The Young Jedi Knights Club

Jack Stovold of "The HapeCast" rejoins us to kick off the New Jedi Order's first and only trilogy, in which the prominence of our old pal Pellaeon has got us all pumped! We also ponder how healthy it is to identify with the self-loathing Nom Anor, confuse Shanghai Noon with Shanghai Knights, and show some love for the Arnold Schwarzenegger of Hip Hop.

Ryan Davis crabs his jouncing fighter into the money lane with us to discuss one of the best Star Wars ensemble books yet in an episode that's sure to do sellout business in jig time! Along the Way, we stop off on Planet Greg, try our best to think of some small-beaked birds, and commiserate over the sad life of a Kingdom Hearts fan.

Ensnaring EU enthusiast Derek Lavender in the belly of the beast, we gorge on the deliciously flowery prose and philosophical richness of Matthew Stover's Traitor. This logic puzzle of a novel refreshingly expands the Force beyond the black-and-white binary typically depicted, and also serves as a poignant reminder of how much has been lost and changed since the halcyon days of the Young Jedi Knig...

A long-forgotten experiment awakens to wreak havoc upon the Vong-infested surface of Coruscant. Does Aaron Allston's experiment in NJO storytelling deserve to be forgotten too, or is there a place for Lord Nyax's brand of monster-of-the-week thrills? Completing our A-Team once again is Geoff Clarke, who's here to help us decide, as well as to debate the nadir of Star Wars cinema and the correct pr...

Another May the Fourth, another Special-est Edition commentary episode! One in which we try our best to rein in our rampant positivity and propose as many gratuitous "improvements" as possible to an all time favorite film, The Empire Strikes Back ! Hear us also posit how George Lucas' history of revisionism primed us for the horrors of artificial intelligence...  

Aaron Allston brings big Wraith Squadron energy to the New Jedi Order, and proves that actually explaining the politics of a Resistance in Star Wars is quality matériel, not something JJ Abrams should have reduced to ejecta! Our Canuck co-pilot Geoff Clarke rejoins the podcast's Inner Circle, so naturally we cook up some more CanCon conversation, including what constitutes the layers of a Hayden C...

Time to flaunt that vonduun crab formalwear for the 3rd Annual Lowies! Or is their proper name the Praxeum Awards? Either way, the Lowbaccademy gives one final, bittersweet send-off to our beloved 90s and reevaluates the Oscar winners from the turn of the millennium before honoring the best of Star Wars in 2023!

This is a (Snapple Real) Fact: We're just living in a post- Star-by-Star world. Our buddy Barm begrudgingly embarks on another dark journey to Hapes with us for the Star Wars equivalent of a YA "romantasy." Whether that makes for a good book is HOTLY debated... Like, thinly veiled Reylo fanfic hot. 

NJO diehard Morgan Lavender links up with our battle meld to discuss gut-wrenching character deaths, dances with the dark side, and the oppressive sense of dread that permeates Troy Denning's tragic tome. Despite all that negatude, we at least find glimmers of fun in welcoming back ALL our favorite Young Jedi Knights and celebrating the DVD release of The Mummy Returns!

What child is this? The Babe, the Son of Mara! The New Jedi Order shepherds in a miraculous birth just in time for another giant-sized Christmas special! Sam's brother Jack Stovold makes this a festive family reunion filled with the Givin' of gifts, the holiday highlights of 2001, and of course the evergreen podcast fodder that is Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes. 

CanCon connoisseur Geoff Clarke genuflects with us before author Greg Keyes, who keys into the precise kind of New Jedi Order entry we've been demanding: an intimate character study with a healthy dose of sympathetic Vong (sorry, Yuuzhan Vong) to root for. It's also a surprising love letter to those Junior Jedi Knights children's books... with added violence and despair!

Slip on your most ghoulish gablith masquer for a Young Jedi Knights Club Spooktacular! Hear us conjure up our favorite frights from the year 2000, revel in Kathy Tyers' wicked character work, and determine the "Halloweeniest" moments of Balance Point, whatever the stang that means... Just don't let a whisperkit cross your path!

The Agents of Chaos duology concludes in a plate-spinning yarn dripping with Hutt Stuff and a side of Jedi-smothered hash browns. Eric Ambler snaps on a slap-bracelet-like amphistaff and boards the matte black Falcon to help us grapple with the inhumanity of superweapons, both in the real world and in this book, as we guess who or what threatens to eclipse the Jedi...

Han gets the Solo adventure we've been craving, but more importantly, for a page or two, we get to welcome back our favorite forsaken Young Jedi Knights! Agent of chaos Barm returns to the podcast for more "Stephen King bullsh*t," real talk about the art-life balance, and an appraisal of James Luceno's reference-heavy style of worldbuilding. Don't forget to stick around after the credits for a ver...

The Seanslaught continues... Sean Davis rejoins us for the Embrace of Pain as the tide of this duology takes an especially dark and ruinous turn. He also details a firsthand account of the pop culture event of 2000 : his high school graduation! Fitting, given the motif of universities in these last few books, a sign that our Young Jedi Knights have advanced to the next phase of their education in...

Emperor's black bones! It's about time we finally read another New Jedi Order book! Sean Davis returns to the club to break all the rules of the Memory Archive, touching on everything from "hate picks" to the hot s**t of February Y2K. The Yuuzhan Vong War rages on, but the true onslaught might just be The Bad Touch vs. the Thong Song…

In the tradition of superfluous revisions to the original trilogy, we provide our own feature-length commentary suggesting even more changes to A New Hope , Special Edition style! Watch along and hear us try to maintain a facade of sarcasm for two whole hours as we propose cramming as many prequel references, CGI stand-ins, and dewbacks as possible into an already perfect movie.

Detouring away from the New Jedi Order novels, we take the plunge into two volumes of a comic book arc that (barely) includes a few of our favorite Young Jedi Knights! Despite some Invasion-related communications disruptions, Brian Rudloff returns to the podcast to worship the satanic content of 2009 and 2010, learn about the ORIGINAL Finn, and debate whether we needed to read these comics at all....

Don your finest ooglith cloaker for another walk down the ginger fur carpet... it's the 2nd Annual Lowie Awards! In this very specific, literature-leaning, Star Wars-centric version of the Oscars, we completely reject the Academy's definition of Adapted Screenplay and continue to revel in our favorite year of 1997 before everything just devolves into an all-out Andor lovefest! 

Hi kids! Do you like Primus? Want to hear about Yuuzhan Vong body horror and learn what Vector Prime is? If so, listen along as NEW guest Jake Beal wades into the NEW Jedi Order with us, gushing over Zelda along the way while we debate how this NEW series serves as a continuation of the Young Jedi Knights novels. 

We finally graduate from the Praxeum, closing the chapter on the Young Jedi Knights books. This skra'akan-sized retrospective evaluates the entire series, from Heirs of the Force (no, not Heirs TO the Force) through Crisis at Crystal Reef, with a bonus Graduation Day epilogue to boot! Like Jaina Solo considering her postgraduate future, we also look ahead to what's next for the podcast...

It's Christmas on Crystal Reef as the heroes find themselves at the North Pole on Mon Calamari for one last adventure! Melissa Thiede boards this holiday train to dredge up  traumatic memories of moving abroad on Christmas Day with nothing but a Giga Pet on  her back, to clarify several character name pronunciations, and to evaluate the final  novel's success as a series conclusion (as well as its...

Blaster bolts, it's the penultimate book in the series! The kids head to Bespin to test out Lando's new theme park, only to be reminded that Cloud City brings bad things in the middle act of a trilogy... The ApeCast's Geoff Clarke helps spruce things up with a trunk full of tree puns and a lesson in Canadian currency before we get musical, touching on every timbre from phat nu metal to the sweet j...

Expanded Universe expert Derek Lavender returns to Ord Mantell with us for perhaps the darkest Young Jedi Knights novel yet, rife with space mines, spice lines, and war crimes! To lighten things up, we also review 1998's memorable additions to Disney Parks, compare knaars to Godzilla babies, and wonder what's up with that black sun on the book's cov- ohhhhhh, now I get it.

As the Young Jedi Knights conclude their arc with the Diversity Alliance, hurtling ever closer toward the series finale, Jack Stovold stops by to reassure us that perception is an illusion and time isn't real. We also find solace in guessing the Top 10 Comic Book Villains of 1998 and films in which Affleck was the bomb, but mostly in cool aliens wielding lightsabers!