"It's a Christmas miracle!"

On Thursday, I joined Karli's family in celebrating her mother's birthday at Hy's Steak House. (Which I found to be an unexpected choice of venue, given that both Karli's mother and stepfather are vegetarians, but apparently they have some good options for the no-meat crowd.)

While we were waiting for our drinks to arrive, Karli's sister Lisa presented us with a surprise gift, which she had picked up at The Flame, a monthly storytelling series based around true personal stories that she had attended the day before.

To our surprise, it was a copy of the Epic Yarns version of A New Hope, which Karli had originally wanted to give me for Christmas, but had been unable to locate, and ended up substituting The Empire Strikes Back in its place.  It turned out that Lisa had attended The Authors Edition of The Flame, and Epic Yarns co-creator Holman Wang had been among the local authors who spoke that night.  Lisa, who was completely unaware that A New Hope had been on Karli's shopping list*, or that I had attended Holman's talk at the Vancouver Writers Fest*, spontaneously decided to buy us a copy of the first Star Wars book from Mr. Wang, thereby providing an unexpectedly happy postscript to the holiday season.

Now that I have the first two, I decided that it made sense to get the third book in the Epic Yarns series - after all, it's a trilogy - and just out of curiousity, checked on A New Hope while I was on Amazon.ca.  Not only was it out of stock, but third-party sellers had apparently decided that if Amazon™ didn't have it, they could charge as much as they wanted, with prices for new copies set at an oddly consistent $69.61.

 

Fortunately, Amazon™ did have the Wang brothers' take on The Return of the Jedi in stock, and I ordered a copy, thereby completing the set.  Oh, and other book sellers?  List price is $14.95 - just sayin'.

- Sid

* Sadly, it would appear that Lisa is not part of The Infinite Revolution's readership.

Hunting for Books: Fit the First

"For the Snark's a peculiar creature, that won't
Be caught in a commonplace way.
Do all that you know, and try all that you don't:
Not a chance must be wasted to-day!"

Lewis Caroll, The Hunting of the Snark

I started my hunt for replacement books on a rainy December 31st in downtown Victoria with a visit to Russell Books, a large new and used bookstore which had just recently moved to a new location on Fort Street.  I'd made a reasonable start on my book cataloguing project and part of the result was a list of almost a hundred timeworn books that I wanted to update with less damaged copies, some of which I hoped to find at Russell.

In my mind, I imagined toting an armful or two of books to the checkout, and had already mentally budgeted for a first installment of purchases, but to my mild surprise, I was only able to find two books out of my list of 95.  Feeling a bit disappointed, I didn't even buy those two texts, thinking that I would rather buy in bulk than take a piecemeal approach to the hunt.

My next stop was Bastion Books, a used book shop which specializes more in rare books, and has a substantially smaller science fiction and fantasy collection as a result.  In spite of which, I was able to find three or four of the books on my list, but their condition was only marginally better than the ones I was replacing.

However, although I hadn't made a start on listing my Ace Doubles yet, I selected one that I was certain was in better shape than the copy on my shelves, and spotted two that I was confident I didn't already own.  I also picked up a book by Lloyd Biggle Jr. - because why would you not want to buy a book by someone named Biggle?

The young woman on the checkout desk smiled when she saw my selections, and as she began to log their titles*, mentioned that she’d just watched a movie the night before in which the credits had been done with classic SF covers as backgrounds.

Realizing that my carry bag was not waterproof, I cautiously asked if she might have a plastic bag - a bit of a hot button question in Victoria, which banned single use plastic bags in 2018.  To my relief, she was able to dig out a small contraband bag that perfectly matched my purchases, and taped it closed as well - full points to Bastion for customer service.

In conversation while she was doing this, I mentioned my mostly unsuccessful quest and commented that I wasn’t looking for anything particularly esoteric, at least by my standards, and was surprised that I didn't see more matches for my well-worn existing copies.

She made a bit of a moue with her mouth and shrugged, then delivered the epitaph of the science fiction paperback.

"They really weren’t terribly well made in the first place.”

She suggested that I pay a visit to the Cavity Curiousity Shop, which she said had an excellent selection of science fiction, in spite of the fact that they don’t list themselves as a book store, which kept most casual shoppers from going there.

After a brief look at Google Maps™, I hopefully hiked the kilometer and a half to Cavity's location, only to discover that they were closed for the holiday season - although they certainly had an intriguing window display.  Thwarted on all fronts and wet to the knee, I trudged back to our borrowed apartment to seek solace in hot tea, a sausage roll, and dry jeans.

On paper, my day looked like a failure, but I have to say that in practise, I rather enjoyed it.  It gave direction to my shopping, took me to a couple of new locations, and made me really look at the books on display.  Apparently you can have a good day of fishing even if you don't get anything on the hook.

- Sid

* This is a thing that old school book shops traditionally do to record their sales.

"Let the final battle...begin."

"Taking one last look, sir, at my friends."  

C-3PO, The Rise of Skywalker 

"This will be the final word in the story of Skywalker."  

Emperor Palpatine, The Rise of Skywalker

When Karli and I invited her sister Stefanie to join us on Boxing Day to see The Rise of Skywalker, she initially wasn't sure if she wanted to attend or not, but finally decided to come, commenting that, "...the upside of the movie is participating in a cultural phenomenon".

And she's completely correct in her description, not only in the case of this movie, but for Star Wars in general.  Fond though I am of Star Trek, it doesn't have anything close to the extreme depth of cultural penetration that Star Wars has achieved.  One of the characters in the movie talks about finishing the fight that their parents started, and it's pretty much the same for the audience - Star Wars has become a multi-generational tradition that parents share with their children.

 

On our way to the movie, Karli asked me if I thought that she would enjoy the movie more than I would because she had no expectations about the ending.  When I thought about it, I realized that, surprisingly, neither did I.

Because, really, how do you end a story which spans over 40 years, a story that has ended each chapter with a monumental struggle between good and evil, between the dark and light sides of the Force? How do you pull all of the strands of the Skywalker family's story together to create an ending worthy of a saga like this?

The Rise of Skywalker certainly does its best to answer that question by providing an epic conclusion to an epic story, a conclusion which is monumental in scope and presentation, while offering appropriate codas for the character arcs of Rey, Po, Finn and Kylo Ren/Ben Solo - as with C-3PO's quote, this movie takes a last look at the characters in order to say goodbye to them.  It also ties the story's past into its present, as symbolized by brilliantly using the wreckage of the Death Star on the ocean moon of Kef Bir as a setting, and by placing the final scene of the movie on Tatooine, where it all began.

However, there are some odd turns on the path that the movie takes to reach that final scene.  The Rise of Skywalker is full of plot points that we should have found out about sooner - in fact, there were times when it felt a bit like I was learning things that really should have been in the second film:* the power of the Force to heal (which could have easily been introduced at the end of The Force Awakens when Finn is wounded); Leia's Jedi training; Po Dameron's background as a spice smuggler - odd that he managed to make it to the third film without any sort of back story;   Finn's unexpected connection to the Force;  the true nature of the power behind Snoke and the First Order; and, in spite of her experience in the caverns of Ahch-To in The Last Jedi, the critical - and unexpected - importance of Rey's parentage.*

 

There are also some less than perfect decisions in the script.  The character of Rose Tico, who is so beautifully introduced in The Last Jedi, is completely pushed aside,* C-3PO's "sacrifice" really isn't, it's just a mechanism for some jokes, the presence of a spy in the First Order is used once to allow for an easy escape and then tossed away without any further development, and the focus of the final battle seems to jump around for no reason  - not to mention the ongoing convenience of easily destroyed critical failure points for the bad guys.  Oh, and in traditional Disney style, a supporting character is apparently killed but then miraculously turns out to be alive, thereby allowing them to have their emotional cake and eat it too.

I also would have liked to see some kind of interaction between Kylo Ren and the Knights of Ren, who finally make an appearance in this movie, rather than just have them be silent, faceless opponents.**

After the movie, as we were walking to the car, Stefanie asked if that was really the end of Star Wars.  Karli laughed and said, "It's made a lot of money, and Disney owns it - of course it's not the end."  And she's completely correct too - it's impossible to imagine Disney turning their back on a cash cow of this magnitude, as evidenced by The Mandalorian and the planned Obi-Wan Kenobi series for Disney +.

Really, though, this isn't about the end of Star Wars - as the Emperor points out, it's about the end of the Skywalker saga, and ultimately, the movie does signify that ending, while still leaving the door open for a new beginning.

Now that the saga is over, I'd like to be able to change one thing in the final trilogy:  the end of Luke's story.  It would have made me very happy to see him make his last stand in the final conflict with the Dark Side, thereby allowing a Skywalker to finally bring balance to the Force as was foretold all those years gone by.

 

But at least Chewbacca finally gets a medal - that only took 42 years.

- Sid

* Logically, this is what happens when you alternate writers in the creation of a trilogy:  it would be interesting to contrast a Rian Johnson script for the third movie with the J. J. Abrams/Chris Terrio version that's on screen.

**For that matter, why does Ben Solo change his name to Kylo Ren in the first place?  Did I miss something in a movie where that was explained?  I understand why he changes his name, obviously he wants to turn his back on his original life as Ben Solo, but why Kylo Ren?  If you're a Sith, you take the title of "Darth", which apparently means Dark Lord in whatever ancient tongue is native to the Sith, but everyone treats Kylo Ren as a name rather than a title.