From A Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back by various (Part 8/8)
From A Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back by various (Part 8/8)
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I did have a couple of revelations while reading this book, along with some thoughts. First off, these stories were on average a lot longer than the ones in the FACPOV: A New Hope book. At nearly 100 pages longer, it's no wonder...I mean this sucker is a tome in the truest sense of the word! It pushes toward 600 pages total!! The A New Hope version contained only a couple of longer stories, thus leading all the others to be fairly short--which was something I actually really liked. Succinct and enjoyable and a whole lot of fun!! This Empire Strikes Back version had a whole passel of stories that were over 20 pages long, making it a commitment to sit down and read one. Of course, I was super game for that commitment every time, but that was me. If you're someone who's looking for a quick escape that's wrapped in a smallish package, the A New Hope book was definitely more that speed. I'm hoping the Return of the Jedi collection will go back to the shorter stories because despite my over-commitment to Star Wars, I did think having the majority of the book made of shorter stories was more fun overall, and allowed the couple of much longer stories to truly shine ("The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper" was a great example of this!!). But in this Empire Strikes Back collection, the longer stories didn't stand out so much because so many of them were...well...long.
Secondly, Empire Strikes Back has never been my favorite Star Wars movie. WHAT?!?...you're probably screaming at me right now. But hey, it's the truth. Of the original trilogy, Return of the Jedi has always been my go-to. Anyway, I'm glad that I don't hold Empire Strikes Back in as high regard as the majority of fans, because if I did...and then read this book...I would realize that not much really happens in this movie...like maybe 3 different things and that's it. 1) Battle of and escape from Hoth. 2) Luke's training on Dagobah. 3) Cloud City. Nothing else happens!! It's almost hysterically funny if you really think about it, but this collection of 40 short stories made this fact painfully obvious. There were 11 Hoth stories, 6 stories on Imperial ships, 4 stories on Dagobah, 5 stories about bounty hunters, 5 Rebels stories in in-between spaces, and 9 Cloud City stories. While the Hoth stories were all incredibly interesting and impactful, the Cloud City stories felt like maybe the authors were grasping at straws a bit to make them be relevant--I mean 9 stories is a lot.
Luckily, this book didn't have the space battle problem that the A New Hope collection did with respect to the Battle of Yavin where it felt like there were a couple too many stories from the perspectives of different people involved in the space battle whether pilots or ground control. In this Empire Strikes Back collection, they handled Hoth incredibly well by introducing us to a whole host of new and extremely intriguing characters both days before the battle, right before the battle, during the battle, and during the evacuation. It wasn't several stories all focused on the exact some point in time. These stories were spread out across the timeline, making for a super enjoyable read. The part that got me in this collection were the Cloud City stories...as they did all seem to take place at the same point in time--Lando came over the loudspeaker to urge everybody to evacuate in the majority of the Cloud City stories. Oh well, several of those tales were actually quite good, it just got generally monotonous after awhile.
Phew, looking back, it feels like I'm dumping all sorts of negativity on this collection when I promise I'm not. I absolutely LOVED what they gave us and I'd say at least 80% of the book was spectacular...from my point of view. I highly recommend checking out both collections as they provide so much more nuance, depth, and insight into what we see on screen and who doesn't like a really good short story anthology?? Little bursts of literary goodness that allow you to escape from reality for a short while!!
Now to the final five stories:
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"The Witness" by Adam Christopher
As Deena considers the realities of war, how every soldier is an individual, living, breathing being, she starts thinking about what lies beneath the war, "To be honest, Deena wasn't sure what to make of the so-called Rebel Alliance. To fight against order and against law and against structure, everything the Empire stood for, made no sense. But to fight against cruelty, and tyranny? And what actually was the opposite of order? Chaos? Or...freedom?" As part of Darth Vader's escort, Deena is one of the troopers at the scene of Han's torture as well as in the carbon freezing chamber when Han is frozen. She notes how the torture of Han was abhorrent with the smuggler not even being asked any questions...just being tortured for pure sadism. She calls it a "theater of cruelty."
In her escape, Deena gets completely turned around and lost and ends up stuck in the air vents above the room where Darth Vader and Luke battle it out...but she only hears part of their conversation. Her interpretation is that Vader is offering a truce or an alliance to his sworn enemy. All she hears of the most important line is, "No, I am your--" so she doesn't ever get to find out the real truth. In considering Luke, she thinks, "Lord Vader's...what? Enemy? Or was Skywalker now some kind of co-conspirator? Or...that scream--had he fallen off the antenna? Deena didn't think so. It hadn't sounded like the scream of someone falling." She now thinks Darth Vader has some secret plan to overthrow Palpatine and immediately wonders if there's a way she can leverage that intel for help getting off planet.
I quite liked this story. I know people were worried about the fact that she overheard Luke and Vader's convo, but she didn't hear the full thing so most of the surprise is preserved in a strange mockery of the reality. Deena is a fun character with a deep-seated desire to start doing what is right, even risking her own safety to help others in the end. Of course now I'm super curious as to whether she actually used her new found intel to any advantage?? That would certainly be an interesting tale!
Trivia: Hooch can be distilled from a Star Destroyer's reactor coolant system. Neat! The rest of Deena's crew included Tig, Xander, Ella, and Riccarn. Interesting bit about the toilets on Cloud City, "The toilet itself was a blocky contraption, the main unit surrounded by various attachments enabling it to be used by a variety of different species." I hadn't thought of that need before, but it does make perfect sense...
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"The Man Who Built Cloud City" by Alexander Freed
A little about his past, "Vision blurred again, mixing with memory. He saw the muzzle of the weapon; the white figures aboard his ship, Life's Little Rewards; bloody hands; an empty cargo bay. Later an empty purse; an empty house. the boy gone. Yathros preferred not to think of these things, and he nudged the recollections forward through time to when he'd found the ring, found the ticket to Cloud City. Found the picture of the crown on his head as a child, found the books his father had read to him. Found his greatness and was reborn!" He had originally arrived on Bespin with just 54 credits to his name. And once he'd established himself, "he'd begun minting his own money--bless Or'toona Fleenk and her printing press!" I'm telling you, this story just gets crazier and crazier. Sounds like he came from a delusional family to begin with, thus he was pre-disposed to flights of grandeur.
Most of the story finds Yathros and a Cloud City Wing Guard named Darbus Mizz teaming up to escape the floating paradise at the behest of Lando. Mizz says, "Lando Calrissian sent me--[...]--because he likes you. He's always liked you. It's the only reason he put up with you all these years. [...] Anyone else would've had you arrested when you accosted casino patrons or issued proclamations on the street, but Lando thought you were charming. He didn't pity you or laugh at you--he invited you to dinner more than once. When the Empire arrived he knew you'd get yourself killed, so he sent me. [...] You're not a king. Lando's not a regent. I'm a badly paid grunt, not an assassin. But we're all in trouble, and your fantasies are making things worse. Put them aside or we're dead." Lando really does have a heart of gold when the rubber meets the road, taking in this man with no sense of reality and treating him with kindness and respect!
Well, Yathros must actually be quite the incredible charmer because he pulls Mizz into his delusions with the utmost persistence and the two set off together to save Cloud City. Yathros says as they are just about to escape, "Perhaps it's not the end at all. Perhaps it's merely the darkest moment of a triumphant tale--when all is presumed lost, so that victory can be sweeter. [...] If we leave, we become refugees. If we stay, we stay with the people we have long guarded, as you guarded me this very night--people lacking the money or fortune to escape. We could shelter with the Ugnaughts who have been friends to me. We could stand against the stormtroopers, as we've done once before. We could remind our people that the Empire will fall, as all tyrannies fall. We could fight evil, Darbus Mizz." This plea appeals to Mizz yet he at first responds, "An old vagrant and a security guard can't do a lot of good here. Not anymore." But Yathros won't give up, "Yes. Yes, I'm afraid you're right. And yet--[...]--a mighty king and a deadly assassin trained by the sinister Kouhun order? An assassin once a servant of the treacherous Calrissian, now seeking redemption as a royal agent? They could do a great deal." At this point Mizz is probably worn to the bone mentally, emotionally, and physically and maniacally laughs in response, setting Yathros up to sink even further into his delusion. But perhaps they do do some good, perhaps they save some people, perhaps they destroy some Imperials, perhaps they are the Heroes of Cloud City...
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"The Backup Backup Plan" by Anne Toole
I'll leave you with just a brief bit of info here because I will of course be doing a future Aphra's Artifacts video on this story!! The Rebel is Tal Veridian, supposedly Lando's second-in-command, and Lieutenant Ela Radodan is the Imperial. There's also a non-binary character of an undisclosed species named Kiren who uses they/their pronouns and speaks in grunts and snorts.
Super happy with more queerness, but it would've been nice if the story had been cleaner and more streamlined. It was cool though that this story seemed to take place after Vader had left Cloud City so it was about the aftermath rather than the invasion. And that's a time period we really don't know much about!
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"Right-Hand Man" by Lydia Kang
And then Luke goes on to question whether or not he even deserves a new hand!! "Maybe this was meant to be. Maybe I was destined to lose my hand, in exchange for something else." 2-1B won't have any of this talk and does his best to convince Luke that he does deserve treatment. But it's good to see Luke not being as brash and rushed and actually stopping to think hard about his choices, "I made mistakes. I could have learned the ways of the Force better. Faster. I was so stubborn. I was too foolish to see the trap in front of me. [...] I could have saved Han. [...] Even Yoda said, 'this crude matter.' [...] I don't deserve to have it fixed. And maybe I don't need to. If I learn the ways of the Force, one hand alone doesn't matter. [...] Right?" 2-1B responds, "'Don't deserve to have it fixed? All beings deserve to be cared for, to be healed.' He said this rather adamantly, and Luke seemed surprised by the passion in his words. 'Moral perfection is no requisite for care. That would be cruelty itself, as no beings are perfect.'" I love this incredibly compassionate human side of 2-1B!! Funny though, at one point Luke acknowledges that the droid made a joke and 2-1B immediately starts fussing about maybe needing a diagnostics check!! Hahaha, poor guy!
Trivia: Something I've been beating a drum about for a long time now--"The pain was there, no doubt, but the lightsaber had thankfully cauterized the bleeding. There was one good thing about Jedi and Sith combat--no blood. It saved him and his FX droids a lot of messy work." All lightsaber wounds should be immediately cauterized by the heat of the blade and thus there should never be any blood (Chalmun's Cantina and Ponda Baba...I'm looking at you...).
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"The Whills Strike Back" by Tom Angleberger
There are a couple of interesting references, "the part where they run into Skorr the bounty hunter on Ord Mantell," "the part where they all help Chewie get back to Kashyyyk to see his son for Life Day," "you're almost to the best part--when all the wampas attack!," "Next thing you're going to tell me is that Willrow Hood just runs through the background without saying anything," "But let me guess, you're going to find room for Yoda's rootleaf stew, aren't you?" I want to know more about this Skorr fellow!!! And the thing about the rootleaf stew is freaking hysterical!!...because it is so incredibly true.
I LOVE the following call out because it's heavy with truth and bothers me all the time!!! I'm in total agreement with the interrupter--"'Led by Luke?'? Gee, I wonder what Mon Mothma and General Rieekan would say about that? Good grief, even Major Derlin outranks Luke! Luke's on tauntaun patrol for crying out loud!" The writer's response is, "He's their unofficial leader!" Hahaha!
And the story ends spectacularly with "Go ahead. Write a story that starts with probe dispatching and only one wampa, and then nothing really happens except for Yoda's lunch and Vader's breakfast and the good guy's lose. Whee! That'll be everybody's favorite! Maybe you could end it by having Luke and Leia looking out a window feeling sorry for themselves. What a thrill ride!" OMG!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! This is so on the freaking nose it is simply divine!! See my opening paragraphs of this review for my personal perspective on the matter.
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Out of these 5 stories, "The Witness" was probably the best--I really enjoyed Deena's character and her speculations about what in the world was going on between Vader and Luke. "The Man Who Built Cloud City" was quirky in the best of ways. I was thankful for more queerness in "The Backup Backup Plan." It was incredibly interesting getting to hear 2-1B get all philosophical and compassionate in "Right-Hand Man." And of course, "The Whills Strike Back" was pure fun and honest humor which I loved.
Overall, this Empire Strikes Back collection was a real winner and, although I think I might have enjoyed the A New Hope version more because it felt a little more expansive, this one was still right up my alley with some truly wonderful perspectives on the events we all know and love from characters we've never met until now!! Fingers crossed double time for FACPOV: Return of the Jedi!!!
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