Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Getting Down With It! Part Two

Greetings Fellow Explorers!

So, no doubt you've tuned in this week to find out who the other character is that died and upset me.  Well, I won't prolong the torture any more than I already have.  Here we go!

Picture 1 of 1It was a Star Wars book, a collection of short stories called Tales From the Mos Eisley Cantina and it was edited by Kevin J. Anderson.  Now in case you don't know, this story is a collection of stories, each story is about a different person who happened to be in the cantina during the famous scene in the first Star Wars movie, the one nowadays called Episode Four:  A New Hope.


So There's A Story about the bartender.  There's A Story about the two thugs who bother Luke and Ben cuts them up with the lightsaber.   There's A Story about Greedo, the bounty hunter that gets shot by Han Solo. 

In the movie, when Han shoots Greedo they cut to various patrons to see their reaction.  In one of these reaction shots there is a Jawa (like the ones that sold the droids to Luke and his Uncle) sitting at a table with a little rat-alien thing.  This Jawa has a story in the book, and his name is Het N'Kik.

So apparently all the Jawas were supposed to get together and have a convention, see...I think they were calling it a swap meet.  Anyway, Het N'Kik's girlfriend was among the group that sold the droids to Luke and his Uncle, and was also killed by the Imperial Stormtroopers.  Het N'Kik found this out and declared war on the Empire single-handed!  Omg, he was like the Bruce Willis of Jawas!

So he gets a BFG (the "B" stands for "big", the "G" stands for "gun", I leave the "F" to your imagination) and goes off looking for Stormtroopers to kill.  He stops in at the cantina, gets stuck sitting with the little rat-guy.  So after Obi-Wan slices up the thugs with his lightsaber, the cops, I mean, Stormtroopers show up to look around and do absolutely nothing.  Het N'Kik follows them when they leave.  He jumps out at them from around a corner...AND THAT'S THE END OF HIS STORY!!!  Like what heck!? 

But wait there's more!
The next story is about the little rat-alien that was sitting with Het N'Kik.  He is a Ranat and his name is something like Reegesk.  While sitting with Het N'Kik, he dupes the trusting and distracted little Jawa into letting him look at the gun.  When he does, he takes the batteries out!  

At this point, you're like "What the Hell?!?!  At the end of his story, Het N'Kik jumps out of the alley and starts shooting at the Stormtroopers!  Now the book says his gun had no battery!" 

And it's true, the end of Het N'Kik's story said he kept pulling the trigger, it never said that he fired a shot.  So what the heck happened?

But wait, there's still more!
The next story is about one of the Stormtroopers who came into the cantina.  He was a disgraced AT-AT driver who dropped his AT-AT onto its front knees so somebody couldn't wrap a cable around the legs.  This was against regs so he got busted and sent to Tatooine to look for droids carrying Death Star plans.

He and his Captain (the trooper with the fancy orange pauldron) reported to the disturbance at the cantina, did nothing, and left.  They didn't realize they were followed by Het N'Kik.  Suddenly and without warning this "crazy Jawa" jumped out of an alley and started shooting at them!  Except...he didn't!  The Jawa's gun didn't fire!

So the Captain sneered, says something that basically equated Jawas to rats, and killed Het N'Kik dead with one shot!  It's, like, the only time a Stormtrooper hit what he was aiming for in all of Star Wars history!  Holy crap!  Just like that Het N'Kik was dead!  He was the coolest Jawa in the galaxy, the very Bruce Willis of Jawas and this dipstick Stormtrooper killed him like that!

This was a Thoroughly Antagonizing Situation!  Boy, was I ticked off!  In fact, I'm getting ticked off just thinking about it!

You know what?  I don't really know WHY Het N'Kik's death or Goldmoon's death got under my skin like that.  I guess that says something about the writing...but I'm not sure what.  

What about you?  Did you get mad when some character in the story you were reading got killed?  If so, who was the character and what story were they in?  Please, leave a comment down below, I think it would be interesting to hear about it!

Well, I guess that's all for now, my fine friends!  Until next time I bid you:

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

Tuesday, October 15, 2019

Getting Down With It! Part One

What Ho, my Two-Fisted Adventure Seekers!

You know, one of the basic pieces of advice "they" like to give about writing is to read.  A LOT!

I'll admit that I don't read as much as I should...but I have read a fair bit, and I'm pretty good at retaining the stuff that I read.  I read a lot of cheesy stuff, cuz I LIKE the cheesy stuff.

What kind of stuff?  Well, I read those old pulp magazine reprints, and I love those short little fantasy and sci-fi novels from the sixties and seventies.  

But I've read some more modern stuff, too.  And I'm usually pretty detatched, observing the story and making snide MST3K-style comments as I go through the book.  But there were two times when I got embroiled so much that I got mad when characters died.

The first time this happened was when I read the Dragonlance Chronicles Book 1 Dragons of Autumn Twilight by Margaret Weiss and Tray Hickman.  This series is sometimes called "the poor man's Lord of the Rings", which seems like a left-handed compliment, to me.  

Anyway, this story kicked off the Dungeons and Dragons world of Dragonlance, and is beloved by many, including me.  So it starts off with a group of adventurer friends meeting back up after five years of each one exploring on their own.  They run into these two outcast plainsmen with a magic staff that is a holy relic from ages past.  The magic staff is the Healing Staff of Mishakal, and the girl carrying it is named Goldmoon.

So, after various adventures, the group is taking her to the ruined city of Xak Tsaroth where they're supposed to find more clues on how to awaken and re-connect with the Old Gods and learn about the evil Goddess Takhisis, the Queen of Dragons, who is trying to take over the world because that's what bad guys do in these things.

Anyway, our heroes get to Xak Tsaroth and we find this black dragon who kills Goldmoon!  Boy did that tick me off!  I don't really know why, but it did!  Fortunately the Goddess Mishakal brought her back to life in the very next chapter, so it was okay.  I honestly don't know if I would have finished the trilogy if that hadn't happened.

The second time, however, didn't go so well...
But that's a Tale for Another Session, so I'll tell ya about it next week...
Until then...

Good Adventuring!
Timothy A. Sayell

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