Life Day Treasury: Holiday Stories from a Galaxy Far, Far Away by George Mann & Cavan Scott - Part I

Life Day Treasury: Holiday Stories from a Galaxy Far, Far Away written by George Mann & Cavan Scott, illustrated by Grant Griffin

I was super excited about this book from get and, two stories in, I'm feeling all the Christmas nostalgia!! This is the perfect book for the holidays for sure. Growing up, I used to re-read all the Christmas books we owned, regardless of length, during the month of December. This book has made me feel like I'm picking right back up where I left off, reading feel-good stories about people doing the right thing and others benefitting from their good deeds. I just love it. (Note: I am full up holly jolly at the moment, like my house looks like Christmas threw up on it holly jolly, so I can't say how the book comes off if you're reading it and you're not in the Holiday spirit... But even then, it might just brighten up a sad day to read such stories of small hopes fulfilled set in the Star Wars galaxy.)

I'm going to try and review two of the stories a day (there are 8 total) for the next four days as a lead in to Christmas Eve/Day!! I've been distracted with Dune so much lately that I haven't gotten my Star Wars fix much except for the three comics a week I've been reviewing, so reading some good short stories set in the galaxy far, far away is really a treat! 

---

Just a bit of trivia before moving into the individual stories: 

-There are many different midwinter celebrations across the galaxy "born from ancient times when people huddled on the coldest of nights, dreaming of the warmth of days to come."

-Coruscant has Solstice Tide

-New Alderaan (wait...what?!?!) has the Festival of Winter's Heart

-Ewoks on the sanctuary moon of Endor have White Fall

-the Mon Calamari have the Turning of the Year's Tide

-the Hutts have the Funton a Charakoon a.k.a. the Festival of the Thousand Suns

---

Without further ado, below you will find my thoughts on the first two stories:

---

A Coruscant Solstice

Although I very much enjoyed reading this one, I felt that it was definitely a huge cliche. We have Stellan Gios who's meant to be at the Jedi Temple helping to prepare the Solstice Feast, a huge party to which dignitaries of every major religious community on Corsucant are invited (I wanna know more about these "major religious communities"!!). But, Stellan can't help scratching a nostalgic itch by walking the streets of Coruscant at the height of the planet's Solstice festivities. See him on the cover illustration, taking stock of the scene down below him on the streets.

Before I get to the cliche, I'd like to say that Stellan did not feel like the right pick as the main character of this story. It felt much more like an Elzar Mann sort of tale. I don't see Stellan as being a person who would go out of his way to walk through the crowded streets, sharing in the excitement and joy of the passersby...like, no, I mean, this feels an awful lot like letting your emotions overtake you--and that would be Elzar NOT Stellan. Weird. 

So the cliche, there's a little Gotal boy named Nittel Karkson, Nit for short. Stellan catches him stealing from people on the street and after the boy notices that Stellan's attention is on him, he bolts with Stellan not far behind. Of course, Nit goes deeper down into the lower levels of Coruscant, not to get away from the Jedi, but because he's headed back home. Stellan intervenes when three gang members accost the Gotal boy (a Nephran named Acantha, a Lepi, and the leader is an Octeroid named Norikus), saving him from a beating. Eventually Stellan finds his way to Nit's home and sees that his grandmother is in very poor health. ...so, Nit didn't steal for himself, he stole for someone he cared about who was in need. It's super sweet and heart warming, but has been done so many times before. Luckily there was a slight twist to it after that so it wasn't all cliche. I don't know, I was just hoping for something more unique...which I definitely got in the second story!!

Trivia: 

-"The avenues were lined with vecari trees from the forests of Seylott, each long bough decked with glittering glow-globes as bright as the superscrapers that stretched into the night sky."

---

An Old Hope

It appears that this story gives us another tale to add to the small collection of those told while Obi-Wan Kenobi was watching over little Luke on Tatooine, small at least until the show is released! The intro image does a great job of capturing the crux of the whole story though. It's about LA-R1, a red astromech droid (see the image to the left) who gets snatched up by Jawas (just as he was headed home to celebrate the gathering of the clans with his master Fedbord and his family) and stuffed in a sandcrawler with a bunch of other droids in various states of disrepair.  

9R-NC is a CZ communications droid with a missing arm (see image to the left) who talks endlessly about their hopeless situation and how nothing will ever change and how all humans are just plain bad. He continues his shtick even while the other droids gather round and share heartwarming stories of their travels and their masters. This leads to a PK worker droid beginning a story about "The Oil-Bringer," basically Santa Clause but for droids!! Too freaking cute. 

"Once a year, a jolly old human travels the cosmos to ease the burden of droids everywhere. He oils joints, fixes logic boards, even soothes troubled motivators." And then it gets wonderfully weird!! In response to 9R-NC's incredulity to the idea that one human could visit every single droid on every single planet in one night, the other PK worker droid says, "Not if he's flying his bantha." HAHA!! The Treadwell droid then says the Oil-Bringer travels on a magical podracer powered by "cybernetic cheer." Wow, lol.

9R-NC talks everybody (except LA-R1) out of their excitement and so all the droids power down for the night (again, except LA-R1). While the others sleep, LA-R1 oils their joints, welds a new arm onto 9R-NC, removes restraining bolts, and just generally repairs all of his newfound friends. Just as LA-R1 is finally headed to sleep, a sand elk attacks the sandcrawler, "a six-legged, scaly-skinned colossus with antlers as wide as a Corellian freighter." The sand elk turns out to be crazy powerful and completely takes out the crawler, allowing the droids to all run free...but not before proclaiming that the Oil-Bringer must be real. Yay for LA-R1's compassion!! 

Unfortunately, LA-R1 is low on oil, has a severed power cable, and is losing charge very quickly, so he gets stuck in the downed crawler. But I did say this was an Obi-Wan story...which means, it's probably going to have a delightful and surprising ending, and for sure it does!

Trivia:

-LA-R1 meets Kenobi and subsequently gets grabbed by Jawas in Mos Gofti.

-The sun sets behind the Sunfire Mountains on the outskirts of Mos Gofti.

-Other sites in Mos Gofti include Kresslyn's Cantina, the Sakiyan food market, and Brotingo's jerba paddock.

-Crater's Reach is supposedly a place where very bad things get done to droids.

---

So far, I am absolutely delighted with this collection of Star Wars holiday tales!! Looking forward to stories 3 and 4 tomorrow...