Star Wars Advent 2018 day 1

Advent is here !

And I have a Lego Advent Calendar again. More Lego is tempting me too even though I still have the Ladies of NASA set to build. It's a sales and retiring products thing ... What's in the box for today ?

A speeder to kick it off this year.

This year, I'm going to do the picturing upstairs in my main room. (This has very little to do with a "No More Room For Lego" problem).

And who set my keyboard back to English US ! Darn Microsoft fiddling where they shouldn't be.

This year, I think I'm going to run a theme of books. I.e. instead of showing a bare wall behind the increasing swarm of Lego, how about a few random books. Oh and 4d sneaking in from the side too, can't keep that one out of pictures.

First up is The Icarus Hunt by Timothy Zahn. He's an excellent author who I first found via the old Star Wars Expanded Universe books. In fact, his books were so good that his Grand Admiral Thrawn character survived the great purge of the Expanded Universe with Thrawn making his way back via the Star Wars Rebels series.

Having read a few more of his books, I'd say .... mostly brilliant, occasional dips. Probably like most authors as prolific as Timothy Zahn probably. Here's a link to is extensive bibliography. The Icarus Hunt is a book I read a number of years ago, it's about a madcap chase across the galaxy by a crew full of characters in a ship that has a cargo that the aliens running the commerce in the galaxy definitely don't want to have reaching its destination.

What could it be ? I must read this one again as I remember it as being one of his better books. Timothy Zahn plays well in other people's universes and is pretty good at his own worldbuilding too. His technologically advanced Cobra warriors make far more sense than the Halo Spartans that essentially photocopied his ideas.

Next up is Battlestar Galactica : Resurrection by Richard Hatch, which I really need to read ... it has escaped my attention so far. This one is set in the original Galactica universe where the humans were running from the aftermath of a disastrous end to the war with the partially cybernetic Cylons.

I liked the original Battlestar series hugely more than the remake. The remake had great ideas with the warfare among the stars but after a while, it became painfully apparent that they had been making up the backstory as they went along and after the New Caprica escape episode, the whole thread kinda fell apart for me as they went for dramatic episodes with very little sense behind them.

Last up is David Weber's March Upcountry.

This one sees the Crown Prince being ambushed and forced to land on what Warhammer 40k would call a Death World.

As in, everything on the planet is out to kill, dismember and eat you and not necessarily in that order. The Crown Prince and his party land halfway around the planet from the only star port and their mission is to get themselves and their incredibly limited supplies around to that planet and escape.

David Weber is a wonderful world builder with his book series and I have enjoyed a huge number of his books. This one didn't really gel with me when I read it. Possibly that was another state of mind issue ? Maybe. My mental state has gone through various nosedives over the last 15 years or so and that can be reflected in the impressions I take away from what I experience.

(I'm ok at the moment, although I need to go back to Expanse book 7)

But yeah ! David Weber. I fully expect I'll be pulling out a few more of his books to show off in future advent posts .... And I reckon I'll be bringing out a few of his to re-read again.

To tomorrow ! And more Advent and Books.