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 fortieth anniversary, more than forty contributors lend their vision to this retelling of Star Wars. Each of the forty 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 bestselling 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 thirty-four 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 $1,000,000—to support First Book and their mission of providing equal access to quality education. Over the past sixteen years, Disney and Penguin Random House combined have donated more than eighty-eight million books to First Book.

Critic reviews

“The Mashup You’ve Been Looking For.”—Tordotcom

“The biggest joy of this collection is turning the page to a new story and realizing which character they'll be jumping to next.”—New York Daily News

“An entertaining, multi-faceted way to revisit that galaxy far, far away.”—Financial Times

“The stories are humorous, heartbreaking, and downright wacky. If you have a favorite Star Wars character, forget them. You’re going to have forty new favorite characters after reading this.”—Comicsverse

“An impressive, and highly entertaining, short story compilation.”—Cinelinx

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.

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.

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.