Star Wars: From A Certain Point Of View

Of the 40 stories in this volume, only 4-6 of them are high quality or interesting. The rest are desperate to be relevant (canon) and adjacent to the main plot of Star Wars, but fail miserably at engaging the reader because they are so incredibly short that they barely qualify as a "short story." In fact, some are so poorly written that they are indistinguishable from bad fan-fiction.Save your money, and buy the short story collctions from the EU (Extended Universe). Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales from Jabba's Palace, Tales of the Bounty Hunters, Tales from the Empire, Tales from the New Republic. While these volumes are no longer considered canon by Disney, they are much more interesting and better written.

This tells the entire Star Wars story in sequence from the perspectives of secondary and tertiary characters. Lots of fun and adds depth to the story. Jawas, sand people and even droids get their time to shine. If you are a SW nerd like me you should get yourself a copy of this book.

This was a gift for my Star Wars-loving husband. He knows everything there is to know about the Galactic Universe. This was perfect because it is a collection of fan fiction short stories. He LOVES it!! Want something for the Star Wars fan who seems to have it all... Look no further! This is a must.

Great collection of shorts about some famous and not so famous characters.

This really contextualized a lot of things, stormtroopers included. Tatooine gets really fleshed out. The Palpatine poem toward the end is legendary.

A+

Love it

A ridiculously entertaining and varied collection of short stories, all set in the Star Wars universe but, most importantly, right before, during and after the events of the first movie of them all, Episode IV: A New Hope. It's really impressive the way these writers have managed to exploit anything related to the quintessential Star Wars film: we've got familiar events told from different points of view, stories focused on secondary or even tertiary characters (a Jawa! one of the Sand People!), and even tales told from the point of view of classic characters such as Lando or Obi-Wan. It's all tons of fun, and even though some stories are better than others, I was, all in all, very impressed by the talent and heart that was put in this collection. Yeah, a couple of them are a little awkward, and could even feel unnecessary, but in general, they have managed to enrich the Star Wars universe, and might even change the way I watch Episode IV the next time. Not bad at all!

Published to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Star Wars, this is a collection of, appropriately, forty short stories based around characters and events from the original film. These tales all take place within the course of ‘A New Hope’ and are presented chronologically. Thus, they begin with stories that link to ‘Rogue One’ and conclude after the destruction of the Death Star.The vast bulk come from the perspectives of relatively minor characters, some definitely recognisable from onscreen, others from very much in the background. And it is from these that come the eponymous views.There are a couple of exceptions, however. Obi Wan is the only character of ‘A New Hope’ to get his own little tale. But Yoda and Palpatine also receive an inclusion despite not actually appearing in ‘A New Hope’.There is a varied selection in the characters chosen and in the styles of the stories. Although most are obviously serious, some, with mixed results, are intended to be humorous (the almost denouement style story being quite funny whereas the poem from Darth Sidious just silly).There are a lot of stories that are based around stormtroopers, rebel soldiers or Imperial officers. These tend to get a little samey after a few.Much more interesting are those focussing on characters to be found on Tatooine. In the early days of Star Wars novels coming out en masse (after Timothy Zahn’s ‘Thrawn Trilogy’), there were two collections of short stories published, one based upon the patrons of Mos Eisley Cantina and another on the occupants of Jabba’s Palace; neither of which now count as being canon. The Tatooine patch of this collection is obviously reminiscent of ‘Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina’. There are inevitably cross overs and contradictions and it is interesting to see how some authors have endeavoured to try and converge elements that are now classified as no longer being canon with those that are.Some tales are inevitably better than others, depending on your taste. But, overall, it is an entertaining way to re-experience ‘A New Hope’.

A very mixed bag of stories. Some great, some awesome, a few slow, and a couple I just did not see the point of. There are some very big name Star Wars authors in this book, new Disney era authors.I really thought the concept of this book was a great innovation. Right from the last moment of Rogue One to the end of Star Wars A New Hope. Each short story moves the story along scene by scene. However the twist is it is not just the author that changes, but the story is told from a side character, an extra or a main characters side story.There were many great stories in this book, but there were a couple of stories that were way too slow, and a couple I just did not think added anything to Star Wars universe in general. The was a story staring a Disney era Star Wars comic star.The final breakdown, I loved the first 100 pages, was not sure about the next 100, confused for the next 50, and the it returned in force till the end. The last story was a bit of an in joke which did make me laugh so it ended well and brought the whole thing up to a ok book, but now quite good or great. However I would like to emphasise my respect for all the authors who contributed their time and effort for free. All the money from this book go to the First Book charity organisation.

So this is a collection of short stories that basically tell the story of A New Hope from lots of different POV's apart from the main cast (though there is one exception). It is an interesting premise and was released as part of the fortieth anniversary of the release of the film. I won't go through every story but I'll mention a few of my highlights.Like most collections there were some I really liked, some were ok and some I disliked, though luckily enough I thought the standard was pretty high and my overall my experience was a good one. There was an awful lot of stories set around the cantina scene and I thought it was way overdone, it's a small part of the film but took far too high a proportion of these stories. Otherwise it was spread pretty well though the quieter scenes of the film with just the main cast was missed due to the nature of the collection.Stories in the Sand was from the perspective of a Jawa on the Sandcrawler. He accesses R2D2's memory core and sees all that he's been through, quite nostalgic.The Red One was from the droid the blows its head when we first meet Luke. Surprisingly sad.Master and Apprentice is from the force ghost of Qui-Gon talking to Obi-Wan after the incident with the Sandpeople. Another sad one and not surprising coming from Claudia Gray, one of my favourite SW writers.We Don't Serve Their Kind Here and The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper are two of the cantina stories I actually liked. The first is from the POV of the barman and the second is some crazy caper that's happening alongside the whole film thing and is actually pretty funny.The Secrets of Long Snoot is from the character that tells the imperials where the Millenium Falcon is flying from. Another pretty sad story that is a cautionary tale of not judging until you know all the facts.Eclipse is from Leia's (adopted) mother on Alderaan. Not exactly a happy ending.The Trigger was a fun little story about a wise cracking scavenger on Dantooine who gets involved with the imperials on the planet after Leia gave the false info about the rebel base.End of Watch was fun in that it's an imperial officer who just wants to end their shift. Unfortunately there's an incident in the detention center.The Baptist. Who would have thought a story about the trash compactor monster would be one of my favourites??Time of Death is the exception I mentioned and is from Obi-Wan.Grounded is another kind of sad one, from the perspective of one of the ground crew at the battle of Yavin. You do forget those people and what they must be experiencing hearing about the battle above.Whills is an irreverent take on the opening credits. Knowing and funny.

This is only a partial review as I have only read 2 of the 39 stories, so far. The first one bridges Rogue One and A New Hope, but is told from Captain Antilles point of view, hence the title. The second one I read was very good - the scene in which Luke is dragged under by a nameless creature in the junk room? Only this time we actually find out all about this nameless creature including...ahem...it's name. It says it contains 40 stories, however, the "story" entitled Far too remote is basically a one page cartoon. I am currently reading a story about the red R2 robot that was nearly sold by the Jawas. This is told from the robot's point of view. So far it has promise and I will be reviewing it fully in due course.

I've been a fan since 1977, and I loved this book! True, there's variation in quality, but so what? That's true across the whole of literature!The stories are a mixture of funny, exciting, satirical, poignant - there's something for everybody. I wouldn't have envisaged anyone depicting the POV of that THING in the garbage masher, but yes, one author's done just that! Even the Mouse Droid gets a (hilarious!) look in!One of my favourites was "Born In The Storm", a stormtrooper's perspective - specifically one of the squad who stopped Luke, Ben and the 'droids in Mos Eisley. It's hysterical reading his report in which he's trying to explain that yes, they didn't need to see the kid's ID and no, those weren't the 'droids they were looking for...To learn (in "The Sith Of Datawork") that the primary reason why the 'droids' escape pod wasn't fired on was to avoid all the datawork that would result from Imperial equipment, i.e. a turbolaser cannon, being utilised to destroy a nonthreatening target...to think that the Death Star ended up destroyed almost solely on account of a couple of workshy Imperials...! Loved it!But one line, from "Bump", totally cracked me up. True fans will recall the following exchange of dialogue: "Do you know what's goin' on?" "Probably another drill." The story pays homage to said exchange with this line: "Intruder alert. Great. If this is a drill, I swear to the ancients I will lead the revolt myself."Coming as it does from TD-110, the trooper in charge of the aforementioned squad, that's just priceless!There's even a mention in the same story of said trooper banging his head on the blast door. I read somewhere that when Lucas was doing the Special Edition, he'd heard keen-eyed fans had spotted this...but instead of taking it out as he surely could have done, he PLAYED UP TO IT - by enhancing the noise of the bump! The first time I watched the SE, I fell off my chair laughing! It was a touch of comic genius and a respectful nod to the fans who, after all, put Lucas where he deservedly is!Contrary to the popular opinion of non-fans, true fans love parodies of our favourite mythos (this also applies to Star Trek); I adore the Robot Chicken sketches, Spaceballs and Galaxy Quest, for example. Bring on the parodies and satire, as in this collection; we love 'em as much as the serious stories!