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A review by fisk42
From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back by Elizabeth Schaefer
4.0
I enjoyed this book quite a bit but it felt a bit more niche than the first FaCPoV book for ANH. It also never reached quite the same enjoyment factor for me. It's hard to write this review without comparing back to the ANH version, but that book really raised my expectations for this one.
Ultimately what threw me off a bit with this book was the large number of what felt like filler stories. There were way too many stories told from the POV of animals (suddenly the space slug is part of a sentient species with a complex history). What was even more annoying to me was the number of stories told from people who didn't even make an appearance in the movie. You could argue they did, there's certainly room for that, but the stories themselves often times make no effort to connect them to the on screen events.
I definitely still enjoyed the book hence the 4 star rating (rounded up from say a 3.75 or so). One of my favorite tales was also one of the types that I just talked about not liking, but it was the only redeeming one. This was the tale of the chef woken in the middle of their sleep schedule to cook up a meal for Darth Vader. This was great and hilarious and how well it was done just made the other stories about characters who didn't show up even worse. (Why do I want to read several short stories about random people doing random things living in Cloud City who aren't shown on screen? It misses the whole point of the book for me.)
Ultimately what threw me off a bit with this book was the large number of what felt like filler stories. There were way too many stories told from the POV of animals (suddenly the space slug is part of a sentient species with a complex history). What was even more annoying to me was the number of stories told from people who didn't even make an appearance in the movie. You could argue they did, there's certainly room for that, but the stories themselves often times make no effort to connect them to the on screen events.
I definitely still enjoyed the book hence the 4 star rating (rounded up from say a 3.75 or so). One of my favorite tales was also one of the types that I just talked about not liking, but it was the only redeeming one. This was the tale of the chef woken in the middle of their sleep schedule to cook up a meal for Darth Vader. This was great and hilarious and how well it was done just made the other stories about characters who didn't show up even worse. (Why do I want to read several short stories about random people doing random things living in Cloud City who aren't shown on screen? It misses the whole point of the book for me.)