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A review by adam_z
Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View by Elizabeth Schaefer
3.0
Here's another one I probably wouldn't have experienced had it not been for my public library. I'm normally not really into short stories or anthologies (this is both), and I'm normally not into audiobook fiction. I've found that several of the newer Star Wars books are almost audio dramas with multiple actors voicing characters, background music & sound effects. In retrospect, I would even go as far as to recommend the audiobook over the print edition for this very reason. Some of the best stories in this anthology were made even better by superb voice acting & effects, and some of the mediocre ones were made more tolerable.
The GREAT:
Out of the 40 stories, there are a few that are so superbly written & voiced that I would recommend the book for these alone:
Wil Wheaton's Laina almost brought me to tears! I replayed it later and it had the same effect on the second listen. It's not often that a book, especially a short story containing all original characters has this kind of effect on me. I tip my hat to you sir - well done!
Claudia Gray has become my favorite author for the new cannon novels (for the uninitiated, these are the novels that have been published since Disney bought the rights to Star Wars). So far everything she does for the SW universe is GOLD. Here she contributes Master and Apprentice, in which the spirit of Qui-Gon is communing with Obi-Wan in the deserts of Tatooine.
Rae Carson's The Red One gives backstory to a certain red R5 astromech that makes him an unlikely hero of the rebellion.
In Not for Nothing Mur Lafferty writes from the perspective of one of the members of the band from the Mos Eisley Cantina (Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes), crafting a tale that was a lot of fun! Definitely one of my favorites.
Eclipse by Madeleine Roux follows Breha Organa as she and her husband Bail deal with the disappearance of their daughter following the interception of the Tantive IV in the opening act of Ep IV: A New Hope
The bad and the weird:
The longest story, The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper might be the one story that was adversely affected by being acted out. One of the main alien characters of the story is read in a squeaky voice that was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Halfway though the tale, I realized I really didn't give a rip about the characters or the story, making this the only tale in which I hit the skip button and did not finish.
The Baptist is all about the creature that lives in the trash compactor on the Death Star. [eye roll]
Palpatine by Ian Doescher is Palpatine's reaction to the destruction of the Death Star - sounds interesting, right? Well, I was really interested for as many seconds as it took to figure out that it's written in metre, using antiquated verbiage, as if to imitate Shakespeare. Um.... No, thank you.
Of MSE-6 and Men by Glen Weldon just pissed me off to no end. It was beyond ridiculous. In this story from the perspective of a mouse droid on board the Death Star, we find that Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin is basically passing notes back and forth via mouse droid with stormtrooper TK421 in attempt to have an illicit affair with him. Why, oh, why, are we retconning Tarkin to make him gay? Beyond that, him having an affair with a stormtrooper is the equivalent of the American Secretary of Defense being engaged in an illicit relationship with a private (ain't gonna happen). The whole thing was out of character for Tarkin. It was a train wreck, in the style of watching Jerry Springer. How this made it into the book, I can only imagine. We had a major character in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy who was gay, and Sinjir was actually my favorite character. If there's going to be a gay character, that's how you do it. You make a new character. You don't go and retcon it into the story of a character from the beginning of the saga via a short story buried in an anthology.
As for the rest of the stories that I've not mentioned specifically, there are many that are good and enjoyable to varying degrees. I'm not going to try to review every story. I'm only remarking on those that stood out for various reasons, good and bad alike.
The GREAT:
Out of the 40 stories, there are a few that are so superbly written & voiced that I would recommend the book for these alone:
Wil Wheaton's Laina almost brought me to tears! I replayed it later and it had the same effect on the second listen. It's not often that a book, especially a short story containing all original characters has this kind of effect on me. I tip my hat to you sir - well done!
Claudia Gray has become my favorite author for the new cannon novels (for the uninitiated, these are the novels that have been published since Disney bought the rights to Star Wars). So far everything she does for the SW universe is GOLD. Here she contributes Master and Apprentice, in which the spirit of Qui-Gon is communing with Obi-Wan in the deserts of Tatooine.
Rae Carson's The Red One gives backstory to a certain red R5 astromech that makes him an unlikely hero of the rebellion.
In Not for Nothing Mur Lafferty writes from the perspective of one of the members of the band from the Mos Eisley Cantina (Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes), crafting a tale that was a lot of fun! Definitely one of my favorites.
Eclipse by Madeleine Roux follows Breha Organa as she and her husband Bail deal with the disappearance of their daughter following the interception of the Tantive IV in the opening act of Ep IV: A New Hope
The bad and the weird:
The longest story, The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper might be the one story that was adversely affected by being acted out. One of the main alien characters of the story is read in a squeaky voice that was like fingernails on a chalkboard. Halfway though the tale, I realized I really didn't give a rip about the characters or the story, making this the only tale in which I hit the skip button and did not finish.
The Baptist is all about the creature that lives in the trash compactor on the Death Star. [eye roll]
Palpatine by Ian Doescher is Palpatine's reaction to the destruction of the Death Star - sounds interesting, right? Well, I was really interested for as many seconds as it took to figure out that it's written in metre, using antiquated verbiage, as if to imitate Shakespeare. Um.... No, thank you.
Of MSE-6 and Men by Glen Weldon just pissed me off to no end. It was beyond ridiculous. In this story from the perspective of a mouse droid on board the Death Star, we find that Grand Moff Wilhuff Tarkin is basically passing notes back and forth via mouse droid with stormtrooper TK421 in attempt to have an illicit affair with him. Why, oh, why, are we retconning Tarkin to make him gay? Beyond that, him having an affair with a stormtrooper is the equivalent of the American Secretary of Defense being engaged in an illicit relationship with a private (ain't gonna happen). The whole thing was out of character for Tarkin. It was a train wreck, in the style of watching Jerry Springer. How this made it into the book, I can only imagine. We had a major character in Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy who was gay, and Sinjir was actually my favorite character. If there's going to be a gay character, that's how you do it. You make a new character. You don't go and retcon it into the story of a character from the beginning of the saga via a short story buried in an anthology.
As for the rest of the stories that I've not mentioned specifically, there are many that are good and enjoyable to varying degrees. I'm not going to try to review every story. I'm only remarking on those that stood out for various reasons, good and bad alike.