It's the end of an era...or something...

Greetings, ladies and gentlemen, and thank you for coming. It is my great honor to announce that Me, Myself and Star Wars and the Weekly Scoundrel have merged and are now both available at the all-new hyperspacepodblast.com! Going forward, all posts that would have been made at either of those sites will now only appear on the new site. All current content has already been exported over, so nothing will be missing, it's simply in a different spot. If you've found your way here for the first time, welcome, and please mosey on over to www.hyperspacepodblast.com for all the latest posts, reviews, etc. For those of you that visit regularly, a hearty thank you for that, and I hope you'll continue to follow the blog at its new home.

Thanks again,

Bryan L.

Hyperspace PodBlast July Giveaway!

The winner will get their choice of 1 of the 2 giveaway prizes. You must follow @hyperspace_pod on Twitter to be eligible to win (this is how we're going to contact the winner). The winning name will be drawn randomly on July 14, 2017. The prize not chosen will be used in the next giveaway with another, new prize as the second option. Here's how the contest works:

Like the giveaway announcement tweet for 1 entry.

RT the giveaway announcement tweet for 2 entries.

Comment on your favorite episode on Podbean for 3 entries. *

Leave a review on iTunes and/or Podknife (send a screenshot of your review with your Twitter name to hyperspacepodblast@gmail.com so we tell who's who since that's how we connect with the winner) for 5 entries each. **

Each entry gets your name in the hat, so to speak (actually, we literally draw the names from a hat), so the more entries you acquire, the better your chances. So now you're thinking to yourself, "that's all well and good, but what do I win?!?!" Good question...here's the answer:

If you have any questions or need further clarification on anything, just let us know and we'll do our best to help. Other than that, good luck, and may the Force be with you...

*Although we'd be flattered if you commented on more than one episode, you can only earn the 3 entries once.

**All previous reviews, on any platform, will automatically be entered and will be used in all future giveaways.
***If you've already won (@mostofwhat) you can't win again. Sorry.

A Star Wars Comic: The Stories So Far...

For any of you who don't know, A Star Wars Comic is, as stated on their website, "a fan-made monthly anthology series exploring the small moments, characters, and themes of a galaxy far, far away. Each comic is six-pages and they release on the 25th of every month." Okay, so what's that mean? Well, it means that every month, you, yes you, can read a 100% free, 100% compelling, and 100% original, 6-page Star Wars comic. The two gentlemen behind the project, Jim & Alex, started by telling unknown tales of known characters, but this month made the leap into completely original content - frankly, it's a breath of fresh air for this Star Wars fan that's been drowning (in a good way, for the most part) in stories about characters I've known for, well, forever. But Star Wars is a gigantic, nearly infinite universe, with more than infinite stories, so I invite you to go check out A Star Wars Comic for yourself, and then come back and see if you agree with my take on their first six issues...

I Canto Bight gambling with just any old aliens!

So, in keeping with my "I love aliens in Star Wars" motif, and hearkening back to one of my very first blog entries, I decided to run down all the aliens from the two Canto Bight pictures in the new Vanity Fair Star Wars issue...pretty cool, right? Yeah, I think so too...anyway, as was the theme from Maz's Castle, Canto Bight appears too good to let any old Rodian or Weequay through the doors, so the casino is populated by a whole slew of new aliens - and not just sequel trilogy new, but entirely new! Exciting, I know...also interesting to note is that there appear to be no droids present at the casino...is this a "we don't serve their kind" situation, like back on Tatooine, or does everyone just leave the droids at home when they go out for a night of elegant debauchery? For that, I guess, we'll have to wait and see, but it's an interesting point...anyway, let's pull the slots and see if we come up 7s, shall we?

40 Alien Species for 40 Years of Star Wars!

My passion for Star Wars runs deep, but so too does my passion for alien species - not just in Star Wars, either, but in all IPs. Sometimes, they're not even aliens, as with most fantasy genres, for example (you know, elves, orcs, trolls, and such), but, regardless of their origin, I've always enjoyed non-human characters. In fact, one of my favorite things about Star Wars is just how many alien species exist in the galaxy far, far away, and how many more are sure to be added as the vast and varied tales continue to unfold. So, for my sort of homage to the 40th Anniversary of Star Wars, I decided to make a list of my 40 favorite alien species! (Yes, this was as hard as it sounds.) I hesitate to call it a ranked list, exactly, it's more like a fluid group with the species I like the most toward the top. As you can see from the picture above, I changed my mind several times during the process, and if I did it again from scratch I'm sure I'd end up with an entirely different list, perhaps even with new species added and others left out (there are also eraser marks you probably can't see). That said, take a look at what I came up with and see how it compares to yours! (Okay, I don't really expect anyone to make their own top 40, but maybe a top 10...5?) Anyway, without further ado, here's Rick Dees and the Star Wars Top 40: