From a Certain Point of View, Part II

     My review continues of this fabulous set of short stories. I did feel like this particular set of stories got a bit too bogged down in Chalmun's Cantina - 60 pages worth. I'm hoping other parts of A New Hope aren't left by the wayside because of this layover in Mos Eisley. But it was still a blast of a time with a slew of interesting characters, both new and old. And the coolest part was all the stories interconnecting character-wise.

     First we start with "Beru Whitesun Lars" by Meg Cabot which takes place before the slew of short stories mentioned above. This piece consists of Beru reflecting from the afterlife on her raising of Luke. She feels she's done as good a job as she was capable of...except for not pushing for him (against Owen's protestations) to go to the Academy.
     At the end of the story she says she wishes Luke hadn't seen her and Owen's burning skeletons but then says, "Then again, if he hadn't, he never would have gone off with old Ben, met the princess, destroyed the Death Star, and saved the galaxy." Such a heartfelt statement from a wonderful woman.
     This story is a cute romp through Beru's mind as she even muses on her knack for making blue milk cheese and how she could've owned a café if life had been different for her. I'm really liking how this book intersperses lighter stories amongst the more serious ones.

     And here begin the Mos Eisley stories, all of which include Greedo, Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes, Doctor Evazan, Ponda Baba, Han Solo, and Chewbacca:
     "The Luckless Rodian" by Renee Ahdieh details Greedo's hunt for Solo and highlights his arrogance and belief that he is far better and above the smuggler since Greedo deals in death and not petty crime. Solo of course isn't scared of Greedo one bit unlike Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes who recently ratted Greedo out to Jabba for letting prisoners escape so that he could recapture them and get more money from the Hutt.
     Greedo has only Solo on his mind and absolutely nothing else at all. His rage and hatred toward Solo even concerns an old mutual love interest of theirs named Uncelta!
     This story really put me into Greedo's frame of mind and the way it portrays Solo is of course with a negative lean. It almost made me feel for the poor Rodian and make me think he was as "bad" as he thinks...but then I got to the next few stories which turned that on its head!

     The next story, "Not for Nothing" by Mur Lafferty, details quite a bit of the Bith's fear of Greedo even though Greedo doesn't think about them but once in passing in his story. I'm assuming Jabba never told him who ratted him out.
     The cool thing about this piece is the background it gave to Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes and what all they had been through--they were indentured servants in Jabba's palace for a year. We also get a deeper taste of what Bith are like: they can separate different sounds that surround them including not only music but also conversations; they have lidless and tearless eyes which makes Tatooine a horrible place for the poor guys to find themselves.
     Written as Chapter 3 of a memoir by Ickabel G'ont, one of the Modal Nodes, I'd love to know of other experiences the band members have had over the years and how their stint on Tatooine fits into the bigger picture.

     "The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper" by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction is a longer story but well worth every page!! It interweaved all the characters mentioned above plus Muftak (the Talz who lives under the cantina) and Kabe (his Chadra-Fan counterpart).
     This story continues to paint Greedo in a very unforgiving light as someone who wishes to be that which he is not at all. Thus negating any character traits brought up in "The Luckless Rodian." This story goes so far as to say, "Greedo wears bad luck around him like a cloud of fart." Haha!
     So much happened in this piece that it took some re-reading and looking back at previous pages to get the full picture, but the process was well worth the journey. We get to see how Muftak, Kabe, Myo (a cylopic Abyssin always ready for a brawl), Djas Puhr (a Sakiyan bounty hunter), Solo, Chewie, and Lirin Car'n (a Bith) are all friends and trying to work together to solve a problem that intertangles each and every one of them...including Han's dropping his shipment at the first sign of Imperials. Turns out all of them also have some sort of issue with Dr. Evazan and Greedo...who as we all know get handily taken care of by Obi-Wan. The story wraps itself up nicely with some wonderful buddy-buddy camaraderie.
     The funniest thing was Muftak thinking Luke is a girl!! *snort*...with "flowing flaxen locks" no less.

     "We Don't Serve Their Kind Here" by Chuck Wendig precedes "Kloo Horn" and is a tale about the bartender of Chalmun's, Wuher. We still see Dr. Evazan and Greedo and Solo but mostly we get into the barkeep's head...and there's a lot going on up there.
     Turns out Wuher hates droids because he was attacked and his parents were killed by Separatist droids during the Clone Wars. He basically has PTSD associated with the clankers. No wonder he has a droid scanner at the front of the bar!
     In describing his confrontation with droids in the past, he hints at Jedi being present by mentioning green and blue twin spears of light attacking the droids. Then in thinking on Obi-Wan's cutting down Evazan, he clarifies, "But I think he was more than a hermit. I think he was a Jedi of old. I thought they were dead and gone, the Jedi. They once saved my life, those Jedi, saved me from a whole battalion of dirty droids. So I'm inclined to give this one a pass." *Tear* Puts the cranky old bartender in a whole new light!!

     With all the different perspectives on Greedo and Dr. Evazan, we truly get the story from several points of view. They didn't all line up exactly with each other, but I think that's the point, as everybody's point of view is just that, their own.
     Looking forward to reading more!!