BOOK STATS
Rating: ☆☆☆
Title: From a Certain Point of View
Authors: Various (see below)
Genre: Science-Fiction
Audience: All ages
Format: Hardcover
Length: 479 pages
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: October 3, 2017
Source: Purchased
Recommended for Fans of: Star Wars
SYNOPSIS
40 Years. 40 Stories.
In honor of the 40th Anniversary of Star Wars: A New Hope, this unique anthology features Star Wars stories by bestselling authors, trendsetting artists, and treasured voices from Star Wars’ literary history. Over 40 authors have lent their unique vision to 40 “scenes,” each retelling a different moment from the original Star Wars film, but with a twist: every scene is told from the point of view of a seemingly minor character. Whether it’s the X-wing pilots who helped Luke destroy the Death Star or the stormtroopers who never did find the droids they were looking for, Star Wars: From A Certain Point of View places the classic movie in a whole new perspective celebrates the influence and legacy of the unparalleled cultural phenomenon, Star Wars.
MY THOUGHTS
These 40 stories added new perspectives to A New Hope besides the major characters. I was drawn to this collection because I love Star Wars and so many authors I love were included in this collaboration. I bought this book when it was published in 2017 and read a few stories, but I didn’t pick it back up until the end of 2019 when The Rise of Skywalker came out.
Reading From a Certain Point of View was like watching A New Hope in slow motion, zooming into the minds of different characters in the background along the way. Overall I enjoyed these new perspectives, but this book got repetitive at times when multiple stories in a row retold the same scene from different points of view. Other stories seemed kind of pointless when their inclusion did not add anything of particular significance to the original story.
Some of my favorite stories told what other well known characters were up to during the events of A New Hope (like Yoda and Lando), but I appreciated how this anthology gave voices to some blink-and-you’ll-miss-them background characters from the movie, even if they didn’t all hit the mark for me.
I enjoyed this anthology overall, but I would recommend reading it a story or two at a time instead of powering straight through the book (like I did). If you are a diehard Star Wars fan like me, you will enjoy this collection.
Featured Authors
Elizabeth Schaefer (Editor), Ben Acker, Tom Angleberger, Ben Blacker, Jeffrey Brown, Jason Fry, Christie Golden, Pierce Brown, Ashley Eckstein, Mur Lafferty, Ken Liu, Griffin McElroy, John Jackson Miller , Kelly Sue DeConnick , Nnedi Okorafor, Daniel José Older , Ian Doescher, Mallory Ortberg, Madeleine Roux, Gary D. Schmidt, Matt Fraction, Cavan Scott, Sabaa Tahir, Kieron Gillen, Glen Weldon, Chuck Wendig, Gary Whitta, Meg Cabot, Pablo Hidalgo, Adam Christopher, Rae Carson, Zoraida Córdova, Delilah S. Dawson, Paul Dini, Alexander Freed, Claudia Gray, E.K. Johnston, Paul S. Kemp, Elizabeth Wein, Beth Revis, Greg Rucka, Charles Soule, Wil Wheaton, Renée Ahdieh
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