Photo by Wil C. Fry, 2021
★★★★ (3.5 of 5)
- Full Title: Empire Strikes Back: From A Certain Point Of View
- Author: (various)
- Editor: (unlisted)
- Year: 2020 (mine was library hardcover)
- Pages: 547*
- Genre: Science Fiction
- Publisher: Del Rey
- ISBN 978-0-593-15774-9 (library hardcover)
- Wookieepedia page
(* Not including 13 pages of “about the authors”.)
Summary
Just like its predecessor, Star Wars: From A Certain Point Of View, this is an anthology of 40 stories by various authors, and was published on the 40th anniversary of the original theatrical release of the movie to which it relates (in this case, The Empire Strikes Back, Episode V.) It includes sci-fi authors I’ve read before, like Martha Wells, Alexander Freed, Catherynne M. Valente, and others. (Again, there is a story by Jason Fry, to whom I am not related.) Each story uses a background character from the original film and retells a scene from that character’s point of view. Some of the scenes are familiar from the film; others happen near or between the movie’s scenes — as if the writer asked herself: “While the film’s story was occurring, what happened down the street or across town?” and wrote that story.
Most entries here are straightforward short stories, but there are departures. For example, one is a single-page cartoon and the one by Daniel José Older takes the form of a feature-story submission to a galactic periodical, complete with editor’s notes, strikeouts, and comments.
According to a blurb in the back, none of the authors were paid for their submissions, and all proceeds from sales are being donated to a nonprofit called First Book, which provides books and educational materials to children in low-income areas.
This book is considered Star Wars “canon”, yet it also includes internal and external contradictions. A representative of Lucasfilm explained: “That’s sort of the nature of that project.”
Commentary Per Story
Instead of my usual method of listing every story in an anthology, with mini-reviews of them all, I’ll only list the ones that I enjoyed most (four stars).
★★★★ A Good Kiss, by C.B. Lee, (pg. 39-55)
Cute and endearing, this was about two rebel guys flirting with each other during the Rebellion’s activities on the ice planet Hoth.
★★★★ She Will Keep Them Warm, by Delilah S. Dawson, (pg. 57-66)
From the point of view of a tauntaun (beasts native to Hoth that the Rebels used for local transportation), this heartfelt story is during the Luke/Han lost-in-the-snow scenes.
★★★★ A Naturalist On Hoth, by Hank Green, (pg. 131-141)
Relatively unique for the Star Wars universe, this story concerns a scientist who came to Hoth as part of the Rebellion’s settlement efforts — not a soldier; his concern is studying the planet itself. The narrative is broken up by mini-reports on Hoth’s ecosystem and various creatures.
★★★★ Rendezvous Point, by Jason Fry, (pg. 151-179)
Despite being one of the longer stories in the book, this one moved quickly. It also felt somehow more real than most of the others. It’s about Wedge Antilles, long a side character in various Star Wars stories, when he is called upon for form an X-wing squadron while the Rebel Alliance waits for Luke, Leia, and Han at the rendezvous point after Hoth.
★★★★ Amara Kel’s Rules For Pilot Survival (Probably), by Django Wexler, (pg. 201-218)
Funny and action-packed, this story follows an Imperial TIE fighter pilot while the Empire searches for the Millenium Falcon in the asteroid field.
★★★★ This Is No Cave, by Catherynne M. Valente, (pg. 239-249)
From the point of view of the giant space worm that tried to eat Han and Leia and their ship, this story makes clear that the worm actually just wanted to befriend them. It was all a big misunderstanding.
★★★★ But What Does He Eat?, by S.A. Chakraborty, (pg. 373-386)
A top-dollar chef in the Cloud City of Bespin is called at the last minute to prepare a fancy meal for some Imperial guests; she learns it’s actually Darth Vader and his goons. Spoiler: the meal is never served to the Imperials, but the chef and her assistant were strongly considering poisoning it.
Conclusion
For the first half of the book, I was thinking this would be better than the first one. Fewer stories were truly poor or disappointing and several good ones popped up. But the final third (the part concerned with Cloud City) I thought was mostly flat and seemed to just keep going with story after story of regular people on Bespin caught in the confluence of Imperial and Rebel events. Overall, most of the forty stories were interesting, and some of them were incredible. Again, this book is greater than the sum of its parts — at least to any fan of Star Wars, though I think it fell a fraction of a point short of the first such book.
I’m convinced that you wouldn’t enjoy this book much if you’d never seen the original movie(s) or read the original novelization(s) — it doesn’t tell the same coherent story that the film/novel does. It was written under the assumption that only Star Wars fans would read it. But still, I think even someone unfamiliar with Star Wars might enjoy several of these stories as standalone works.
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