The Book of Boba Fett

In 2021, after two well-regarded seasons of The Mandalorian, Disney Plus Star Wars television seemingly could do no wrong. Two slam dunks were apparently on the way with an Obi-Wan Kenobi show and a series based on popular side character Boba Fett, who had been featured in an awesome season two The Mandalorian episode. However, by the time The Book of Boba Fett finally arrived, Star Wars fans had reverted back to their natural feral state and had Big Problems with the show. This second Star Wars  television series marked the start of yet another cycle of fan hand-wringing and discontent.

Admittedly, some of this had to do with genuine issues with the project. First, making a show about Boba Fett was a risky proposition to begin with. Arguably the original Glup Shitto, the character has always been a cipher onto which fans had projected their own desires, stories, and expectations. While his brief time in Attack of the Clones and The Clone Wars did a little to define him, his actual adult characterization was still largely unknown, other than that he wore cool armor and was intimidating. 

While his featured episode on The Mandalorian gave fans a lot of what they wanted (namely action), to base a whole show around him meant you had to make choices about who he is and what he wants as a character, which was always going to disappoint people who had their own idea of who the character was.  For me, having the show be about Boba Fett’s rise to becoming the crime lord of Tatooine was not the most interesting possible option. With that decision, you lose one of the few definitive things that we knew about him, that he was a world-hopping bounty hunter who spent his time on Slave 1 tracking valuable bounties. This decision was akin to the one that finally gave us a post-ROTJ Luke Skywalker who was an embittered old hermit, certainly a credible choice but not one that most people wanted to see after all these years. Equally with Boba Fett we are getting a valid characterization but one that is missing some of the things we would have expected from a show centered around the character.

While the series honors George Lucas' casting of Temuera Morrison who had played his dad/clone donor Jango Fett, I wonder if the show might have been better off recasting another Kiwi actor for the role as Morrison is at least ten years too old to be playing this character. Morrison spends the bulk of the series unhelmeted (occasionally barely-clothed) and with his distractingly white teeth and extreme facial expressions he is less intimidating than he was when he played Jango, twenty years earlier. 

Not unlike The Acolyte, the story told in The Book of Boba Fett is presented in a way that features heavy use of flashbacks instead of presenting the narrative in a more straightforward, chronological manner. Essentially we are jumping between a "past" time period and the "present." The past period spans from months after Return of the Jedi to the events of seasons one and two of The Mandalorian. The present period takes place months after the second season of The Mandalorian. There are some fan edits of the show that recut it into one or more movies, and these are actually pretty good and I would say an improvement to the way the series is presented on Disney Plus. I will say though, on this recent rewatch I enjoyed the original cut much more than I remembered.

Another issue that fans had with the show is that there is essentially a whole episode and a half of The Mandalorian right in the middle of it. This doesn’t really bother me, since, first, it’s a great and significant episode and, second, they could change the title of this show and Din Djarin’s show The Mandalorians and I would be fine since there is seemingly an open question as to who "the" Mandalorian is. I mean, Din and Grogu are getting their own movie. They're okay. Also, at this point it had been a year since the season two finale and I certainly did not want to leave these characters in limbo for another year or more.

In fact I would love to see a The Mandalorians re-edit that actually recuts and reshuffles the episodes of The Book of Boba Fett with episodes of The Mandalorian as a cohesive whole. Unfortunately, the flashback element prevents you from just watching them in chronological order so some creative editing would be involved.

I’ll take it chronologically here as the story starts with Boba escaping the Sarlaac pit, a moment that has loomed large in the consciousness of fans since Jedi. We see him in the juicy maw of the beast as he makes his way to a fallen Stormtrooper for oxygen and then blasts his way to safety, finally passing out in the desert. He is first found by Jawas who scavenge his armor (later selling it to Cobb Vanth, who ultimately gives it to Din Djarin in Season 2 of The Mandalorian). Boba is next captured by Tusken Raiders and his time with the Sandpeople is a major subplot in the show.

Boba's 1984 Marvel Comics escape from the Sarlaac.

To the extent that Star Wars is a Western (particularly the Tatooine sequences) the Sandpeople have always been analogues for Native Americans. In Lucas’ movies they were always depicted as a sinister Other lurking in the desert wastes of Tatooine. As progressive as George Lucas is in his politics, his cinematic sensibilities are often seemingly rooted the retrograde media he consumed in his youth, and the Sandpeople very much fulfill the role of the malevolent Indians in movies like The Searchers. Indeed, they are literally defined by their tendency to raid the human settlements on Tatooine. Their kidnapping of Shmi Skywalker prior to the events of Attack of the Clones and Anakin’s subsequent slaughter of their tribe is a major turning point in the history of the Star Wars galaxy. No wonder their masks bear a passing resemblance to that of Vader. The two are clearly Star Wars' design language, if only because they were created by Ralph McQuarrie at the same time, but the saga has always been good about making these kinds of subtle visual connections. 

McQuarrie Sandpeople concept art which inspired a scene from TBOBF

Of course, according to Lucas’ own lore, the Sandpeople and Jawas are the original inhabitants of the planet and everyone else are off-world colonizers who had abandoned early attempts to mine the planet. Given that that star/producer of the show Temeura Morrison is a Māori from New Zealand and the showrunner Robert Rodriguez is Mexican-American it’s no surprise that The Book of Boba Fett gives us a more nuanced and sympathetic view of the indigenous people of Tatooine, a process that began in The Mandalorian. 

Boba’s time with the Sandpeople changes and redeems him although, again, we are redeeming a character that we hardly knew to begin with so it’s not as effective as it might have been. When his tribe is slaughtered by a swoop gang aligned with the Pyke Crime Syndicate Boba seems to make up his mind to reclaim his ship from Jabba’s palace and clean up Tatooine as the new Daimyo, although not before dealing some revenge to the swoop gang and-in a sequence that makes my inner child squeal-the Sarlaac pit.

Much of the current-day plot of The Book of Boba Fett has to do with Boba and Fennic navigating the landscape of crime families centered around Mos Espa (featured in The Phantom Menace and not to be confused with the more famous Mos Eisley). His attempts to consolidate power puts him in conflict also puts him into conflict with the Ithorian mayor, represented by his Twi-Lek Majordomo (played by yet another Chicago 1990's improv figure, Dave Pasquesi here joining his Strangers with Candy costar Amy Sederis returning from The Mandalorian) and  a pair of twin Hutts who bestow a rancor on Boba before retreating from the planet. These Hutts by the way are set to return in The Mandalorian and Grogu. 

The main antagonists of the show are the Pykes who employ the bounty hunter, Cad Bane, a popular character from the animated side of Star Wars and in possession of Star Wars most on-the-nose name (sorry Elan Sleazebaggano). Bane makes his live-action debut here. 

Cad Bane is a Duros bounty hunter (think the pair of bulbous-headed, blue-skinned, red-eyed creatures from the Cantina) who goes full-tilt on the Spaghetti-Western element of Star Wars, largely based on Lee Van Cleef's character in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly. In his animated appearances he has proven himself to be extremely tough and ruthless, going toe-to-toe with characters like Obi-Wan Kenobi. Over the years, he has gotten far more character development than Boba Fett ever did, and if this show was The Book of Cad Bane the chosen story might have actually worked better. While characters making the transition from animation to live-action have a mixed record in Star Wars (we'll be talking about Obi-Wan Kenobi next), Cad Bane looks and sounds fantastic. He's actually a terrifying villain and one of my complaints with TBOBF is that he is not in the show more, he works really well.

Fett also picks up some allies on Tatooine, most controversially, the Mods, a group of Tatooine youths who are augmented with droid parts and drive around in brightly-colored repulsor scooters. My problem with them is not that they are not "Star Wars" as some fans complained but they don't seem to match Tatooine very well. I can totally see this particular group driving around Coruscant but they seem out of place in the dusty streets of Mos Espa with its grungy aesthetic. Another ally Boba picks up during the course of the show is Krrsantan, a black-furred Wookie bounty hunter that has his origins in the Disney/Marvel Star Wars comics. Krrsantan is awesome and I hope we see more of him in live-action. 

As stated above, we catch up with Din Djarin for a solid episode. At this point he has been on his own for several months without Grogu and still in search of his Mandalorian covert. As his ship was destroyed in season two he is also getting around on public transportation. He is also inexpertly attempting to wield the Darksaber he acquired by defeating Giddeon and is injuring himself with it. Bro is not in a good place.

Somehow, the Mandalorian returned.

When he tracks down the Armorer on a distant ring world, he confesses to having removed his helmet and is excommunicated from his community unless he can "bathe in the living waters of Mandalore." As a viewer, I am losing patience somewhat with the incredibly impractical and seemingly whimsical rules of this cult. We need to capture Din and deprogram him.

Mando makes his way to Tatooine to buy a new Razorcrest from Pelli Moto (yes, his intention was always to get another one) only to find that she has pulled a bait-and-switch and is instead attempting to sell him a souped-up N-1 starfighter (as piloted by Anakin in The Phantom Menace.) One of the things I love about this Mandoverse is how inclusive it is of all eras of Star Wars and I was so happy to see the return of this iconic design from the Prequels. Also, the idea of Mando and Pelli essentially rebuilding this hotrod in her garage feels very George Lucas. While on Tatooine Din is recruited by Fennic Shand to work for Boba Fett but first he makes a trip to see Grogu.

Grogu has become Luke's first student at his under-construction Jedi academy on Ossus (we later see this location destroyed in flashback in The Force Awakens). First, the de-aging or whatever voodoo is being done to create Luke Skywalker here is actually very good and Luke does a lot more here than in his single mostly stationary speaking scene in season two of The Mandalorian. Characterwise, they seem to be doubling down on Luke being a little unlikable and Jedi orthodox, which I think works well with his eventual arc.

Din arrives and is met by none other than Ahsoka Tano, who intercepts him and explains that his visit might not be the best thing for Grogu, who is still very attached to the Mandalorian. Din gives her a gift for Grogu, some Beskar chainmail that he had made for him. I'm honestly a little puzzled by Ahsoka "I'm no Jedi" Tano here who should know better than to be playing along with this high-handed Jedi bullshit. Also, frustratingly we never got to see the very important scene where Luke and Ahsoka met for the first time. She's just hanging out at the Temple site.

After Mando leaves, Luke sits down with Grogu and essentially gives him an ultimatum, you can have the chainmail and go back with Din or you can have Yoda's old lightsaber if you stay and train. But you cannot have both. The dickishness is strong with this one. Apparently Grogu chooses the chainmail and Luke essentially puts him in a cab and sends him to Tatooine. Like, how salty was Luke Skywalker about this decision?

Meanwhile on The Book of Boba Fett, Boba and his allies are making a last stand against the Pykes, Cad Bane and a couple of giant battle droids. Grogu arrives in the middle of this and reunites with Din, in a battle that now also involves Boba riding his Rancor and defeating the Pykes and (apparently) killing Cad Bane.

We end up with Boba now firmly in control of Tatooine...and we have not seen him since despite Temuera Morrison regularly letting it be known he would like to come back. It is rumored however that the Mandoverse will conclude with a movie or series of movies tying together elements from the New Republic-era shows: The Mandalorian, The Book of Boba Fett, Ahsoka, and Skeleton Crew.

Patrick Garone

The Mandalorian, Season 2

The second season of The Mandalorian is considered by many to be the best of the series with a balance of the straightforward genre storytelling of season one and the introduction of some very important connections to the large Star Wars universe, including some major character appearances. One of the things that I love about the show is how all-inclusive it is, bringing elements of everything from the Original Trilogy, prequels and animation. Compare that to J.J. Abrams who reportedly so disdained the Prequels that he wanted to blow up Coruscant in The Force Awakens. In fact, The Mandalorian even embraces the Sequels and does some groundwork to set them up. Season two also really explores what it means to be a Mandalorian, introducing Din and Grogu to others who consider themselves Mandos but who do not necessarily subscribe to the fundamentalist creed of Din's community. This puts Djarin into several situations where his Mandalorian ideology is challenged, leading to some interesting character exploration.

Much as in season one, The Mandalorian season two is oddly-paced with perhaps only half of the episodes being directly tied into the main plot of Din Djarin's assigned mission to bring Grogu back to the Jedi. The rest of the season is filled with lots of side missions which often makes the larger story feel like a video game. Din is frequently tasked with fetchquests in which he needs to accomplish a specific thing to bring him closer to his larger goal of finding more Mandalorians and ultimately a Jedi. 

That's not to say that those episodes aren't thoroughly enjoyable including meeting important characters in Chapter 9 "The Marshall" and Chapter 11, "The Heiress" or a near survival horror episode in Chapter 10, "The Passenger," which finds Mando and Grogu crashing on a spider-infested ice planet. The Carl Weather's directed, "The Siege" is nothing short of an incredible distillation of kinetic Star Wars action. Episode 9, "The Believer," brings back season one character and former Imperial, Miggs Mayfeld and sends them into an Imperial base where they each have to contend with their changing beliefs in a great character-centric episode.

A notable character brought in from animation is Bo Katan, who was featured in both The Clone Wars and Rebels. She is played here by Battlestar Galactica's Katee Sackhoff, who also voiced her in animation. Once a scion of a great Mandalorian house, she is now leading a small group of warriors who are attempting to mount a resistance to the Imperial Remnant and ultimately resettle Mandalore. She is after Moff Giddeon who it was revealed possesses the Darksaber, which Katan hopes she can use to rally the surviving Mandalorians. Much like the other Mandalorians we have met in animation, her group does not follow The Creed in the same way as the Armorer's community, and they are fairly open and freely remove their helmets. They refer to Din's covert as "Children of the Watch," which actually fills in some gaps in the timeline.

Back during the Clone Wars era, the planet of Mandalore was ruled by a progressive, pacifist leader who had sought to lead the planet away from the centuries of warfare which had nearly destroyed their world. Indeed, the Mandalorians were confined to dome cities as the rest of the planet was effectively a wasteland. A conservative and militaristic group called Death Watch had opposed the leadership and sought to return Mandalore to its violent roots. Bo Katan was introduced as a member of this group and through several arcs of The Clone Wars we saw a struggle for the planet which culminated in which Maul (in his crimelord era) and Death Watch took control of Mandalore only to have it liberated by a Republic force aligned with Bo Katan. 

The Children of the Watch are therefore an even more zealous offshoot of Death Watch that interpret The Creed in a very literal way with strict rules about their usage of armor and their interactions with outsiders. Most of them like Din are converts to The Creed with no connection to Mandalore whatsoever. Indeed, someone like Bo Katan can certainly make a more convincing argument that she is a "real" Mandalorian than Din, since she was born and raised on the planet and steeped in its culture.

The other "Mandalorian" that Din and Grogu meet this season is Boba Fett, Star Wars' original Mandalorian character. The term Mandalorian was first used internally at Lucasfilm to describe the armor designed for this character, originally described as having been made of "Mandalorian steel.' the term Beskar was created in the 1990's in one of the old EU novels. Boba first appeared in animation in a segment of the Star Wars Holiday Special (You can watch this much of the special on Disney Plus as "The Faithful Wookie" and he later appeared in a small roles in The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. He is revealed in Attack of the Clones to have been cloned from Jango Fett, the donor from which the Republic's clone army was created. Early in season two, Din acquires Boba's armor in an adventure on Tattooine, where Boba had seemingly met his demise in Jedi. 

We are reintroduced to the character in the Robert Rodriguez-directed Chapter 14 "The Tragedy" where we learn Fett has teamed up with season one character Fennec Shand and has tracked Mando to Tython in order to reclaim his armor. This leads to a really kick-ass battle between a re-armored Boba and a squad of stormtroopers. This sequence fulfills a long-standing wish if Star Wars fans to see Boba Fett go HAM and the episode does not disappoint. Later, we learn that Boba's "father" Jango Fett had been a foundling much like Din and Grogu and had at some point followed The Creed. When Grogu is kidnapped and Mando's ship destroyed, Boba pledges to assist in getting him back, kicking off an epic bromance that carries on into The Book of Boba Fett. Throughout the season, we see Din getting more and more comfortable with other Mandalorians who do not necessarily share his interpretation of The Creed.

Season two also serves as the live action debut for another major Star Wars character from animation, Ahsoka Tano who had served as Anakin Skywalker's Padawan during the Clone Wars and has developed over several projects into one of Star Wars' most beloved and interesting characters. Din is lead to her by Bo Katan, a frequent ally of hers during the Clone Wars and beyond. Ahsoka's episode "The Jedi" has a strong Japanese influence in its music and design and is seemingly inspired by the great Studio Ghibli movie Princess Mononoke, which also features a formerly pastoral land which has been blighted by a cruel mistress intent on stripping it down for weapons and industry and who is opposed by a supernatural opponent who strikes from the forest. The early designs for Ahsoka's character were directly based on Princess Mononoke so this brings her origins full circle.

While Din's goal is to bring Grogu to a Jedi for training, Ahsoka due to her complicated relationship with the order (and we later learn her frustrations attempting to train her own apprentice) declines to train Grogu, referring Din to a Jedi site where Grogu may be able to make contact with a surviving Jedi. Regardless, the two team up in order to take down the villainous Morgan Elspeth and we learn Ahsoka's true mission is to track down, Grand Admiral Thrawn, a towering figure from Star Wars old Expanded Universe who was seemingly lost at the end of Rebels.

The season comes to a close as Din gathers his new Mandalorian allies on a mission to rescue Grogu from Giddeon's cruiser. Mando battles everything from a Darksaber-wielding Giddeon to a squad of Darktroopers, battle droids cherrypicked from the videogame side of the old EU. Djarin defeats Giddeon and therefore earns the Darksaber which puts him into conflict Bo Katan. As our main characters are trapped on the cruiser's bridge about to be assaulted by Darktroopers, noneother than Luke Skywalker arrives to save them, having tracked Grogu from the Jedi site on Tython.

While Luke's extended fight with the Darktroopers is impressive (again seeing a full-on post Return of the Jedi Luke at the height of his power is another thing fans have been wanting to see forever) and he really makes quick work of the droid squadron in a sequence that mirrors Vader's corridor fight at the end of Rogue One. Of course, he is conveniently hooded during this sequence and only reveals his face for a brief sequence at the very end of the episode. The process to recreate a young Mark Hamil produces mixed results just on the wrong side of the Uncanny Valley. As I understand it, it is some combination of AI de-aging, a look-a-like stand-in, and some kind of performance capture from Hamil himself. Honestly, having Mark Hamil there in his Jedi costume, seems to have more to do with publicity and fanservice than anything that actually contributed meaningfully to the performance. Simply using the look-a-like actor would have honestly been less distracting. Or just cast Sebastian Stan, you cowards!

The series ends on a heartbreaking note as Grogu goes off with Luke to be trained as a Jedi, leaving Mando behind, having broken the rules of his covert twice this season by removing his helmet both times for Grogu and which will ultimately put him into an inevitable conflict with his community. Also, I have never disliked Luke more than in this moment in which he tales Grogu away from Din. 

It seems like the arc they are establishing for the New Republic-era Luke is that he has failed to learn from the failures of the old Jedi order and the Jedi's emotional stupidity which has so failed his father. He has a little of the old order's arrogant dickishness. I think this is all pretty consistent with where he ends up in the Sequel Trilogy, so I like it. It should be noted that the Luke Skywalker of the old Expanded Universe made very different choices and actively broke with this element of the order and allowed the Jedi in his New Jedi Order to have healthy romantic and family attachments.

Look, I just want a scene in one of these Mandoverse projects in which Din and Luke bond over both being in creepy cults.

Patrick Garone

We Need Star Trek Now More Than Ever

I've been on a Star Trek kick lately. While I have been mostly enjoying Starfleet Academy  I have also dipped back into Picard and just started a rewatch of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I never watched TNG when it aired but instead caught up with it on Netflix on DVD years later as part of a massive OCD binge of all things Trek. And while I never caught it in the 1980's and 1990's when it aired, there is something comforting and nostalgic about TNG and that's not just because of the very 80's soft beige, grey and cranberry decor and dramatic fade-outs to commercial (although very much also that) but its now-quaint value system in which Starfleet's best and brightest do their best to live up to their high ethical standards. 

I had seen The Next Generation's pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint" a couple of times before, once even on the big screen when the beautiful Blu-ray remasters were released and had always thought it was a little dull and not really reflective of the heights the show would achieve in its later seasons. In 2026, however, it feels refreshing and almost radical. In light of the recent very dumb arguments about whether or not Star Trek has become "woke," 1987's "Encounter at Farpoint," is decidedly so with everything from male crewmembers running around in skirts, to characters making offhand and subversive remarks about humanity's past obsessions with "tribal gods." Remember, the future of Star Trek  is well-documented as  a post-capitalist, largely agnostic utopia. So, yes, it's woke at a molecular level which is why all the right wing kvetching is even sillier than normal.

In "Farpoint" a seemingly all-powerful, god-like being called Q diverts the Enterprise and puts its crew on trail for the past barbarism of humanity. Mind you, although Q presents himself in various historical guises, his court is apparently based on a chaotic, post apocolypic, mid-twenty-first century court. This tracks. However, the charges of barbarism are forcefully rebutted by Captain Picard who both acknowledges humanity's terrible past but argues that humanity has grown and improved over the centuries.

This storyline really resonated with me  on this watch and reminds me of the current dialogue in the United States about American history. The current administration is doing everything in its power to stifle any discussion of US history that might put the country in a "negative light," including pressuring museums into removing exhibits that highlight things like slavery and genocide of native people. This is pretty typical of conservative thinking in recent years which seeks to whitewash our history and return to an era of fawning over "great men," instead of reconciling with the realities of the past.

While Captain Picard can look back on the problematic sweep of human history with supreme confidence that humanity has grown and improved, American conservatives seemingly cannot. Indeed, when Picard is told by Q that his mission at Farpoint will serve as a test of humanity's quality, the captain does not flinch, confident in the fact that even this brand new crew will act in an ethical way and prove Q wrong.

Perhaps the most refreshing thing about watching Star Trek in 2026 is seeing people in leadership who are both competent, curious, and ethical which is especially nice considering the 2026 leadership in the US is composed of a mix of Cardassians, Romulans, and Ferengis.

Patrick Garone

An Ahsoka Tano Primer

At the time of The Mandalorian’s second season, Ahsoka Tano was already a character with a deep history on the animated side of Star Wars, in addition to appearances in The Mandalorian, The Clone Wars, Rebels, her own eponymous show and other media appearances. At the time of this writing, much of her life has been covered on screen (with some intriguing gaps) and it can be argued that she is one the franchises best and most beloved characters.

She wasn’t always so loved, however. First introduced in the theatrical release of The Clone Wars she was a character jointly created by Dave Filoni and George Lucas and takes some visual cues from Filoni’s love for Studio Ghibli movies, particularly Princess Monanoke. Ahsoka was initially met with controversy and disdain by Star Wars fans (imagine that!) due to her sometimes annoying and bratty characterization and over-familiarity with our beloved legacy characters (“Artooey!”). She was introduced as the Padawan apprentice to Anakin Skywalker which initially felt like a jarring retcon to the Prequels. Also, the idea of Anakin having an apprentice at all seemed crazy, although a characteristically terrible Jedi decision.

However, Ahsoka was slowly and methodically developed over the first few seasons of The Clone Wars and during the course of the conflict, Tano was layered with depth and the burden of leadership and responsibility. She also took on some of her master’s independence and tendency for improvisation as well as his martial skill. Ahsoka literally matured before us and through her eyes we experienced the toll of the Clone War on the galaxy and the Jedi. Soon fans were less worrying about her being a retcon than about her seemingly inevitable demise. Her complete absence from Revenge of the Sith hinted at a tragic fate for the young Togruta.

She went on too many notable adventures in The Clone Wars to really get into here and has experienced everything from brainworm-controlled zombies, to being sold off into slavery, to almost having a romance with a young Mandalorian. In possibly her most fateful arc on the show, she and Obi-Wan and Anakin find themselves on a mysterious world called Mortis on which live a trio of Force deities who's mythic struggle seems to mirror the balance of power in the galaxy. During the course of this storyline Ahsoka is killed and resurrected by the Daughter, the embodiment of the Light Side of the Force, and perhaps this act has imbued Ahsoka with some special destiny of which we have yet to really see. Ahsoka season two seems to be going in the direction of continuing this story. Ahsoka's frequent visual companion and herald, the owl-like Morai is also tied into this storyline and her connection with the Daughter.

Ahsoka's story came to a head toward the end of the fifth season of The Clone Wars in a series of episodes which saw her framed for a bombing at the Jedi temple, and which resulted in her going on the run and being captured and put on trial, with only Anakin really attempting to prove her innocence. Ultimately Anakin exonerates her, but the events sour her on the Order and, in a truly shocking moment, she leaves Anakin and the Jedi behind to go off on her own. This moment alone cements her status as a true icon of the franchise and one of the best characters in the whole saga.

We find out that after leaving the Jedi she disappeared into the underworld of Coruscant where she got mixed up with some smugglers. She eventually reconnects with the Mandalorian warrior Bo Katan who is attempting to liberate her planet from a criminal syndicate lead by Maul (yes, that one.) Ahsoka contacts Anakin and petitions the Jedi for military assistance on behalf of the Mandalorians and she is granted temporary command over a battalion of clone troopers. This final arc of The Clone Wars is some of the greatest Star Wars storytelling ever and includes one of the finest lightsaber fuels of the entire saga. Ahsoka defeats and captures Maul but en route to Coruscant, Order 66 is transmitted and Ahsoka and a clone narrowly escape. Maul also manages to escape on his own.

She lives on the run for a while trying avoid the Empire and its Jedi purge, eventually running afoul of one the Jedi-hunting Imperial Inquisitors (which she easily dispatches.) She takes the corrupted red kyber crystals from his lightsaber and purifies them into a pure white color. These crystals are in the katana-style sabers she wields hereafter. Tano then links up with Senator Bail Organa who is establishing the basis what will eventually be the Rebel Alliance, assuming the identity of Fulcrum.

We pick up her story next in Star Wars: Rebels as she is revealed as the rebel agent with whom our cell of rebels has been communicating since the beginning of the show. She’s now much older and wiser than during her Clone Wars years and despite not identifying as a Jedi, Ahsoka briefly serves as a mentor for our Jedi characters Kanan and His apprentice Ezra. Once again, she easily clowns Inquisitors practically taking their lightsabers and smacking them in the face with them. While she is not technically a Jedi, she has become quite a powerful Force-wielder.

Ahsoka and the Jedi make their way to the abandoned planet of Malachor, the site of a historic conflict between the Jedi and the Sith and the activation of an ancient and powerful weapon. The trio meet Maul there who is attempting to activate the dormant weapon. They are soon joined by a trio of Inquisitors and finally by Vader. Throughout her short time on Rebels, Ahsoka has been attempting to piece together the identify of the Sith Lord, with the dawning realization that he is actually her former Master. On Malachor, the two duel and Vader seemingly defeats her, in another one of the great Star Wars face-offs.

In a storyline in the final season of the show, Ezra Bridger returns to the Jedi temple on his homeworld of Lothal and uses it to enter a previously unseen-dimension in the franchise, The World Between Worlds-a kind of Force nexus in time and space. Indeed, the World Between World sequences are full of audio cameos from all over the saga, past and future. During his exploration of this realm, Ezra discovers a portal to Malachor during the Vader/Ashoka duel and manages to pull her out, rescuing her from her fate. Escaping the Emperor's attempts to enter the World Between Worlds, the two are separated and Ahsoka escapes back to Malachor at some point after the destruction of the temple. Since she is entirely absent from the Original Trilogy, it is entirely possible that Ahsoka was trapped on deserted planet for years.

Her live-action debut in The Mandalorian is her next chronological appearance in the Saga. Her brief animated coda during the finale of Rebels takes place later and is likely (although not definitively) an animated version of a scene in Ahsoka season one.

Patrick Garone

A Kaiju Primer for City of the Gods

​My recently re-released novel, City of the Gods is meant to be a love letter to kaiju media but this kind of story is fairly uncommon in fiction. Kaiju is mostly a cinematic genre and I wanted to take a moment to discuss some of the great giant monster stories that were an influence on my book while I was writing it and a couple of notable entries which were released in the fifteen years since.

Godzilla in Godzilla Minus One, 2023

You can’t talk about kaiju without talking about Godzilla, while it’s not the only game in town, the series originated the genre as we know it today and continues to dominate it. As of this writing there have been 38 films in the over 70 year-old series and it is actually going stronger than ever with both an American-produced cinematic universe with multiple films and television series and a revitalized Japanese film series, which won its first Academy Award for the terrific Godzilla Minus One, due to get a sequel later this year and even other Japanese films in development.

From Godzilla 2000, 1999

I’m sure you can look at the seventy year old series and find lots of similarities to my book from the decision to give Quetzalcoatl an oceanic resting place so he could come ashore like Godzilla, to his battles with a UFO not unlike Godzilla 2000, to his tussle with a multi-headed opponent. There are tons of homages to the series but probably the Godzilla movies that were the biggest influences on City of the Gods were 1991’s Godzilla vs King Ghidorah and 2001’s Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack. While not the first movie to introduce this concept, Godzilla Final Wars from 2004, famously featured kaiju used by aliens as weapons of mass destruction against humanity, much as is the case in COTG.

Like COTG, Godzilla vs King Ghidorah involves UFO aliens who have a seemingly benevolent agenda. Also like COTG, it is a time-travel Kaiju story, which was unprecedented when the movie was released and still uncommon. In fact, Godzilla's origin in GvKG revolves around a time loop. It's a pretty unique movie in the series. While the writing of COTG is a bit of a blur to me, as lover of time travel stories I would not have been able to resist including this element in my book and GvKG  certainly opened the door to do so in this genre. So, you know, blame them if you didn't like the book.

Whereas the previous movie has a definite sci-fi angle on Godzilla, Godzilla, Mothra, King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All Out Attack (which will hereby be referred to as GMK for obvious reasons) takes a more mystical view of the genre with all of the title monsters being akin to nature spirits and Godzilla himself being a manifestation of Japan’s war-time dead. While the movie has no real plot points in common with COTG, the film's mysticism, grandeur, and vibe were all an influence on the book since GMK is widely considered to be among the best of the Godzilla series. Like the guardian monsters who rise to oppose Godzilla in the movie, Quetzalcoatl rises to defend Mexico (and also the Earth) from the Nahuan invaders.

Before he was granted directing duties on GMK, director Shusuke Kaneko cut his teeth on a trilogy of movies in the 1990’s featuring Godzilla’s main cinematic rival, Gamera. Gamera: Guardian of the Universe, Gamera 2: Legion, and Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris tell the story of a turtle-esque kaiju created by an ancient civilization who serves as a guardian of Earth against a series of giant monsters. This depiction of Gamera was a big influence on the way Quetzalcoatl is written in COTG. Both kaiju occupy a similar position in the spectrum of villainous destruction (Say GMK Godzilla or Shin Godzilla) to mindless animal (1998 Godzilla) to antihero (Legendary Godzilla) to cuddly pal (Showa Gamera and late Showa Godzilla). Both kaiju are tough-as-nails brawlers who are reluctant defenders of humanity or at least the Earth. I also just love these movies and think they are among the best in the genre.

Another notable entry in the genre was 2008's Cloverfield a rare "found footage" kaiju movie. This American feature film gives the audience a full first-person perspective on a giant monster attack. The horror and immediacy of the movie was certainly something I had in mind when I was writing COTG, specifically the scenes of Eddie on the ground during Coatlicue's attack on the city.

A few years after the release of City of the Gods the landmark kaiju-versus-mecha epic Pacific Rim was released. The movie was directed by Oscar-winning director Guillermo del Toro (also my fantasy pick for directing duties on a prospective COTG film, if anyone cares) who is no stranger to genre films (a couple  of them have been featured on Monster Movie of the Week). While there is not too much in common plotwise between City of the Gods and Pacific Rim (other than a similar kaiju birth scene) but I'm intrigued by the film's reputation. It has been called alternately the "smartest dumb movie ever made" and the "dumbest smart movie ever made," which is backhanded praise but speaks to how we look at this genre and the contradictions inherent in an auteur like del Toro making a "silly monster versus robot" movie that takes itself less than seriously. The result is an often ridiculous film made with a lot of meticulous attention to detail and artistry that you don't often see in the genre, which are often made by talented journeymen directors. I like to think that mix of silliness and thoughtfulness is at play in COTG, which for all its big dumb action set pieces, has a distinct point-point-of-view and things to say about the world and history.

Shin Godzilla, 2016

A lot of Godzilla movies in the twenty-first century have had a notable vein of seriousness to them. The first of the American movies, 2014's Godzilla is a fairly somber affair in which the kaiju action largely takes a backseat to the human drama. The Japanese series relaunched in 2016 with Shin Godzilla, a new take on Godzilla that is more grounded and scarier than traditional Godzilla fare. Like Shin Godzilla, City of the Gods also spends some time with the leaders on the ground, their logistical challenges, and their fraught relationships with the United States. While the American movies went into a more action-oriented and fun direction, the Japanese films doubled down on human drama in the acclaimed and Oscar-winning Godzilla Minus One, which is nothing short of a post-war drama set wrapped around a kaiju movie.

Thankfully the addition of King Kong to the Legendary movies, starting with his own movie 2017's Kong: Skull Island, has reintroduced an element of levity to the franchise. Both Godzilla v. Kong and Godzilla X Kong: The New Empire are incredibly fun examples of the genre featuring unexpected humor, great characterization, and sometimes surprising action.

Patrick Garone

Has Star Trek Become Woke?

​The term woke is derived from African American colloquial English to describe a state of social awareness, being conscious of the realities of social injustice in the world and particularly in American culture. Its usage was not unlike the way it is used in Buddhism. The title of Buddha literally means “Awakened one.” It was a good, meaningful word. However, in recent years, right-wing commentators have co-opted it to describe any piece of media that prominently features women, LGBT people, or people of color. The argument seems to be that when a piece of media features anything other than heterosexual white men, it is promoting a “social agenda,” instead of simply showing an accurate reflection of the world we live in, which features lots of other people in addition to heterosexual white men.

A Ghostbusters movie with a female cast? Woke. A Marvel movie featuring three female leads, two of which are women of color and a black female director? Woke. A Star Wars series with a black female lead and queer female director? WOKE. She-Hulk? She’s mean to men. Woke. Black stormtrooper? Woke. Black mermaid? What do you call that? Woke. A Lesbian side character in an animated movie? Too woke. Superman-just being Superman? Why is it so woke?!

In recent years, Star Trek has returned to its serial television roots with a handful of shows on Paramount+. Those have been a mixed bag with some real highlights and some lowlights. The flagship show for this run was Star Trek: Discovery which ultimately gave us our first black female captain (leading a series anyway) and (unbelievably) it was our first show with openly queer characters. Of course, given the political climate, the usual insecure and terminally online people cried “woke” but calling Star Trek woke belies a fundamental misunderstanding of the property which has always promoted at least Liberalism and certainly diversity. Star Trek has always had a social agenda of showing us a an egalitarian, anti-colonial, post-capitalist world. It has never pretended to be anything but woke for the last sixty years.

You tell her, Data!

This was true going back to the original incarnation of Star Trek in the 1960’s which despite the presence of a swaggering American male (played by a Jewish Canadian) was remarkably diverse for the time and as the franchise continued in the 1980’s and 1990’s it seemed like the producers were actively playing Diversity Bingo with the various bridge crews if only to better reflect the diverse society that was watching these shows.

The final frontier for the new batch of shows is in the area of LGBTQ representation which had always been lacking. Queer people were effectively invisible in Star Trek for decades and there were constant teases that this or that minor character might be revealed to be gay only for the producers to chicken out or be blocked by the studio. The first canonically gay character on Star Trek was the alt-universe Sulu in the JJ Abrams-produced Kelvin trilogy, although the openly gay original Sulu actor George Takei was not necessarily on board with that juxtaposition of his on and offscreen life.

Star Trek: Discovery not only gave us a gay science officer in the form of Paul Stamets but gave him a husband who was the ship’s medical officer (and a Latino for your Bingo card) they show even threw in a Lesbian engineer for good measure. In retrospect, not having Lesbian engineers on all those other ships seems terribly unsafe. In later seasons, the show introduced a transmale and a Non-Binary character. And if recent years have shown us anything, it’s that trans and Non-Binary people are catnip for right-wing dickheads, earning Discovery the dreaded woke label.

To run the risk of being overly fair to idiots, if you squint, Discovery was woker than most other Trek shows in that it sometimes eschewed Star Trek’s allegory to more explicitly tie into the progressive politics of the moment. Only time will tell how that will age the show. In fifteen years, the Stacey Abrams cameo as the President of the Federation might seem like a strange curiosity of the 2020’s.

And new we are onto a new show with the launch of Star Trek: Starfleet Academy, a direct spinoff of Star Trek: Discovery featuring a young and diverse cast (including the most beautiful Klingon man I’ve ever seen) and the boys who cried woke are at it again not even two episodes in. So far they are nitpicking (get ready) the way that the captain played by Holly Hunter sits in her chair.

Look, Star Trek is, and always will be, woke. The non-woke version of Star Trek would be, I don’t know, a show set on an Imperial Star Destroyer. If you think it’s too woke, I have a mirror universe that you might enjoy emigrating to but please keep Star Trek out of your silly political BS.

Patrick Garone

The Mandalorian, Season 1

The first season of The Mandalorian is kind of a miracle: it was a new Star Wars project that was widely-liked and uncontroversial (not counting the nostalgic sugar rush that was The Force Awakens release) among the famously fickle fans of the franchise. Iron Man director and Star Wars: The Clone Wars showrunner Dave Filoni teamed up to deliver was is a wildly appealing and fun Star Wars concoction set about a half decade after Return of the Jedi and set un the relatively unexplored part of the Star Wars galaxy; the underbelly of criminals and bounty hunters during the New Republic period, a timeframe largely uncharted in the Disney canon (the sequel movies are set about a generation later). The show was released during a time of strife in the Star Wars fandom, shortly after the run of The Rise of Skywalker, a movie widely disliked by Star Wars fans which followed a movie which was intensely disliked by half of Star Wars fans, but to be fair, every year since 1999 has been a time of strife in Star Wars fandom. But the fans liked The Mandalorian! At least initially.

The Mandalorian in its first season is very much a simple, back-to-basics Star Wars project. Indeed, one can imagine Jon Favreau or Dave Filoni dumping out a tub of Kenner toys from The Empire Strikes Back and creating the show from old Boba Fett, Yoda, Ugnaught, Stormtroopers, Imperial Officer action figures and maybe an occasional Klatuu, IG88, ATST and X-Wing thrown in for good measure. That said, the show remixes a lot of pop culture elements that are intertwined in the Star Wars DNA such as the Space Western vibe of A New Hope and mixes it with a dash of the Japanese Lone Wolf and Cub samurai stories which had never been part of Star Wars before but feel right at home in Kurosawa-inspired world of the Galaxy Far, Far, Away and its themes of legacy and found family.

While the true origins of this show are unknown, it should be noted that there was in the early years of the Disney Star Wars era talk of a Boba Fett movie which got so far into production that it even had a director (Josh Trank) and even had Michael B. Jordan attached in some capacity. That project was one of the dozens of announced Disney projects that never made it to production and The Mandalorian followed shortly after. It is worth wondering whether this project was adapted from that film, Din Djarin, the titular character has much in common with the Original Trilogy Boba Fett: both are laconic bounty hunters only ever seen in Mandalorian armor who ride around in shambling gunships. Djarin even wields Fett's rifle used in his original Holiday Special appearance.

This would also explain the show's famously uneven pacing. Every season of The Mandalorian features a certain number of filler or "sidequest" episodes in addition to those that drive the story forward. In season one, you could essentially skip episodes four through six and not miss much regarding the core story of Mando, Grogu Gideon, and the Mandalorian clan on Nevarro. That said, those episodes are all a lot of fun but I can imagine a them having been added as part of a process of expanding a Boba Fett movie into a season of television.  This is interesting to consider as The Mandalorian makes the jump from television to movie later this year.

Despite the fact that Star Wars has been episodic television in animated form for twenty years at this point there is always a lot of discussion about where the franchise belongs and how well it "works" on TV. In fact, many of these Disney+ shows have been the subject of fan cuts (certainly nothing new for Star Wars). While the first two seasons of The Mandalorian is widely well-regarded, shows like The Book of Boba Fett, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and The Acolyte have been recut by talented fans to address perceived quality or pacing issues often with fascinating results.

While Din Djarin is often brought to life by a pair of stuntmen, his face and voice belong to Pedro Pascal in a role that cemented him as the go-to actor for playing protective "daddy" figures to gifted but endangered children. He voices Djarin with a terse toughness, moral decency, and occasional flashes of dry humor. He initially seems like a tough-as-nails bounty hunter in the vein of Boba Fett, he reveals additional depth when his high value quarry turns out to be an alien child. After initially turning the child over the Imperials who had contracted him, Djarin has a change of heart and rescues him cementing his status as a Good Dude.

The Child-as he was known for the first season-is, of course, Grogu, a fifty year-old alien from the same long-lived species as Yoda. Din and Grogu's first meeting ate the end of episode one is an iconic Star Wars moment, especially since it was not spoiled beforehand. The Yoda species has remained a mysterious one and George Lucas has famously refused to reveal much about them, even their name. The only other member we have seen is the Jedi Master Yaddle in The Phantom Menace and Tales of the Jedi. Like the others of his ilk, Grogu also has force powers which he uses saves Din's life on a couple of different occasions, creating a bond leading to their "Clan of Two."

Grogu is of course, adorable and the creators of The Mandalorian are very adept at coming up with genuinely cute business to occupy him. While he is often in danger, Grogu is frequently seen having a blast which is part of his charm. He also is infinitely marketable and for a while the market was flooded with all manner of Grogu dolls, apparel, and collectibles.

During the season Din Djarin meets lots of other memorable characters. Strangely the series is full of lots of 1990's Second City people like Horacio Sanz and Amy Sedaris. Nick Nolte voices the Ugnaught character Kuiil, who becomes a friend and close ally of Mando in the first season and who sadly does not continue on. Taika Waititi hilariously voices IG11, an assassin droid and rival bounty hunter to The Mandalorian. Action Legend Carl Weathers appears in a recurring role as Grief Carga, Mando's Frenemy in season one. On the villain side we have Giancarlo Esposito as a ruthless Imperial Remnant Moff, and seemingly a Vader fanboy, who has a long association with Mandalore and is revealed in the season's closing moments to be in possession of the Darksaber (more on that below). And somehow they managed to get legendary director and occasional actor Werner Herzog, to bring his distinctive Austrian rasp to the role of the mysterious Client in search of Grogu and his blood which has a high "M-count" because apparently it is too triggering for some fans to hear the word "Midichlorians."

A MANDALORIAN PRIMER

As the title implies, The Mandalorian also reveals more about one Star Wars other mysterious groups, the Mandalorians. Of course the first of these depicted in Star Wars was the aforementioned Boba Fett, and he was identified as a "Mandalorian" as far back as his creation in the late 1970's in the ancillary materials that have always accompanied Star Wars. This culture has a long history in the old expanded universe, where the concept of Mandalorian steel or "beskar" was first introduced back in the 1990's. The Mandalorians were often treated like Star Wars' version of the Klingons, an honorable but warlike culture, sometimes uneasily aligned with our heroes. 

Much of the old EU history was retconned even before the Disney era and Filoni has already told some of this story in animation, introducing us to the concept of the great Mandalorian ruler, Tarre Visla, a Mandalorian Jedi who was the revered ruler of his people (one of his descendants is the very big surly Mandalorian often seen with the Armorer in The Mandalorian). As is now a feature of Star Wars, we are being told the story of Mandalore and the Mandalorians out of sequence and in fits and starts, so it can be a bit jarring to jump into the story in The Mandalorian perhaps coming out of the animated shows set decades before. 

Let's break it down.

We are first introduced to the culture and the planet during a couple of different arcs on The Clone Wars, which depict a culture with a warlike past but which is now governed under a pacifist reform movement. Buy this time, the Mandalorians have destroyed much of their planet through internecine wars and mostly live in giant enclosed cities on the surface. During the Clone Wars era they are led by Duchess Satine, an old "associate" of Obi-Wan Kenobi. Satine is also the sister of Bo Katan, who opposes her as part of a terrorist group called Death Watch, lead by Pre Vizla, descended from the legendary ruler. 

Viszla's traditionalist Mandalorians consider the wielding of the Darksaber to be the true signifier of leadership of the Mandalorian people and look at Satine's political movement with contempt. Later in the Clone Wars, the Death Watch Mandalorians arrange to take over the planet in alignment with Darth Maul (yes, that one. Long story) but the planet is shortly liberated by the Republic, led by the ex-Jedi Ahsoka Tano and Bo-Katan who had left Death Watch after Maul took power. That's where we leave things at the end of the war. By the way, this final arc of The Clone Wars is some of the finest Star Wars content ever created, full stop. Watch it now.

We later catch up with the Mandalorians over a decade later during Star Wars Rebels in the Imperial era when we learned that the planet had defied the Empire and had been destroyed by orbital bombardments. The surviving Mandalorians had spread throughout the galaxy, thinking Mandalore cursed and uninhabitable. 

During the time of The Mandalorian  six or seven years after the fall of the Empire, the particular group of Mandalorians that Din Djarin is associated with is referred to as Children of the Watch, a fundamentalist group spun off from Death Watch with strict rules regarding behavior and wearing of armor. Unlike the Mandalorian survivors we see in Rebels, these Mandalorians live hidden on the fringes of galactic society. Given that these are the only Mandalorians that we see in the season, we don't yet know if all surviving Mandolarians are like this or what happened to other characters like Sabine Wren or Bo Katan, who were a little more cosmopolitan in how they mixed with other cultures and regularly were seen unhelmeted. 

In many cases these Children of the Watch have no actual connection to the planet Mandalore and are only Mandalorians by creed, as is the case with Din Djarin who joined after being rescued by Death Watch during the Clone Wars. Din is not "Mandalroian" in the same sense as Bo Katan or Sabine Wren from Rebels and Ahsoka, both of whom are from old Mandalorian houses. The vibes are perhaps cultier even than the Jedi and how this all actually works has been the subject of endless speculation since the show aired.

One last thing definitely worth noting about the show is the remarkable feat of having its own musical identity in the Star Wars franchise, a series of movies that are famous for having perhaps some of the finest and most iconic movie music in the history of film. Ludvig Goransson, the Oscar-winning composer behind movies like Black Panther and Oppenheimer has here created an instantly recognizable piece of music that captures the Neo-western sci-fi vibes of the show.

The Mandarlorian is available to stream on Disney+.

Patrick Garone

City of the Gods: The Special Edition That Could Have Been

WARNING: Spoilers for City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl follow

To my (not always great) memory, the main differences between the early City of the Gods drafts and the final ones have to do with the Cortés prologue and the presence of a group of aliens on the Tliléctic Mixtli. In particular, I would have liked to have included the expanded prologue in some capacity in the new fifteenth anniversary edition, likely in an appendix.

You see, I had actually done quite a bit of research on Cortés at the time of writing COTG and my intention was to have more of him in the book. In particular, I had him surviving the initial Tlaloc attack only to be picked up by Velazquez's forces that had come to arrest him. We then see him in a sequence in which he has been imprisoned in Spain in a windy tower cell for many years. We are in full-on Gothic mode here and Cortés has become a semi-mad old prisoner who has been tortured by what he saw of the Nahuan attack on his people. His tower vantage point however gives him a great vantage point to witness an invasion of the Nahuans on Spanish soil with Tlaloc and an army of their gods.

I really liked this sequence and thought it gave good insight into the alt-history of the world from which the Tliléctic Mixtli and her crew originated, which Etzli later describes to Sandra. However, as you can read from the above description it was a bit long and complex for a prologue to a short-ish novel so the decision was made to cut it for faster pacing.

The only other major element that was in the older drafts and omitted closer to publication was the presence on the ship of an alien being, a representative of the mentioned Wayfarer species. It was one of these creatures (I believe his name was Far-ash) who attended to Sandra on the ship when she awoke, much to her horror and shock. 

I had some fun thinking up these aliens whose heads were big and shaped something like an ice cream scooper with a lot of negative space where their face would have been. I am a fan of alien creatures that are genuinely surprising and, well, alien (see any Alien movie or Annihilation for good examples of this.) I really wanted them to be something other than humans with latex applications or forehead ridges or something.

The Wayfarers were a race that the Nahuans had conquered and kept on the ship as slaves to maintain their advanced technology. They were cut later in the writing process that the longer prologue, probably to ease Sandra's journey of trusting the Nahuans since she was so freaked out and disturbed by these aliens. Also, their presence as slaves on the ship telegraphed a lot of how the Nahuans operated that it was becoming an impediment to the story so they got the axe.

Other than that, the story didn't go through a lot of changes during its development but these are items I had in mind as I was thinking about a prospective 15th anniversary edition.

Patrick Garone

City of the Gods: Fifteenth Anniversary Edition

Fifteen years ago I published my first book, City of the Gods: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, a love letter to Japanese Kaiju films and Mesoamerican mythology. To be frank, I was never happy with the version that was released due to quality issues with the manuscript. While the physical version has been off sale for quite a while, late last year, I took the Kindle edition off sale as well with the goal of putting it through an extensive editing/proofing process which I have recently completed. With my second book-We Lowly Gods-out soon, I wanted the best version possible of COTG to stand next to it.

Initially my goal was to include a lost section of the prologue. If you've read the book you can read more about that here, since there are spoilers. The gist is that the initial version of the Cortés opening ended differently but ultimately it was just too much for a prologue, so I cut it from the book. Over the years I had assumed that I had some old versions of the book saved but I searched through lots of old jump drives, Dropbox folders, and even tried to restore a couple of ancient external hard drives with no luck. 

My memories of the writing of COTG are murky and it is likely some of these old ideas only ever lived in early drafts that were written in longhand and never even made it to Microsoft Word. However it existed, those old drafts are lost forever.

So sadly nothing new in this version other than new cover art and fairly extensive editing and proofing. It’s still the same novel, “goofy” and “didactic” as it always was but this new fifteenth anniversary edition is at least one I can live with.

The Kindle version is available here with other versions forthcoming.