Star Wars was probably the first fandom that I ever joined. I collected Tazos in Walkers packets, I even read the Young Jedi Knights novels from the local library - I still found that storyline far more compelling than the Force Awakens. But then along came the underwhelming Prequel Trilogy, the less dreadful but still disappointing Sequel Trilogy and ... well. The magic has faded. These days I pretty much just like the Mandalorian and that's about it. Reading From a Certain Point of View was interesting because it reminded me again of the deep love so many people have had for Star Wars over the forty years of its existence. Every moment of the original films have become meme-worthy - the power converters at the Tosche station, the wretched hive of scum and villainy - it's an incredibly quotable film. It is fascinating to see the huge variety of departure points which have sent people in forty different directions. Even the little red droid who is nearly but not quite chosen by Uncle Owen gets a mention. This still feels more like fan fiction than a true short story collection but fan fiction written well and with such warmth of feeling is always worth reading.

An interesting and quirky collection of Star Wars fiction. Long-time fans of the movie and fiction series will welcome these new and alternative perspective takes. Not all of the stories fully worked for me, but many of them were entertaining. Fans of the franchise should definitely give this a try.

25 mei van dit jaar vierde Star Wars haar 40 jarig jubileum. Om dat te vieren bracht Del Rey/Penguin Random House dit jaar de verhalenbundel From a Certain Point of View uit. Een boek dat 40 verhalen van 43 nieuwe en bekende schrijvers bundelt om deze mijlpaal te vieren. Als extraatje op het plezier hebben de schrijvers hun compensatie afgewezen en doneert Penguin Random House de opbrengst van de boeken aan First Book, een non-profit organisatie die boeken en andere educatieve materialen verstrekt aan docenten en kinderorganisaties. Penguin Random House doneerde daarnaast ook $100.000 aan de organisatie, terwijl Lucasfilm 100.000 kinderboeken met een waarde van $1 miljoen doneerde. Al met al heeft het 40 jarig bestaan van Star Wars dus voor heel wat liefdadigheid gezorgd.

Maar het gaat hier natuurlijk om het boek zelf, en dat is me het boek wel zeg. In deze 40 verhalen krijgen we een blik op de gebeurtenissen van A New Hope, maar vanuit het standpunt van 40 verschillende achtergrondpersonages. Zo leven we mee met de Stormtrooper die Princess Leia verdoofde op de Tantive IV, en overbruggen we de tijd tussen Rogue One en A New Hope met Captain Antilles. We beleven het moment dat Owen Lars de droids van de Jawa’s koopt vanuit de belevenis van R5-D4, de astromach die defect raakt en beleven we de aanval op de Death Star vanuit verschillende hoeken.

Omdat het hier 43 schrijvers betreft zijn alle verhalen anders, ze hebben elk hun eigen stijl en gevoel, sommige zijn heel serieus en hartverscheurend, andere zijn komisch en breken de vierde muur door te refereren naar dingen waar wij als fans over speculeren. Ian Doescher levert weer een verhaal in de stijl van William Shakespeare en Jeffrey Brown doet een bijdrage in de vorm van een komische strip.

Het is veilig om te stellen dat dit boek voor ieder iets wils bevat, maar aan de andere kant van die munt zal het boek voor een ieder ook genoeg verhalen bevatten die de plank een beetje mis slaan, maar dat mag de pret niet drukken.

Een aantal hoogtepunten uit From a Certain Point of View zijn bijvoorbeeld het eerste verhaal, geschreven door Gary Whitta, de schrijver van Rogue One, waarin we zien hoe Captain Antilles tussen de ontsnapping aan het einde van Rogue One en zijn dood aan de hand van Darth Vader aan het begin van A New hope, een boodschap opneemt voor zijn vrouw en kinderen.

In de Mos Eisley Cantina maken we verschillende verhalen mee, waaronder een flashback naar het verleden van Wuher, de barman. Hier leren we dat hij tijdens de Clone Wars een tragische ervaring met droids had, een ervaring die het heel duidelijk maakt waarom hij geen droids in de cantina wil hebben.

In de cantina speelt zich ook een groot misdaad mysterie af, waarin een muziekinstrument meermaals van eigenaar wisselt, dit verhaal duurde wat lang en had wat moeite mijn aandacht vast te houden, maar in dit verhaal kwam net als in enkele andere naar voren dat Han Greedo neerschoot, zonder dat Greedo ook maar een schot wist te lossen.

Een verhaal waar ik een traantje bij weg moest vegen was dat van Wil Wheaton, hij schrijft over Ryland, de rebel die we in de uitkijktoren op Yavin 4 zien staan. Ryland heeft de moeilijke beslissing genomen om zijn dochter van Yavin 4 weg te sturen om haar in veiligheid te brengen, het leven bij de rebellen is te gevaarlijk voor haar. Hij neemt een boodschap op die ze wanneer ze daar oud genoeg voor is terug kan kijken in het geval hij zijn tijd bij de rebellen niet overleeft.

Nog een verhaal dat veel emoties los bracht was Eclipse, van Madeleine Roux. Dit speelt zich af op Alderaan, waar we de laatste momenten van Bail en Breha Organa meemaken, we zien de twee herenigen na Bails avonturen in Rogue One, en we blijven bij ze tot het moment dat de Death Star een einde aan hun leven maakt.

Ook komt Boba Fett voorbij, een verhaal dat de plank een beetje mis sloeg naar mijn idee. Het kwam vooral over als een Robot Chicken sketch en het personage voelde helemaal niet aan als de Boba Fett die we in de films, The Clone Wars en de comics leerden kennen.

Wat ander leuke punten zijn een gesprek tussen Obi-Wan en Qui Gon, en ook een gesprek tussen Obi-Wan en Yoda waarin Yoda laat weten dat hij Leia als Jedi wilde trainen, niet Luke. Leia was slim, zelfverzekerd, een doorzetter en al actief in de strijd tegen het kwaad, Luke was maar een heethoofd die zonder na te denken in situaties terecht kwam waar hij zich vervolgens weer uit moest zien te redden, nee Leia was in Yoda’s ogen een veel betere kandidaat.

En zo kan ik nog even doorgaan over dit geweldige boek, maar ik denk dat het inmiddels een beetje duidelijk wordt, het boek is verre van perfect, er zijn genoeg verhalen die niet geweldig zijn, maar ze zijn allemaal vermakelijk, het mooie van een anthologie als deze is dat je als lezer blootgesteld wordt aan een heleboel verschillende stijlen, bevalt een verhaal niet? Dan kun je het prima overslaan, er zijn meer dan genoeg andere verhalen waar je wel van zult genieten. Maar ik moet zeggen dat de goede verhalen zeker in de meerderheid zijn. Ik zou het boek iedereen dan ook van harte aanbevelen.

Zorg wel dat je tissues bij de hand hebt want er zijn een aantal verhalen die de gevoelige snaar weten te raken.

I was initially interested in reading this book, however my tastes have shifted and I do not think I will be able to get to it now. Many thanks to the publisher for sending me a digital copy!

From a Certain Point of View is an anthology with forty short stories to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of A New Hope.
Each story is told from the perspective of a background character during the film.

As a Star Wars fan, I was really excited to read this anthology, so you can imagine my disappointment when I came across numerous stories that I didn't like. There were some stories that I enjoyed, but I could probably count them on one hand. There were a lot of the stories that I thought were a bit pointless - I really didn't need to know the background of the creature in the trash compactor - and there were some stories where I didn't know who the characters even were.
The writing styles also didn't help at times and there were a few of the short stories that I skimmed or skipped because I was struggling so much with them.

Overall, this was a disappointing read.

A brilliant collection of Star Wars short stories, told from the POV of minor but beloved characters. (Boba Fett anyone?) I absolutely gobbled this up and unlike other books in the expanded Star Wars universe this had no truly jarring moments. Highly recommend

"An amazing way to honour 40 years of incredible Star Wars fun."
"Chuck Wendig is incredible"

https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/episode-2-21-millennium-dustbin/id1132627431?i=1000394661116&mt=2

STARBURST’s Books of 2017

As 2018 and all its potential looms ever closer, it’s about this time of year that we have a quick look back at some of the more interesting books that came out in 2017. We aren’t going to stand on ceremony here. This is a mixed list of stuff that caught our eye over the year, each one chosen because it delighted us in some way.
To start off with, let’s mention Jeanette Ng’s Under the Pendulum Sun, a notably dense yet utterly absorbing tale of two Victorian Era Christian Missionaries head into the land of fairies to bring god to godless. It’s wonderfully bleak and though it’s hardly poolside holiday reading, it’s rather fun. Speaking of light reading is Andy Weir’s Artemis. Weir is best known for his book The Martian, which got turned into a movie featuring Matt Damon. Artemis is more of the same; believable science fiction (this time set in a moon base), slight less believable characters and lots of friendly science to go with the fiction. Bubblegum it may be, but it’s delicious bubblegum that feeds your brain.

This year also saw Jeff Noon return to form with A Man of Shadows. With a movie adaptation of Vurt planned and growing interest in Noon’s work hitting the mainstream, we were delighted to discover that Noon has not only stayed weird, he’s gotten all the more wonderfully strange.
Fans of strong and intelligent military sci-fi were well treated in 2017. Gavin G Smith joined the ranks of ‘Masters of Military SciFi’ with his book The Bastard Legion, which took many of the preconceived notions of the ‘shooty death in space genre’ and turned them around. This is a book that shouted ‘nope’ quite loudly and proceeded to deliver the sort of action the fans demand, whilst. Clarke award-winning author Adrian Tchaikovsky also stepped into this realm with two books. Dogs of War is a gripping take on the rights of sentient beings, which opens up with heavily armed genetically modified animals in a war zone, moves to a war crimes tribunal and moves further along the chain of consequence. Ironclads was a more traditional affair, with power armoured soldiers in a modern warzone and EZ Company hi-jinks, but also a powerful anti-capitalism polemic.

We also adored Yoon Ha Lee’s Raven Stratagem. A sequel to last year’s much-praised Nine Fox Gambit blends science-fiction high concept with high fantasy in a lovely clash of ideas and explosions. A similarly addictive (but entirely different) novel was Ann Leckie’s Provenance, a gripping bit of science fiction set in the world of the award-winning Imperial Radch series. It’s mostly a thriller with the trapping of a sci-fi world wrapped around it, with some wonderfully eye-opening moments peppered throughout.

Speaking of thrillers, it would be foolish of us to talk about books of 2017 without bringing up Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes, a jaw-dropping work of jealousy and betrayal set in the modern day that has one of the most interesting endings we’ve seen. Fans who like their mysteries with a more fantasy bent may want to check out RJ Barker’s Age of Assassins, a tale about a crippled murderer charged to a protect a prince to stop a war. A stunning debut from Barker.

Other exciting new writers came to us via the excellent Fox Spirit books. The Bushy Tales series of anthologies concluded with Tales of Mice and Minotaur, which contained an amazing take on Medusa and some cracking new talent. Similarly, their collection Respectable Horror delivered the right sort of chills and introduced us to the likes of Rosalind Mosis and Su Haddrell.

Tie-In novels wise, our highlights were the Star Wars 40th celebration anthology From a Certain Point of View, which brought together talents such as Paul Dini, Wil Wheaton, Chuck Wendig and Kieron Gillen to present some rather beautiful and very entertaining stories. We also rather liked Judge Dredd Year Two Omnibus. Old Stony Face is hard to write well and this collection of novellas nailed it, especially as it covers the time in Dredd’s life where his very existence is being questioned.

We were also entertained by much of Quirk Books output this year; Paperbacks From Hell provided an essential window into the world of horror fiction and reprinted some pretty amazing covers. They also hit their stride with a series of tie-in books of their own. ET, The X-Files and Home Alone all got the ‘children’s book’ treatment. X-Files ‘Earth Children Are Weird’ is especially adorable. We got a big laugh out of The League of Regrettable Super Villains, a whistle-stop tour of some of the worst excesses of bad ideas from comic book history. They also gave us most of the Star Wars movie in Shakespeare form, much to the delight of geeks everywhere and the terror of many an English teacher.

Our stand-out funniest book came courtesy of Rebellion Publishing. Nate Crowley’s 100 Best Video Games (That Never Existed) took perfect aim at those endless ‘Christmas Stocking Filler’ books filled with bad reviews of obscure games. Instead, Nate just made them all up to hilarious results, producing a well-informed but clearly informed tome and parody of the nostalgia industry.

We’ll have missed loads out, so don’t forget to let us know what your recommendations are via Twitter or Facebook. Until this time next year, carry on reading.

I'm not a massive Star Wars fan, I picked this because there are some amazing authors included. But I've an ex who was obsessed, so I probably know at least as much as your average fan -- I've seen all the films, the Clone Wars tv series and been subject to all the film-hype and internet fandom speculations. All this is just to say that while you don't need to be a huge Star Wars nerd to appreciate From A Certain Point of View, a little background knowledge will probably help.

Like all anthologies, some of the stories in From A Certain Point of View are definitely better than others. It's a bit of a mixed bag and I found myself skimming and flipping a fair bit. I this sense, I think it's the readers who are already fans that'll enjoy the more obscure stories, whereas the casual reader might lose interest.

While I get that the whole gimmick was the 40 years = 40 stories thing, I can't help but think the book as a whole might have been stronger if there had been a lesser number of stories, as some of the characters were so minor or uninteresting that I didn't really see the point of their inclusion. Perhaps it could have explored more of the films, given a more thorough exploration of characters from the other movies or animated series' (especially the female characters) who are often overlooked? It just feels like it was a stretch to come up with 40 new 'scenes' from A New Hope alone.

A really cool idea -- and probably a must-read for Star Wars fans -- but I think I'm more excited to read Leia, Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray, Ahsoka by E.K. Johnston and the upcoming Padmé YA.

This review will be post on my blog, Foxes & Fairy Tales on 10 Dec 2017
https://foxesfairytale.wordpress.com/2017/12/10/review-from-a-certain-point-of-view

The best allegory for this book is to call it a DVD full of deleted scenes and outtakes, for it pretty much covers the entire story of A New Hope and presents it from the point of view of the most minor characters, or even ones newly invented. Among the new ones are the Imperials who didn't fire at the escape pods when Leia was being captured (and those who didn't ask how they managed to flee a ship which was held in a tractor beam), and the Jawa who nearly wiped R2-D2's memory before his message could get anywhere. Of the characters we know already, there is Luke's father's first choice of droid blowing up, Greedo not shooting first, and the barkeep explaining just why they don't serve droids in that cantina. There is too much concerning Mos Eisley, but that's down to the format of the book, concerning every supporting artist – and by the end you are assured of the similarity to deleted scenes – they have the same quality as the main body of the work, just little of anything to make them essential. Here, certainly, none of the writers really step out of the long list of credits to shine – and in fact it's one or two of the bigger names that do themselves a disservice – but it's still on the whole a pretty enjoyable read. And it's for chariddee.

When I was a kid, I loved reading the Expanded Universe novels, particularly the ones I owned on cassette tape read by Anthony Daniels. They were my constant companions on family road trips (well, them and my Michelle Kwan biography). The ones I loved best happened after the close of Return of the Jedi, taking the characters I knew and loved on new and different adventures (Shadows of the Empire is the obvious exception to this). With Disney’s new milking of the franchise, my biggest disappointments have been that The Force Awakens was just a rehash of what had gone before. I want new stories set in a universe ripe for stories.

"Probably stormtroopers, judging by the random blast shots. Some might call them precise. Me, I say they can’t hit the butt end of a bantha."

The premise of the short story collection, From a Certain Point of View is to feature stories from minor characters and background extras (stormtroopers, jawas, bounty hunters, droids, rebellion soldiers…). They are featured chronologically in line with events of A New Hope. This sounds like a nice idea, after all, marginalised characters have long been a problem in every genre. But the collection is hamstrung by its premise. Not only do they fit these stories into the main timelines, but they use actual dialogue and scenes from the film. I’m not sure what the reasoning was here, perhaps they felt it would lend the stories more of an ‘official’ air (especially after Disney decided that all the Expanded Universe was no longer canon… bastards), but all it does is cramp originality and lead to long sections that are dull and repetitive.

"Bail Organa sent Leia herself to summon me. When I saw her – saw Padmé in her so strongly, and even a little of Anakin, too – I knew my exile was nearly at an end."

As a general rule, these stories lack any originality at all. They are obvious and shallow with sub-par prose to boot. Most of them are heavy-handed in multiple ways – with their exposition, efforts to tug at the heartstrings, and with moral messages. Quite a number of stories are hell-bent on making the reader feel bad about the blowing up of Alderaan. But here’s the thing, I don’t actually require a short story about a minor character to make me realise that blowing up an entire planet is a bad thing. It just felt condescending and twee.

It was clear that they felt the audience was teenagers and the writing suffers from pandering to what authors think younger readers will want to read. This is evidenced by the quality of the prose as well as the depiction of many of the characters. Luke’s Aunt Beru is made to sound like a teenager on a prime-time soap opera and an Imperial instruction manual is written how a 7-year-old might imagine bureaucratic forms. The characters are impetuous and self-serving, but not in interesting or nuanced ways. More often than not, the stories read like first drafts of both the story and the initial idea generation.

"Look, I get it. To most people, I’m just Luke Skywalker’s aunt Beru, the old lady who’s always bustling around the kitchen, pouring everyone blue milk. I’m the one who wouldn’t stop nagging Luke’s uncle Owen to let him go to the Academy already. “He can’t stay here forever, most of his friends are gone,” I kept saying. “It means so much to him.”"

Even when some of the writers take a few more ambitious risks by playing with form or focusing on highly overlooked areas, they miss the mark. A story about a know-it-all data cruncher is still boring, regardless of whether it is set in space or one of my all-time favourite fictional universes. And while I like the idea of Imperial grunt men attempting to cover their tracks to avoid ending up on the other end of Vader’s force grip, I feel that there could have been so many more interesting approaches. Or perhaps I was just frustrated by yet another arrogant, sarcastic, childish narrative point of view character.

Verdict: Yet another lacklustre entry to the new Star Wars canon despite some great writers (Kieron Gillen, Wil Wheaton, Nnedi Okorofor). I’m going to go read some Timothy Zahn to cleanse my palate.

“From a Certain Point of View” is an anthology of forty short stories set in the Star Wars universe during the events of “A New Hope”. The title refers to the suggestion that the truth is a matter of points of view – and indicates the diversity of perspectives that become clear from their associated stories. That some of those stories may conflict, with each other or with other works in the Star Wars universe – well, we can put that down to the subjectivity of truth, and just accept that each of these stories is true – from a certain point of view.

There are a multiplicity of views on display here – from the crew chief doing paperwork on star destroyer guns, through the Tusken raider with dreams of a different life, to old favourites like cantina band The Modal Nodes and mysterious spy Long Snoot. These are the people in the background of the Star Wars cinematic story, beavering away and getting things done whilst the heroes captured our attention. Perhaps the most important lesson the collection teaches is that each of those background players was someone in their own right, with their own hopes, their own enemies, their own betrayals, their own dreams.

One of the positives of the sheer number of stories is that there’s something for all tastes in here. There’s wry pieces like Ken Liu’s ‘The Sith of Datawork’about the necessity of filling in a vast amount of paperwork every time you shoot down an escape pod. There’s pieces like Pierce Brown’s ‘Desert Son’ which explore the emotional intensity of rebellion, and the love of friends for one another. There’s pieces like ‘Grounded’, where a maintenance chief waits on the ground at Yavin to see if her pilots survive, which blend flat-out action with the kind of emotional weight that might catch you by surprise. Then there’s pieces that are blaster fire, lightsabers and chases. Whichever you’re in the mood for, there’s a story somewhere in this collection which will fit. Some of them will work better than others for any given reader, of course – given the number of tales in the volume, that’s going to be inevitable. But I think they’re all interesting entries into the Star Wars genre.

The breadth of narrative also includes the scope. There’s sweeping, horrifyingly grand events here, like the eyewitness account of the destruction of Alderaan. Of course, the story which gives us that also provides a close character study of a woman torn between concern and pride in her daughter, worry for her husband, and the pressure of her own duties. There’s more intimate portrayals too, like Contingency Plan, following Mon Mothma as she prepared for the possibility that the Death Star won’t be destroyed. Here we get a tightly plotted examination of Mothma. Her internal voice is intelligent, wracked with a complex welter of emotions behind a calm façade; it’s a spy story, with only the protagonist’s internal dialogue to guide the reader through (it’s also fantastic).

We also get to see some experiments in narrative style and structure. The multiple viewpoints of ‘The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper’ combine with a noir atmosphere to make something unique, mixing gentle comedy, emotional truth and something a little edgier. The metatextual ‘Whills’ is a comic homage to fans of the franchise, whilst ‘An Incident Report’ , in the clipped formal tone of Imperial correspondence, gives a unique perspective on the way Darth Vader handles his udnerlings.

This is a strong collection; the sheer volume of stories means there’s always something to pick up, read and enjoy. But alongside that, another strength is its sheer heart. You can feel the affection for Star Wars rolling off of each page in the volume, and the effort that each writer put into building a Star Wars story of their own. There’s a few quirks – everyone in the Cantina seems to know Han Solo! – but they’re forgivable. If some of the stories didn’t work so well for me this time, I imagine they might when I’m in a different mood – and the overall quality is rock-solid.

Is it worth reading? If you’re a Star Wars fan, new or old, absolutely. I’d even say if you’re not, this might be a good way into the franchise. There’s small revelations scattered here and there, but what this book celebrates is Star Wars, in all its warmth, energy, humour and diversity, and it does that extremely well.

What a way to celebrate forty years of Star Wars!

This is a retelling of A New Hope (or just plain old Star Wars if you were around the first time like me - I was very young) but from the point of view of people on the sidelines of the story. So you get to hear stories from the captain of Tantive IV, a rebellious Jawa, Aunt Very, Biggs, hell you even get a story from the smoking red droid. No character is too small to get their moment.

Now it has to be said not every story hits the mark. But I'd say there is one 2 star story (sorry Aunt Beru) but the rest are at least four star. I read and listened to this and I can't stress how much I recommend listening to this as an audiobook - both Star Wars canons have been fantastic with audio book productions and this is no exception.

Another great addition to the Disney Star Wars canon.