From a Certain Point of View (Star Wars)

By: Renée Ahdieh, Meg Cabot, Pierce Brown, Nnedi Okorafor, Sabaa Tahir

Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Ashley Eckstein, Janina Gavankar, Jon Hamm, Neil Patrick Harris, January LaVoy, Saskia Maarleveld, Carol Monda, Daniel José Older, Marc Thompson

Experience Star Wars: A New Hope from a whole new point of view.

On May 25, 1977, the world was introduced to Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, C-3PO, R2-D2, Chewbacca, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Darth Vader, and a galaxy full of possibilities. In honor of the 40th anniversary, more than 40 contributors lend their vision to this retelling of Star Wars. Each of the 40 short stories reimagines a moment from the original film, but through the eyes of a supporting character. From a Certain Point of View features contributions by best-selling authors, trendsetting artists, and treasured voices from the literary history of Star Wars:

• Gary Whitta bridges the gap from Rogue One to A New Hope through the eyes of Captain Antilles.
• Aunt Beru finds her voice in an intimate character study by Meg Cabot.
• Nnedi Okorofor brings dignity and depth to a most unlikely character: the monster in the trash compactor.
• Pablo Hidalgo provides a chilling glimpse inside the mind of Grand Moff Tarkin.
• Pierce Brown chronicles Biggs Darklighter's final flight during the Rebellion's harrowing attack on the Death Star.
• Wil Wheaton spins a poignant tale of the rebels left behind on Yavin.

Plus 34 more hilarious, heartbreaking, and astonishing tales from Ben Acker, Renée Ahdieh, Tom Angleberger, Ben Blacker, Jeffrey Brown, Rae Carson, Adam Christopher, Zoraida Córdova, Delilah S. Dawson, Kelly Sue DeConnick, Paul Dini, Ian Doescher, Ashley Eckstein, Matt Fraction, Alexander Freed, Jason Fry, Kieron Gillen, Christie Golden, Claudia Gray, E. K. Johnston, Paul S. Kemp, Mur Lafferty, Ken Liu, Griffin McElroy, John Jackson Miller, Daniel José Older, Mallory Ortberg, Beth Revis, Madeleine Roux, Greg Rucka, Gary D. Schmidt, Cavan Scott, Charles Soule, Sabaa Tahir, Elizabeth Wein, Glen Weldon, Chuck Wendig

Narrated by a full cast, including:

• Jonathan Davis
• Ashley Eckstein
• Janina Gavankar
• Jon Hamm
• Neil Patrick Harris
• January LaVoy
• Saskia Maarleveld
• Carol Monda
• Daniel José Older
• Marc Thompson

All participating authors have generously forgone any compensation for their stories. Instead, their proceeds will be donated to First Book - a leading nonprofit that provides new books, learning materials, and other essentials to educators and organizations serving children in need. To further celebrate the launch of this book and both companies' longstanding relationships with First Book, Penguin Random House has donated $100,000 to First Book, and Disney/Lucasfilm has donated 100,000 children's books - valued at $1 million - to support First Book and their mission of providing equal access to quality education. Over the past 16 years, Disney and Penguin Random House combined have donated more than 88 million books to First Book.

©2017 Renée Ahdieh (P)2017 Random House Audio

Chapter listing. Audible sucks

1 – Raymus
8 – The Bucket
13 – The Sith of Datawork
17 – Stories in the Sand
26 – Reirin
30 – The Red One
35 – Rites
41 – Master and Apprentice
45 – Beru Whitesun Lars
47 – The Luckless Rodian
51 – Not for Nothing
56 – We Don't Serve Their Kind Here
62 – The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper
78 – Added Muscle
80 – You Owe Me a Ride
85 – The Secrets of Long Snoot
93 – Born in the Storm
99 – Laina
103 – Fully Operational
107 – An Incident Report
110 – Change of Heart
115 – Eclipse
123 – Verge of Greatness
129 – The Trigger
135 – Of MSE-6 and Men
148 – Bump
153 – End of Watch
158 – The Baptist
166 – Time of Death
174 – There is Another
181 – Palpatine
183 – Sparks
187 – Duty Roster
193 – Desert Son
199 – Grounded
206 – Contingency Plan
211 – The Angle
219 – By Whatever Sun
222 – Whills

Odd story's

My biggest problem with this book is the fact that they keep telling the same story over and over. Some points of views last for hours. Some of these story's are far too long, and are just bad. There are a few that are good, and some that are funny. But overall, I would say most are forgettable.

I laughed, I cried, I cried some more...

This may be my favorite Star Wars book of them all. It’s definitely the anthology I didn’t know I always wanted. Stories from the points of view of all the characters who aren’t central to the story, but have unique perspectives of events we all know by heart. I will never be able to watch the Cantina scene the same way again. Or see the destruction of Alderaan. Or any of a dozen other parts of one of my favorite films of all time. Thank you so much to all the writers and voice talent who contributed to this wonderful collection.

Absolutely fantastic book!!!!

This book had me Laughing and crying. Wonderful stories put together to give the best look of a story that set soooo many hearts ablaze. Thanks to the narrators you wrap yourself into the story, and wish these were made into movies. I can't say enough good things about this. Try it, you will love it.!!!

a couple hits, a bunch of misses

production value was really high, but the content was not great. some stories were cool, some were insufferable, many others with meh.

An impressive collection.

An interesting collection of shorts from several characters, from Tarkin, Obi-Wan, and more. I only recognized two narrators, Jonathan Davis and Mark Thompson, but, the others did quite well themselves. A worthy SW book.

A New Hope, A New Light

What a fantastic book. This allows you to go through the eyes of many characters you sometimes don’t even know exist throughout the movie. It goes into detail through the eyes of many characters with moving stories for or against the empire. Some points of the movie have many more related stories than others.

There was one story in particular that annoyed me however, while the rest were great this one simply did not provide me with anything. This story follows a mouse droid, Grand Moff Tarkin, and a specific stormtrooper on the Death Star. What I didn’t like about it most of all was the characters. The mouse droid in the story was quite repetitive especially when going through voice commands because it would repeat other characters lines over partially to respond. Not only that but it was the most annoying droid voice used in the entire book with an over exaggerated tone to try and sound like a droid. Next up we had the stormtrooper who had a strangely high voice that sounded rather odd and throughout the story he talks as though he is some kind of high school girl.
Another problem with this story is it is quite long meaning more time that you deal with these characters that bother you paired with a story that does not really give any interesting information of someone else’s view of the film’s events. It only ties in at the last second by having the mouse droid record the destruction of Alderaan still not really giving us anything to enjoy. In comparison the Yoda story may not have been directly tied to the events of the film but did show what was happening to him during this and gave interesting details.

That aside the stories were well done and gave me a new way to look at the film, seeing how other characters perceived the events and seeing their thoughts even just before their deaths and gives some insight as to how the force works and how it influenced events throughout the film.

One of my favorite stories was the battle of Yavin from the point of view of Biggs Darklighter. It goes into what he was feeling at the time and puts some interesting details that I had not thought about previously.

Yet again I really liked this book, recommend avoiding the mouse droid story as to not waste your time, and to actually go and watch the movie afterwards with the events of this book in mind.

Wonderful!

Each story was full of surprises and get you seeing everything from a certain point of view

Intersting Star Wars Short Story Collection

Summary: Short stories that cover various perspectives of really, really, really minor and in some case completely new and made up characters that fit a certain point of view (a pilot, a smuggler, a soldier, etc).

Additional Comments:
- I heard the audiobook version. Pretty sure some stories would have been better/more tolerable if reading and most were worlds better just because they were performed aloud.
- I'm kind of torn on the book. There are hands-down some awesome stories here. I don't remember titles, but I remember tales. I enjoyed the one with the smuggler on Dantooine. I liked the one with the garbage chute monster. The one with the paper-pushing imperial jockey who just liked "helping" others was amusing. It was touching to see Breha and Bail's last moments.
- Funny: There was one tale with a storm trooper on Tatooine. I don't remember much about it, but the beginning was absolutely hilarious and the narrator for that story fit perfectly and delivered a stellar performance. He was basically filling out an incident report the whole time.
- Neutral: The one with the little red droid was cute but long.
- Then again, there were ones that were downright painful to listen to. I think there's one from a mouse droid's perspective. It goes through the diagnostic steps every other paragraph, so the poor reader was basically repeating himself ad-nausea for 25 minutes. Kind of wanted to tear my ears off at some point in that story. The second to last story should have definitely been the last. There were a few very long ones that went absolutely nowhere. (Incidentally, I'd forgotten the Tales from Mos Eisley Cantina, but that whole series was amazing.)
- It ended with a bittersweet, triumphant note like A New Hope. The actual last story falls in the clunker category. It tried for a light-hearted, off the cuff feel and came across as annoying. I get the 40 stories for 40 years thing, but geez, people, stick in another pilot story and cut the crappy end one.
- (Can you imagine being in on that planning meeting? So, what'd you get? I got Porkins. Well, I got the one-eyed garbage chute monster.)
- Most the narrators were downright fantastic.

Conclusion: If you're going to try it, I highly recommend the audio version. For the few that are actually painful to listen to, just skip to the end of that chapter. There are some great stories here. They're buried in a mass of mediocre with some absolute stinkers here and there. Great idea with fair results overall.

Thoroughly Enjoyed

These short stories were, for the most part, thoroughly enjoyable. In my minds eye, I could see the characters' place in the movies. These stories helped fill in the gaps that the movie's time constraint couldn't cover. The performers were excellent and the sound effects added measurable to the stories. The 40th Anniversary of "The Empire Strikes Back" is fast approaching and I certainly hope there is "From a Certain Point of View" sequel in the works.