Book #291 of 2020:
Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back edited by Elizabeth Schaefer
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the second Star Wars movie, this collection presents 40 new stories revisiting its timeline, in the form of either familiar scenes from the perspective of minor film characters or additional plots that could have plausibly been playing out nearby. It’s a fun concept, but a little bit less inspired than the similar volume published in 2017 for A New Hope, with more duds that fail to launch than pieces that meaningfully or cleverly engage with the source material.
It’s still worth checking out for the bright spots, though, which include Seth Dickinson’s “The Final Order” and Django Wexler’s “Amara Kel’s Rules for TIE Pilot Survival (Probably),” each offering keen insights into how the Galactic Empire is understood and experienced by its lower-level loyalists. The latter story is also one of several in this book to feature a diversity of sexuality — which should absolutely be celebrated, but does rather underscore how Disney isn’t yet delivering that sort of representation to this franchise on the big screen.
Other highlights take us into truly alien viewpoints like wampas, tauntauns, and space slugs, as well as a charming conversation between Luke and the droid that fixes up his artificial hand. I don’t love how uneven the project is overall, but I’ve enjoyed parts here and there and I’ll definitely be picking up the inevitable Return of the Jedi version in another three years.
★★★☆☆
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