Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View

A few years ago, Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View was published, which is comprised of 40 stories concerning A New Hope, with a variety of styles, genres, and humor. Some are more playful, while others provide serious insight into the emotions, feelings, and knowledge of the characters from the movie that started it all.

While one can find an entire list of all of the stories in my Twitter thread on the book, five standout stories from the book are

Gary Whitta’s “Raymus”
Beth Revis’ “Fully Operational”
Madeline Roux’ “Eclipse”
Pablo Hidalgo’s “Verge of Greatness”
Adam Christopher’s “End of Watch”

A couple others that also are worthy of mention are Delilah Dawson’s “The Secrets of Long Snoot” and John Jackson Miller’s “Rites”.

While I do not consider this book to be essential reading, I did find Whitta’s “Raymus” to be an excellent bridge between the end of Rogue One and the beginning of A New Hope, which is well-done, along with Hidalgo’s intriguing “Verge of Greatness”, and Roux’ tragic “Eclipse”.

Here are some intriguing insights from this book:

R5-D4 sort of lets R2-D2 go to the Lars homestead so he can fulfill his mission to the Rebellion (Rae Carson’s “The Red One”)
Wuher, the bartender at the Mos Eisley Cantina, does not like droids because he has bad memories of them from the Clone Wars (Chuck Wendig’s “We Don’t Serve Their Kind Here”)
Leia’s tutor droid tells Breha Organa: “According to her diplomatic profile, Princess Leia speaks both Huttese and Shyriiwook fluently. Regretfully, and as Your Majesty is keenly aware, the princess is merely proficient in Shyriiwook” (p. 236). (Madeleine Roux’s “Eclipse”)
“The Death Star’s jump to hyperspace occurred with little incident. It was, literally, no small matter to propel such a massive object at superluminal velocities, but the marvel of engineering that was this battle station performed to expectation” (p. 250). (Pablo Hidalgo’s “Verge of Greatness”)
“The disbanding of the Senate demanded the attention of the media, and the holonews outlets obediently repeating the narrative that the Empire’s advisers had prepared. Rebel traitors had infiltrated the Senate. Such infiltration resulted in a devastating terrorist strike on a major Imperial military installation on Scarif. For the duration of the emergency, the Emperor needed absolute control to bring a swift end to this threat and root out insurgents who had access to the heart of the Imperial bureaucracy” (pp. 250-251). (Pablo Hidalgo’s “Verge of Greatness”)
“Politics, thought Tarkin, was where Krennic failed. The loud-mouthed engineer knew the intricacies of hyperdrives and energy conversion ratios, but he had failed to see the pitfalls of the Imperial court. Krennic had wanted to ascend, but was at a loss as to how toclimb. Tarkin had blocked his every path, and not even a Death Star had allowed Krennic to rise” (p253). (Pablo Hidalgo’s “Verge of Greatness”)
Alderaan “was steeped in history, its royal family having launched many of the ancient expeditions that had first opened up the galaxy. Such a pedigree elevated it to untouchable heights of import, and a cloud of arrogance surrounded it. The Organas had thought they could act with impunity in defying the Emperor’s decrees, because history had afforded them a special place in the hearts and minds of the people” (p. 253). (Pablo Hidalgo’s “Verge of Greatness”)
“The battle station was so vast – 160 kilometers in diameter, with a full crew rumored to number more than a million, although the exact number remained classified – that it would be impossible for it to be run from a single control room or command center. What the Death Star had instead was a multitude of command posts, communications posts, and supervisor stations, scattered at various levels across the station’s hemispheres” (p. 306). (Adam Christopher’s “End of Watch”)
“The battle station was so big that, short of a Star Destroyer crashing into it, most of the crew would have no idea about what was going on at any given time” (p. 310) – re: some of the officers on board hadn’t known that the Death Star was at Scarif…. (Adam Christopher’s “End of Watch”)
Re: turbolasers on the Death Star: “The turbolasers – designed as they were to defend the station against capital ships rather than fighters – had trouble tracking the elusive X- and Y-wings” (pp. 372-373). (Paul Kemp’s “Sparks”)

In all, it was an interesting ride of a book!