Three years ago, in celebration of the 40th anniversary of the original Star Wars film’s release into theaters, Lucasfilm Publishing released an ambitious anthology short-story collection entitled Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View. The concept of this book was a clever one– assign 40 diverse authors to write tales about the many background and/or supporting characters who pop up in the movie, which were then organized chronologically by A New Hope’s narrative. It was an interesting experiment, but I joked while reading that first volume that in celebrating the 40th anniversary, they also chose to give the included stories about a 40% success rate across the board.
I’d say the sequel follows through on that promise, except that percentage would feel a little overly generous to me in this case. In truth, of the 40 short stories collected in From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back (out today from publisher Del Rey, roughly 40 years after The Empire Strikes Back’s 1980 debut), there are only about eight or nine total that I could see myself having a desire to read again– or even recommending to another Star Wars fan, for that matter. But don’t get me wrong: the authors chosen to participate in this project are mostly talented, experienced writers. It’s just that the selected subject matter often comes across as either tediously dry, silly, or repetitively superfluous to anyone who already has a general knowledge of the franchise.
It’s weird, because I’ve often cited as one of Star Wars’ most appealing attributes the ability to zoom in on any person, alien, or creature hanging out in the background and how their story would likely be as interesting as the heroes Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, or Princess Leia. Unfortunately, as much as I really have genuinely tried to like them, the From a Certain Point of View books may turn out to be the ultimate rebuttal to that theory. There are exceptions, of course, especially when the contributors choose to venture a little bit more outside the box than one would expect. I’ll cite “This is No Cave” by Catherynne M. Valente (Palimpsest) as my prime example of this– a story so bizarre in its conceit that I couldn’t help but enjoy it. It gives us a breathtakingly ethereal backstory for the Space Slug (AKA the Exogorth, in Star Wars terms) and inverts its attempted ingestion of the Millennium Falcon into what I can only describe as a cosmic love story across tragically untold eons of loneliness and regret.
That’s the kind of imaginative stuff I would have loved to see more of in this book, rather than stories that attempt to explain what particular motivation the extras were giving themselves as they walked through a famous scene from one of the most highly regarded movie sequels of all time, which represents a good two-thirds of the content here. But to be fair, there are also some compelling tales that pick up the action before or after the events of certain characters’ appearances in Empire, such as Wedge Antilles’ reformation of Red Squadron after the Battle of Hoth in “Rendezvous Point” by Jason Fry (Star Wars: The Essential Atlas), or “Tooth and Claw” by Michael Kogge (Star Wars: Absolutely Everything You Need to Know), which sees Trandoshan bounty hunter Bossk go up against a mysterious nemesis known only as Chainbreaker– an activist who has been setting Wookiee prisoners free– only to find that this being is more familiar to him than he ever would have guessed.
There are also a couple stories that anthropomorphize the creatures of ice planet Hoth, to somewhat mixed results, and one intriguing soliloquy that gives us the inner thoughts of the Dark Side Cave on Dagobah as Yoda brings Luke to that mystical place. But the problem with the bulk of what’s contained in From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back is that I frequently found myself wondering what it’s supposed to be doing. It doesn’t feel like it’s intended to fill in gaps in the existing canon, because so many of these stories are outlandish enough to ensure they’ll be branded “imaginary” by most Star Wars record-keepers (see the one about a very sassy Obi-Wan Kenobi Force ghost), and a couple of them– like several examples in the previous edition– even contradict each other as far as a chronicling of events goes. My only guess is that the authors were simply told to have fun with their chosen subjects, and that premise alone would be great if the resultant stories were in fact fun, in and of themselves. But most of them are just sort of dull, and the entries that are clearly intended as comedy… sadly aren’t that funny.
I love Star Wars with all my heart and I am always happy to see the ever-expanding tapestry of A Galaxy Far, Far Away added to in creative ways. But as I trudged through the From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back, finishing the book eventually felt more like a chore than anything else, which is a bummer because it’s coming out in a year replete with quality Star Wars material, both in televisual and printed-word form. I bet there would have been a way for the folks at Lucasfilm Publishing to achieve whatever they were going for with this project, but the approach they did use in putting it together just didn’t end up working for me, on the whole. There are a handful of gems hidden in this overstuffed compilation, but by and large I would call it ultimately disposable and recommend other Star Wars efforts from the same pool of talent before I’d suggest picking this one up.
From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back is available now wherever books are sold.