. So Din and Bo-Katan have another clue and a new destination.

At the loading dock, Bo-Katan interviews the repurposed battle droid (one of the goofy looking battle droids from The Phantom Menace and Attack of the Clones) overseeing the work done by somewhat bulkier battle droids. The droid is utterly shocked and claims that there are no malfunctions and that no droid at the dock would even think of attacking humans. Din – who really, really doesn’t like droids – meanwhile starts kicking random droid carrying boxes to see if one of them will attack him. The scene is reminiscent of those videos of Boston Dynamics robots getting kicked in order to show their stability. It’s also disturbing, because what Din is doing here is basically the equivalent of a cop beating up a suspect. Finally, one of the droids does snap and attack Din – not that I can really blame him. Because Din does behave like an arsehole here.

Now that Din has provoked a droid into malfunctioning, we are treated to a chase scene through a cyberpunky street, until Din and Bo-Katan take down the droid. On the droid’s body, they find another clue. A spark plug – the droid equivalent of a matchbook – from a place ominously named The Resistor.

So Bo-Katan and Din head to The Resistor and it turns out to be the droid equivalent of the Mos Eisley Cantina, a bar that’s entirely patronised by droids of all shapes, types and sizes. I think every type of droid ever seen in Star Wars can be spotted at The Resistor.

This is as good a moment as any to discuss the general issue of the position of droids in the Star Wars universe. Star Wars droids are clearly sentient and intelligent beings, true artificial intelligence. And yet every group, whether the Old Republic, the Empire, the Rebellion or the New Republic, persists in treating droids like slave labour. This isn’t even particularly subtle. The “We don’t serve their kind in here” comment of the Cantina bartender all the way back in A New Hope makes the parallels crystal clear.  Of course, that comment was probably a throwaway line – back in 1977, no one ever expected Star Wars to grow and expand as it did – but it still set the tone for how droids are treated in the Star Wars universe for the next 46 years. And since The Resistor is a clear call-back to the Mos Eisley cantina, the looks that Din and Bo-Katan get, when they enter the bar, are a call-back to the “We don’t server their kind in here” comment.

Frankly, I – and many others I guess – expected the droid malfunctions to be actually a robot uprising with The Resistor as the resistance headquarters. I even suspected that the Ugnaughts might be in on it as well, because Ugnaughts are treated no better than droids in the Star Wars universe. They live in the sewers and are treated as cheap labour to keep the place running for everybody else. Some of them, like Kuill, have even been enslaved. So I expected that the droid malfunctions would turn out to be a uprising of the droids and the Ugnaughts, trying to persuade the direct democracy of Plazir-15 that they are people, too, and that they want a vote and a say.  Which would have been a powerful message. However, the episode decides not to go there, but backs off instead.

At io9, James Whitbrook goes into the messed up relationship that Star Wars in general and The Mandalorian in particular has with droids. And while I have sympathy for Din’s childhood trauma and his resulting wariness of droids, over the course of three seasons of The Mandalorian, Din has met plenty of droids who were not out to kill him. He even made friends with droids. So why, when faced with a bar full of droids just going about their business, does Din immediately feel the need to go all bad cop on them, until Bo-Katan holds him back?

Especially since it turns out that the droids are actually eager to help. They are understandably worried that they will be deactivated as a reaction to the attacks. Also – and this is truly disturbing – the droid bartender tells Din and Bo-Katan that the droids don’t mind doing menial labour for organic beings. After all, organic beings created them and besides, droid lifespans are so much longer than those of most organic lifeforms in the Star Wars universe bar exceptions like Yoda, Yaddle and Grogu and the Ugnaughts, who are very long-lived. I’m sorry, but that sounds very much like, “Yes, we’re slaves, but we’re happy to be slaves.”

The bartender tells Din and Bo-Katan that the malfunctioning droids were all patrons at his bar and that they all drank from the same batch of Nepenthe, a lubricant fluid with a very telling name. So now Din and Bo-Katan have yet another clue to pursue.

We now get the Star Wars take on a typical scene that’s found in every cop show, namely the coroner scene. The coroner is this case is a delightfully butch woman and her clients are droids, in particular the battle droid that Din kicked into attack mode. The coroner analyses the Nepenthe and finds nano-bots therein, which have caused the droids to attack people. The problem on Plazir-15 is not a robot uprising, but sabotage. The coroner can even track the nano-bots to a particular person on Plazir-15, but before she can tell Din and Bo-Katan (and us) who it is, the dissection droid suddenly attacks, until our Mandalorian duo shoots it down.

And the mastermind behind the droid attacks is – drumroll – Commissioner Helgait. This reveal isn’t as surprising as it should be, because a) you don’t cast Christopher Lloyd for a throwaway part, b) a name like Helgait practially screams “I’m a villain” and c) in the standard cop show formula, the first or second person questioned is usually the one who did it. Indeed, it is striking how much the middle part of this episode is structured like a cop show with all the necessary beats. And I for one would love a Star Wars buddy cop show, something along the lines of CSI Coruscant.

As for the motive – no, for once it has nothing to do with the Empire. Instead, Commissioner Helgait is a member of the Separatists who were the prime antagonists in the Clone Wars some thirty years before. “Count Dooku was a visionary”, Helgait snarls in the best Bond villain manner, while he threatens to push the big red button of doom. Bo-Katan, however, isn’t in the mood for Bond villain monologues and just zaps him.

Din and Bo-Katan drag Helgait back to the Duchess and Captain Bombardier, who are playing croquet, while Grogu uses the Force to manipulate the ball in the Duchess’ favour. It’s nice to see Grogu’s world growing, as he grows close to people other than Din.

The Duchess is shocked, since Helgait has always been a loyal supporter of her family, and exiles him to a moon. Din and Bo-Katan not only get permission to finally visit the Mandalorian fleet, but they are also given the key to the city (a literal key) and while Grogu is knighted as a Knight of the Ancient Order of Independent Regencies. The name somehow sounds like a book club dedicated to reading and discussing regency romances by indie authors, but even though Grogu chose the Mandalorians over the Jedi, he is nonetheless now a knight.

Now Din and Bo-Katan finally do what they came to Plazir-15 for in the first place, namely talk to the Mandalorian fleet and try to persuade them to join up with the Armourer’s people and retake Mandalore. As expected, Axe Woves isn’t particularly happy to see Bo-Katan nor is he willing to give up control of the fleet, not without a fight. So Bo-Katan challenges him to a duel and wins. Axe yields, but not without snarling that she will never be the leader of the Mandalorians, because she hasn’t got the darksabre and hasn’t challenged Din to win it back.

Din once more tries offering the darksabre to Bo-Katan, but she can’t accept it. According to the beliefs of her people, who are just as superstitious as the Armourer’s group in their own way, she needs to win the darksabre in battle. But Bo-Katan doesn’t want to fight Din – because she likes him and because she doesn’t want to fight her people.

Then Din steps forward and explains that he lost the darksabre to the spidery vampire droid on Mandalore and that Bo-Katan beat the droid and rescued Din, so she won the darksabre fair and square. He tries handing it to her again and this time Bo-Katan accepts it and ignites the darksabre, looking very badarse. The queen of the Mandalorians is back.

The Mandalorian usually wears its influences on its sleeve, but this episode is a mess of different influences. The design of Plazir-15 with its domes cities and vacuum tube trains feels very much like Logan’s Run, which came out the year before A New Hope. The over-the-top costumes of the Duchess and Captain Bombardier have been compared to a Disney fairytale or Alice in Wonderland. The entire middle part is basically a buddy cop show set in the Star Wars universe with some cyberpunk visuals. The oddly harmless ending of Helgait sort of apologising for causing trouble and being exiled to a moon feels like something from a children’s cartoon, where nothing bad ever happens to anybody, not even the villains – and indeed, Dave Filoni got his start overseeing the animated Star Wars shows which were aimed at children. The weird planet of the week has been compared to Doctor Who, while Camestros Felapton detects the influence of 2000AD. In short, it’s a mess of influences, which is appropriate for an episode that was something of a mess.

A lot of people did not particularly like this episode, because the tone is very inconsistent – the fight with Axe Woves is a lot darker than the largely comedic hijinks that have gone before – and the buddy cop side quest takes up the majority of the episode. Also, we’re only three episodes from the end of the season and it is still not clear what the actual endgame is.

However, I actually liked this episode because it is delightfully weird and the buddy cop side quest is a lot of fun, even though it once again sidesteps the problem of the way droids are treated in the Star Wars universe. Besides, a lot of people seem to want the show to be more like Andor and forget that The Mandalorian has always been a meandering show that goes wherever it’s going at its own pace. At the episode six mark in season 1, Din was bullied into breaking a Twi’lek criminal out of prison by some old associates – an episode that did not contribute much to the overall story arc. By the episode six mark in season 2, Din took Grogu to an ancient Jedi temple to send out a psychic signal, fought Boba Fett and watched Grogu getting kidnapped. However, the point where all the threads run together have always been the last two episodes of every season. Which means that the next two episodes should be the point where the meandering path leads towards a concrete endpoint.

*For a paper that has the reputation of being a somewhat conservative high-quality and high culture paper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung has a remarkable number of geeks among its staff and some very good pop culture coverage.

Non-Fiction Spotlight: The Life and Art of Dave Cockrum by Glen Cadigan

Hugo season is upon us and nominations for the 2023 Hugo Awards have opened, so it’s time for another Non-Fiction Spotlight. For more about the Non-Fiction Spotlight project, go here. To check out the spotlights I already posted, go here.

For more recommendations for SFF-related non-fiction, also check out this Facebook group set up by the always excellent Farah Mendlesohn, who is a champion (and author) of SFF-related non-fiction.

Today’s Non-Fiction Spotlight is a biography of Dave Cockrum, a comic artist who should be better remembered than he is, since he co-created the All New, All Different X-Men in 1975 and helped to lay the foundations for what would become Marvel’s most popular title by the next decade.

Therefore, I am thrilled to welcome Glen Cadigan, author of The Life and Art of Dave Cockrum, to my blog today.

Tell us about your book.

The Life and Art of Dave Cockrum is a cradle to grave biography of the comic book artist best known for co-creating the All New, All Different X-Men for Marvel, and before that, for revitalizing the Legion of Super-Heroes at DC. It tells the story of how he went from an enthusiastic fan and aspiring pro in the ’60s to the driving force behind the X-Men reboot in the ’70s to a down-on-his luck-creator in the early 2000s, fighting for his life in a veteran’s hospital while Marvel was making millions off his creations as he made nothing.

It’s a story about justice and injustice, both on the page and off.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

I started writing about comics twenty years ago, and returned — after a hiatus — last year. I’ve done volumes on the Legion of Super-Heroes (The Legion Companion, The Best of The Legion Outpost) and the Teen Titans (The Titans Companion Vols. 1 & 2), as well as articles in Alter Ego and Back Issue magazines and Comic-Con International’s annual Souvenir Book. I’ve interviewed literally dozens of writers and artists, and I’ve been doing it so long now that they’re starting to die on me.

In between, I’ve dabbled in fiction. I have two ongoing series, both humourous: Bedlam & Belfry, Intergalactic Attorneys at Law, and Tall Tales, Fairy Tales, and Bedtime Stories (For Former Children). About the latter, I say that the stories are for those young at heart but old enough to drink.

What prompted you to write/edit this book?

My association with Dave Cockrum goes back over twenty years, to when I was a regular on his message board. During that time of his life, he was a forgotten man. Editors wouldn’t hire him, and he received no compensation from Marvel for the use of his X-Men characters, which was a constant irritant to him.

It seems crazy to think that, while the X-Men are so well-known today, the names of the people who created it are not. Everyone knows Stan Lee, but not as many people are aware of Jack Kirby, the other creator of the original X-Men. When it comes to the All New, All Different X-Men (think Star Trek: The Next Generation compared to the original series, or the version with Wolverine in it), how many people who’ve seen those movies have ever heard of Dave Cockrum? Or know what happened to him, later in his life, while his creations were the bedrock of Marvel’s publishing empire?

I wrote the book because it’s necessary, and the story needs to be told. And it’s not the first time something like this happened to a comic book creator: Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, the creators of Superman, had a similar battle in the ’70s. So for the co-creator of the version of the X-Men that was the backbone of Marvel for decades to end up in the same situation was just once too many.

Why should SFF fans in general and Hugo voters in particular read this book?

If you’ve heard of the X-Men, you should know the story behind the most successful version of the team. You should know the story of the man who originated the new characters, and even modified the ones he didn’t. He was the first artist to draw Wolverine unmasked, and one of two people responsible for saying, “Hey, what if his claws weren’t in his gloves, but in him?” You should know how he fell on hard times while his creations were the cornerstone of Marvel for decades before they appeared in movies.

Today, all the Marvel movies and TV shows have a paragraph buried in the credits which list not only the creators of the characters, but also the writers and artists who came after them whose stories were incorporated into the adaptation. When Dave Cockrum sat in a movie theater in 2000 and saw Storm and Mystique (and Logan) on the screen, he didn’t see his name anywhere. He was as forgotten and neglected by the movie company as he was by the comic book company.

This book also treats every other aspect of his career with a fine-toothed comb. His years in fanzines are covered in detail, as are those spent on other comic book properties, such as his own Futurians (featured on the cover), T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, and especially the Legion of Super-Heroes. His personal life is covered, as well as his professional career. His contemporaries (Marv Wolfman, Paul Levitz) have had nice things to say about the book, and fans turned pros (Mark Waid, Kurt Busiek, Neil Gaiman among them) have helped to spread the word. If people don’t want to listen to me, I hope they listen to them!

Do you have any cool facts or tidbits that you unearthed during your research, but that did not make it into the final book?

Well, there is one story that I couldn’t work into the narrative. When Dave Cockrum was a teenager, he was in a group like the Boy Scouts called the Air Explorers. Dave’s father was the group leader, and also a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force. So one weekend, the kids are brought to this campground in Colorado, which is where the Cockrums were living at the time, to do whatever it was they went there to do.

There was also someone there with a couple of beagles, and they just started digging and digging and wouldn’t stop. So the guys go over to see what’s going on, and the dogs uncover a human hand. As it turned out, a local banker had murdered his wife and buried her there, and Dave and the other boys were on hand when she was found.

That story was told to me by another member of the group, who clearly remembered it. Oddly enough, Dave never mentioned it — at least in print — while he was alive.

 
SFF-related non-fiction is somewhat sidelined by the big genre awards, since the Nebulas have no non-fiction category and the Best Related Work Hugo category has become something of a grab bag of anything that doesn’t fit elsewhere. So why do you think SFF-related non-fiction is important?

The history of the field is important. No one would question preserving the history of Hollywood, or the music industry, or professional sports. People need to know where they came from, and who was there before them. Whether it’s a biography, memoir, behind-the-scenes book, or scholarly work, non-fiction is one of the legs on the table, and a three-legged table isn’t as stable as a four-legged one.

Are there any other great SFF-related non-fiction works or indeed anything else (books, stories, essays, writers, magazines, films, TV shows, etc…) you’d like to recommend?

This is a great year for non-fiction SFF books, enough that they could have their own category with projects left off the ballot. Hopefully, one day they’ll get that at the Hugos.

Right now I’m actually reading a Hugo Award-winning piece of non-fiction called Wonder’s Child: My Life in Science Fiction. It’s Jack Williamson’s autobiography, and it’s SFF history right from the horse’s mouth.

If it’s not too forward, I could plug my upcoming biography of Edmond Hamilton, coming in 2024 in Alter Ego # 187. It’s an issue dedicated to arguably the most successful writer of science fiction’s Golden Age. He was the author who Isaac Asimov and Ray Bradbury read growing up, and Ray was even the best man at his wedding!

Where can people buy your book?

The softcover is available directly from the publisher:

It’s also on Amazon:

There’s a limited edition hardcover available:

And if people want to purchase a digital-only version, there’s a drop down menu on both the hardcover and softcover page at the publisher’s website where it says “Packaging” that allows them to do so (and save a lot of money!).

Finally, it’s also available in comic book stores, but you might have to get your local retailer to order it. The order codes are FEB221749 (Softcover) and FEB221750 (Hardcover).

Where can people find you?

My website is: www.glencadigan.com

I have a monthly (or so) newsletter at: glencadigan.substack.com where things are announced and behind-the-scenes stories are told!

I’m on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/glen.cadigan/

And I’ve started to dust off my Twitter account: https://twitter.com/glencadigan

Thank you, Glen, for stopping and answering my questions. Check out The Life and Art of Dave Cockrum, if you’ve ever been a fan of the X-Men or are interested in the history of comics and the people who make them.

About The Life and Art of Dave Cockrum:

From the letters pages of Silver Age comics to his 2021 induction into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame, the career of Dave Cockrum started at the bottom and then rose to the top of the comic book industry. Beginning with his childhood obsession with comics and continuing through his years in the Navy, The Life and Art of Dave Cockrum follows the rising star from fandom (where he was one of the “Big Three” fanzine artists) to pro-dom, where he helped revive two struggling comic book franchises: the Legion of Super-Heroes and the X-Men. A prolific costume designer and character creator, his redesigns of the Legion and his introduction of X-Men characters Storm, Nightcrawler, Colossus, and Thunderbird (plus his design of Wolverine’s alter ego, Logan) laid the foundation for both titles to become best-sellers. His later work on his own property, The Futurians, as well as childhood favorite Blackhawk and T.H.U.N.D.E.R Agents, plus his five years on Soulsearchers and Company, cemented his position as an industry giant. Featuring artwork from fanzines, unused character designs, and other rare material, this is the comprehensive biography of the legendary comic book artist, whose influence is still felt on the industry today! Written by Glen Cadigan (The Legion Companion, The Titans Companion Volumes 1 and 2, Best of the Legion Outpost) with an introduction by Alex Ross.

About Glen Cadigan:

Glen Cadigan was born on the planet Earth in the second half of the Twentieth Century. He used to write non-fiction, but now he just makes things up. His previous work includes The Legion Companion, The Best of The Legion Outpost, and The Titans Companion Vols. 1 & 2. His stories have also appeared in Cthulhu Tales Omnibus: Madness, Cthulhu Tales Omnibus: Delirium, and 49th Parallels: Alternative Canadian Histories and Futures. His very first professional comic book sale, “One Of Those Days,” was adapted into the live action film, Eldritch Code. In addition to the above, he also writes the ongoing series Bedlam & Belfry, Intergalactic Attorneys at Law and Tall Tales, Fairy Tales, and Bedtime Stories (For Former Children). When he isn’t making fun of lawyers, he pursues more literary endeavours.

***

Did you publish a work of SFF-related longform non-fiction in 2022 or are you publishing one in 2023 and want it featured? Contact me or leave a comment.

The Mandalorian and Baby Grogu deal with “The Pirate”

Welcome to the latest instalment of my episode by episode reviews of season of The Mandalorian. Previous installments may be found here.

Warning! Spoilers behind the cut!

In my review of the last episode of The Mandalorian, I said that I expect the various plot strands to come together eventually and in this episode they begin to do just that.

The episode opens on Nevarro, where Greef Karga is discussing his plans to improve the city by ensuring that there is a better and faster connection between the trade district and the spaceport. The planning meeting is rudely interrupted, when Gorian Shard, the Swamp Thing/Moss Man/Evil Seed type pirate king we met in the first episode of the season, appears above the city in a spaceship that’s straight out of the 1970s/1980s Chris Foss illustration and starts firing.

Greef Karga evacuates the population to the wastelands of Nevarro, since the pirates seem intent on attacking only the city and not the people. So far, Nevarro’s nameless capital seems to have been home to some twenty thousand to fifty thousand people. However, the evacuees Greef Karga addresses are only maybe eighty to a hundred people. We later see that part of the population – including the Anzellan droidsmiths and the Salacious Crumb creatures living in a tree – remained in the city, but there are still way too few people here, as Emmet Asher-Perrin points out in their review at Tor.com.

Greef Karga sends a message for help to Captain Teva of the New Republic, since Captain Teva offered Greef Karga and Nevarro the New Republic’s help. The focus now switches to Captain Teva (and stays with him for most of the episode) who returns from patrol to a place called Adelphi Station and is handed Greef Karga’s message by the barkeeper in the officers’ mess. Teva declares that the New Republic should immediately dispatch help to Nevarro, but another New Republic officer – a big purple-pink alien – points out that the New Republic is swamped with requests for aid and that help will arrive too late, if at all.

At io9, Germain Lussier points out that the big purple-pink alien is actually an Easter egg, because this particular alien is called Zeb Orrelios and was a member of the main cast of the animated series Star Wars: Rebels. Tor.com’s Emmet Asher-Perrin also recognises Zeb Orrelios and also points out that he happens to be gay.

Captain Teva, however, is determined to make good of his promise to Greef Karga and tells Zeb Orrelios that if the New Republic won’t respond to requests for help, he will personally go to Coruscant, because then they cannot ignore him.

Captain Teva proceeds to do just that and so the special effects team can use that nice Coruscant background again, though Captain Teva does not put in a pit stop at the mountain top. Instead, he heads straight to the New Republic headquarters – a vaguely Art Deco looking skyscraper we also saw in “The Convert” – to see the person in charge, one Colonel Tuttle. The actor playing Colonel Tuttle seemed familiar, though I couldn’t place him. A quick search revealed that his name is Tim Meadows and that he has an impressive resume of mostly comedic roles. So far, The Mandalorian has had a remarkable number of comedians among its guest cast. But then, comedians are usually good actors, even in serious/semi-serious roles, because comedy is harder than drama.

Colonel Tuttle seems rather fazzled. He has too much work, too many emergencies to deal with and an office droid keeps dumping more work on his desk. He agrees to see Captain Teva and listens to his request for aid to Nevarro, but then he realises that Nevarro is an independent world that hasn’t yet joined the New Republic (and doesn’t want to, at least according to Greef Karga). And since the New Republic is underhanded as it is (Why? There were plenty of rebel pilots and troops and there must be plenty of lower ranking Imperial troops and pilots, who were not involved in war crimes, still around, too), they will provide aid to the member worlds first. Captain Teva is not satisfied with this, because he believes that the New Republic should help everybody in need. Not to mention that there are a lot of odd things happening in and around Nevarro, including the fact that Moff Gideon and his forces used to hang out there. That same Moff Gideon, who is rumoured to have vanished en route to his war crime trial.

The conversation is interrupted by the appearance of another officer and it’s none other than Elia Kane, Moff Gideon’s former communications officer who pretends to be repentant and reformed, but was last seen overseeing the brainwashing/lobotomy of Doctor Pershing. Captain Teva sees the anmesty program badge on Elia’s uniform and is immediately suspicious of her – and rightfully, too, because Elia is up to something, though we’re not quite sure what. Elia confirms his suspicions by pointing out thzat withholding aid will maybe show those uppity independent worlds like Nevarro the value of joining the New Republic. Captain Teva points out that this sounds like something the Empire would say. He also points out that Elia didn’t join the New Republic of her own free will, but that she was captured. “I was liberated,” Elia replies. Yeah, that’s how they always put it. Teva storms off. If the New Republic won’t help Nevarro, he’ll find someone who will.

The next time we see Teva he’s landing his X-wing on the shores of the lake on the planet that looks suspiciously like the South-Western US and is the current home to the Mandalorian splinter group led by the Armourer. Captain Teva cautiously emerges, well aware that he’s being watched – through the scopes of multiple rifles – and that the Mandalorians don’t like strangers and like authority figures of any kind even less. He approaches the cave, his hands spread wide, and calls out that he means no harm, but that he needs help.

Finally, Paz Vizla appears in the mouth of the cave to tell Captain Teva to get lost. When Captain Teva refuses to get lost, more Mandalorians, including Din and Bo-Katan, appear and want to know how in the universe Captain Teva found their latest hideout. Teva replies that someone among their number is a former member of the Rebellion and told him. The Mandalorians of course want to know who the traitor is and who trundles forward but R4-D5. So Peli Motto was actually telling the truth when she told Din that R4 used to work for the Rebellion. Apparently, there’s a theory that R4 deliberately blew a fuse back in A New Hope, so Owen Lars would purchase R2-D2 instead, allowing the little droid to seek out Obi-Wan and deliver Leia’s message.

Captain Teva hands Greef Karga’s message to Din and tells him that his friend is in danger and in dire need of help. Before he takes off, he also tells the assembled Mandalorians that he knows they’ll relocate anyway, but that they have his word that he will never reveal their location to anybody. I believe him, too, and so does Din. If “The Convert” showed us the dark side of the New Republic, Captain Teva is an example of the good side and of what the New Republic should stand for.

Of course, the question is: Why do the Armourer and her flock relocate every time somebody finds them? Living underground made sense in the days of the Empire, when Mandalorians were a persecuted minority (though Boba Fett was able to operate openly). But the Empire is gone and while the New Republic isn’t everything it’s cranked up to be, I doubt that they are actively persecuting Mandalorians, since they have neither a motive nor the resources to do so. So why are the Armourer and her people so paranoid about being found? Do they have powerful enemies that we know nothing about or are they simply paranoid about something learning the location of their hideout, because “this is the way”?

Captain Teva takes off and the Mandalorians retreat to their cave to debate what to do now. Apparently, in order to be allowed to speak in a Mandalorian meeting, you have to hold the Armourer’s hammer, which is a neat worldbuilding detail. Din is speaking and explains that while Greef Karga and his bounty hunters attacked the Mandalorians (and likely killed some of them) to capture Grogu way back in season 1, the real villain was the Empire in the form of Werner Herzog and Moff Gideon. Din also notes that he and Greef Karga get along really well by now and that Greef has promised him a tract of land on Nevarro. If Din were to take him up on the offer, the Mandalorians could live out in the open again and their children could play in the sun. At this point, the camera cuts to Grogu, who is watching Daddy with adoring eyes.

Paz Vizla speaks next and points out that many Mandalorians suffered and died to protect Grogu against Greef Karga, the bounty hunters and the Empire. So why in the universe should they help Greef Karga? “Because we’re Mandalorians, that’s why”, Paz Vizla roars to everybody’s surprise. At any rate, I was surprised, because so far Paz Vizla had been portrayed as a rival of Din Djarin’s and even tried to kill him in The Book of Boba Fett a.k.a. The Mandalorian, season 2.5. io9‘s Germain Lussier and AV-Club reviewer Sam Barsanti seem surprised as well, even though Paz Vizla did express his undying gratitude to Din, after Din helped to rescue his son last episode.

Now this isn’t the first time that The Mandalorian has introduced a character as an antagonist and/or villain, only for them to turn into an ally of Din’s. In fact, there have been several examples so far, starting with Greef Karga himself as well as Boba Fett, Fennec Shand and even Bo-Katan, who was strongly hinted to be the main antagonist for this season in the trailer, but turned out to be anything but. Maybe turning enemies into allies is Din’s true superpower.

So the Mandalorians are off to Nevarro. Din and Grogu travel in Din’s starfighter, while everybody else travels aboard Bo-Katan’s ship, since they seem to have no other spaceships, which begets the question just how does the Armourer relocate her flock every time things get too hot for them? Does she charter spaceships or hire an intergalactic moving company?

The retaking of Nevarro is thrilling, though fairly straight forward. Din and Bo-Katan attack Gorian Shand’s ship from the air, while Bo-Katan drops off the rest of the Mandalorians Starship Trooper style to retake the city house by house and block by block.

At first things go well. The pirates are easily overwhelmed, since they are drunk and don’t expect a counterattack, but they quickly muster the resistance. Those citizens still left in the city – including the Anzelllan droid smiths and the colony of Salacious Crumbs living in a tree – help the Mandalorians, warning them of ambushes. A bunch of pirates manage to set up heavy artillery on the balcony of Greef Karga’s old office and hold back the assault for a while. However, the Armourer has snuck into the building and makes short work of them, using her tools as weapons and being absolutely badass. I’m not the only one who enjoyed the Armourer showing that even though she may be the spiritual and political leader of her people, she still is a warrior who can hold her own against any of them. nerds of a feather reviewer and friend of this blog Haley Zapal enjoyed it, too.

While the Mandalorian infantry is retaking the city, Din and Bo-Katan are attacking the pirates from the air. Gorian Shard rants and yells a lot, while holding on to his old-fashioned nautical steering wheel on the bridge of his Chris Foss style pirate ship. Shard orders his gunners to the gun ports and also launches the small pirate fighter craft we saw in the first episode of the season. However, Bo-Katan and Din make short work of Shard’s forces.

One of the small craft is piloted by Vane, the pirate who was the sole survivor of the landing party that harassed Greef Karga in the first episode. When the battle gets too hot, Vane calls Shard, tells him it was an honour to serve under him and flies off to fight and plunder another day. I’m pretty sure that we haven’t seen the last of this guy.

As for Gorian Shard, his first mate, who looks like every first mate in every pirate story – clad in a striped shirt and a bandana – only that he’s an alien, tries to urge Shard to leave or at least evacuate the ship, which is under fire and damaged, in an escape pod. However, Shard has no intention to evacuate. He is a pirate captain, after all, and like every good captain, he will go down with his ship. And so he tries to crash his fatally stricken ship into the city, but misses and crashed into the mountains behind the city instead. The ship goes up flames. Is this the end of Gorian Shard? Time will tell, I guess. After all, we didn’t see the body.

Greef Karga is happy that Din came to the rescue of Nevarro and that he brought along friends. True to his promise to Din, he gives the Mandalorians a large tract of land and also lets them know that they are welcome on Nevarro and free to live out in the open. It’s a win-win situation for both sides. The Mandalorians get a new home to call their own and Greef Karga get a aready-made defence force that can handle anything from pirates to Imperial remnants (cause you just know that Moff Gideon will turn up again) and even the New Republic itself, should it come to that.

While everybody is celebrating, the Armourer asks Bo-Katan to accompany her. They head for the catacombs of the city, where the Mandalorians lived, when we first met them, and the Armourer takes Bo-Katan to her old forge, causing Bo-Katan to reminisce about the great forge on Mandalore. What is it about the Armourer’s forge that causes people to have flashbacks?

The Armourer tells Bo-Katan that whether it’s the great forge on Mandalore or her old forge in the sewers of Nevarro, the purpose is always the same. And then the Armourer tells Bo-Katan to take off hr helmet. Bo-Katan is more than a little confused – after all, the Armourer is so very insistent on Mandalorians never taking off their helmet. The Armourer, however, says that it’s okay. She believes that Bo-Katan really did see a mythosaur, which means that she is the chosen one who can walk both in the fundamentalist world of the Armourer and her people as well as the wider world of more secular Mandalorians. Bo-Katan is the one who can reunite and rebuild Mandalore.

Of course, Bo-Katan is the heir to the throne of Mandalore and she’ll probably make a better ruler than Din Djarin, even though Din has the darksabre. Din, however, isn’t really a politician or a leader and doesn’t want to be either. He’s mainly a Dad and his sole focus is making sure Grogu grows up well. It’s also telling that the two Mandalorian leaders we’ve seen, Bo-Katan and the Armourer, are both women, since it suggests that the Mandalorians are actually a matriarchal culture. At first glance, it seems surprising that a warrior culture like the Mandalorians would be matriarchal. On the other hand, the most important thing for all Mandalorians seem to be the foundlings, the children that they raise. And it does make sense for a child and family-focussed culture to be matriarchal.

The Armourer and Bo-Katan emerge from the catacombs, Bo-Katan still without her helmet. Paz Vizla is outraged – she has taken off her helmet. The Armourer, however, tells him that it’s okay, that Bo-Katan belongs to both worlds and that she will go and bring other more secular Mandalorians to their new home on Nevarro.

The episode ends by checking in once more with Captain Teva, who must have flown twice across the galaxy by now. He is on patrol, when he finds a New Republic ship floating in space. He boards and realises that the ship was a prison transport and that the crew and guards are all dead. Nor was that ship transporting any old prisoner – no, it was transporting none other than Moff Gideon. So he really did vanish on route to his war crime trial – because he was broken out of a prison transport.

And who could have broken Moff Gideon out of the prison transport? Elia Kane and whatever network of supporters Moff Gideon still has would seem to be the most likely suspects.  However, the evidence Captain Teva finds points in a different direction. Because embedded in the hull of the prison transport is a piece of beskar, which suggests that Mandalorians were the ones who broke Moff Gideon out of prison and killed a bunch of New Republic personnel in the process. Oooohhhh….

Okay, so that beskar thing is the most obvious false flag operation since the claim that a bunch of Ukrainians not affiliated with the Ukrainian nor any other government chartered the yacht Andromeda, somehow procured military grade explosives and blew up the Nordstream 1 and 2 pipelines. And yes, I’m furious about the Nordstream sabotage, about our government’s total lack of interest in finding out who is responsible and about the fact that so many of my friends still support the government I strongly suspect is responsible and that they don’t seem to give a fuck. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

As for why the beskar was obviously planted, first of all, Mandalorians don’t just leave beskar lying around. It’s a rare and sacred material, so if beskar pieces lost in battle are at all retrievable (and lodged in the hull of a spaceship is definitely retrievable), the Mandalorians will retrieve and recycle them.

Of course, it is possible that Mandalorian mercenaries (and quite a few of them seem to have become mercenaries) freed Moff Gideon on behalf of someone else. But it’s far more likely that Moff Gideon’s supporters or even his superiors (since I’m pretty sure he was not the top brass either) freed him and planted the beskar to point the finger at the Mandalorians and turn public opinion against them.

Come to think of it, didn’t Bo-Katan lose a shoulder pauldron during the mission to rescue Ragnar Vizla from the mama raptor? The piece of beskar that Captain Teva finds is about pauldron sized and Mandalorian pauldrons are conveniently emblazoned with the symbol of their clan. So maybe someone is trying to frame Bo-Katan, whom we know has powerful enemies with access to Imperial tech.

It seems that the rest of this season will be dedicated to rebuilding Mandalorian culture on Nevarro on the one hand and to figuring out what the happened to Moff Gideon and who the powers behind him are, cause – to quote Qui-Gon Jinn – “there’s always a bigger fish” .

Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Double Feature: “Precious” and “The Broken Sword”

Before we get to the story, I have two links to share. To begin with, I was at the Hugos There podcast, discussing the 2022 Hugo winner for Best Novel A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine with host Seth Heasley. For more about the Hugos There podcast, see my interview with Seth as part of the Fancast Spotlight project.

Last month, I was also over at Galactic Journey, reviewing the 1968 Hugo winner for Best Novel Lord of Light by Roger Zelazny as well as Easy Go, a 1968 heist novel by Michael Crichton, writing under the pen name John Lange (which ironically is the real name of the author writing under the pen name John Norman, author of the Gor novels). These early Michael Crichton novels are remarkably good (I discussed a few of them at the SFFAudio Podcast) and in fact I gave the obscure thriller a higher rating than the Hugo winning novel. But then, Lord of Light hasn’t aged very well and is a typical example of clueless 1960s appropriation of Asian culture.

Talking of the SFFAudio Podcast, I also at discussed the Robert E. Howard story “Isle of Pirate’s Doom”, which is one of the stories that were never published in his lifetime, on an episode that dropped recently.

Finally, let’s get to the meat of the post, for today I have not one but two new Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre photo stories for you. That said, both stories are quite short, so I decided to run them as a double feature. The name “Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre” was coined by Kevin Beckett at the Whetstone Discord server.

Both stories were inspired by Masters of the Universe: Revelation. At the beginning of episode 2, Teela and her new partner Andra are working as mercenaries and are hired to repossess a stolen magical object called “the Glove of Globula”, when they run into an old acquaintance of Teela’s, namely none other than Stinkor, one of the weirder Evil Warriors even by Masters of the Universe standard.

Now I happened to find a cheap Stinkor at Smyths Toys (Irish chain that took over the European Toys R’ Us stores, after Toys R’ Us folded). And since I already had Teela and Andra, I decided to recreate that scene. However, I didn’t have a Glove of Globula or anything that remotely looked like it, so I decided to go with a different sacred relic.

Precious

In Stinkor’s lair:

“Ugh, this place stinks, Tee.”

“Comes with the territory, Andra. Let’s just grab what we came here for and get out.”

“What do you want? Get out! This is my home, my hoard, my precious. And now get out, you mean mercs!”

“All right, Stinkor, just hand over the sacred shoes of Frau Antje, Goddess of Cheese and we’ll be gone.”

“There’s a Goddess of Cheese?”

“It’s a fringe cult, but they pay well. And now hand over the shoes, Stinkor, and no one gets hurt.”

“No, my precious! You can’t have them. They’re mine, mine. My precious!”

“What do you want with those shoes? You’ve can’t even wear them, cause you’ve got clawed feet.”

“You don’t understand. They remind me of Skeletor and I miss him so much. Sniff.”

“Is he… crying?”

“Who cares? Let’s just grab the shoes and get out!”

“Good idea. That stench is making me nauseous.”

“Noooo! My precious! I’ll get you for this.”

***

Bonus: Stinkor in his natural element:

“It’s better to rule the trash heap than serve in Eternos Palace.”

***

The second mini-story is also inspired by Masters of the Universe: Revelation. The Sword of Power has been split in two and all magic has drained out of Eternia, slowly killing the planet. In order to restore the magic and Eternia, the Sword of Power must be reforged. And the one chosen to fulfil this vital task is none other than Roboto, a sentient robot built by Duncan and therefore Teela’s brother of sorts. Roboto succeeds, too, but at a terrible cost, because the power surge resulting from reforging the magical blade destroys his robot body and he expires in the arms of his sister Teela and her friend Andra.

Now I ordered the Revelation version of Roboto from Amazon and he happened to be delivered in the same package as a famous fantasy novel with a very appropriate title, namely The Broken Sword by Poul Anderson from 1954. So I decided to make a story of it.

The Broken Sword

The Revelation Roboto comes with the two halves of the Power Sword.

“A broken sword, you say? No problem. I can fix it. I have Father’s skills after all and he is the best weapons smith in all of Eternia.”

“Roboto, do you remember what happened the last time you tried to fix a broken sword?”

“Yes, I died and discovered that I could feel fear. And I helped to save the universe, too. That was a good day.”

“Not for us. So no more sword fixing, Roboto, unless you’re perfectly sure it’s safe.”

“But Father fixed me. Father can fix anything.”

***

That’s it for today, folks. I hope you enjoyed this Masters-of-the-Universe-Piece Theatre Photo Story Double Feature, because there will be more.

Disclaimer: I don’t own any of these characters, I just bought some toys, took photos of them and wrote little scenes to go with those photos. All characters are copyright and trademark their respective owners.