by Andrew Hedglin
Happy Star Wars Day! May the Fourth be with you. It’s been a busy year for Star Wars fans, with Solo coming out soon, Rebels just ending its four-year run, and The Last Jedi coming out last December.
What may have slipped past your radar, if even if you’re more of a Star Wars fan than not, are three fantastic books set in the galaxy far, far away that were released this last year. The books can serve as excellent jumping off points to the “Expanded Universe” of Star Wars, because, for different reasons, they absolutely don’t require (although they do reward) deep foreknowledge of much of the Star Wars universe.
The first book I would recommend, which ties in the Solo movie coming out on May 25, is Last Shot by Daniel José Older. The story follows Han Solo and Lando Calrissian and they face off, over the course of 20 years, with a demented doctor who plans to lead a droid uprising and wipe “organics” out of the galaxy.
Older has a tricky job to pull off with Last Shot, because we’re so used to the main characters (especially Han) that it’s easy to make a misstep and write dialogue or choices that don’t jibe with at least some reader’s conceptions of the characters. Overall, though, I feel he does a good job with both of them while integrating new characters, including another hotshot pilot, an Ewok hacker, and a Twi’lek love interest for Lando.
The story is less enthralling than the character work, but still serviceable. Structured like a mystery/thriller, the novel can sometimes get choppy, going back and forth between three or four different timelines. Ultimately, it gives the characters something to do while providing a real sense of danger and unease.
The next movie-based genre-bender I’d like to recommend Phasma by Delilah S. Dawson. This book might be my favorite of the three. Captain Phasma is the chrome-plated stormtrooper who menaced and glowered throughout the first two films of the sequel trilogy. If you’ve seen The Force Awakens, you know everything you really need to in order to enjoy this book.
Phasma sort of fills a very Boba Fett-type role in the new trilogy. She looks fierce and awesome, she is shrouded in-universe by myth and reputation, and…well, if you’ve seen either The Force Awakens or The Last Jedi, she shares one other disappointing trait with Fett as well.
Nevertheless! If it’s myth and reputation you’ve come for, this excellent origin novel by Dawson crackles with danger and menace. She wasn’t always a faceless servant to the First Order. A scant few years ago, she led a brutal life on the failing planet of Parnassos. She and her brother Keldo jointly rule a small band of survivalists called the Scyre [pronounced SKYur], until one day General Brendol Hux of the First Order falls from the sky in a damaged ship. Everything changes for Phasma and her small but deadly band of warriors as they risk everything to return Hux to his ship so they can, ostensibly, reap the beneficence that the First Order is able bestow upon them in the form of advanced technology.
Phasma shows a side of the Star Wars universe that is typically ignored by the flashier parts of the franchise. Some aliens species do exist on Parnassos, but most of the space-age technology is even more unfamiliar to them to than it would be to us. Phasma is a post-apocalyptic road novel as much as it is a part of the Star Wars universe. You can see Phasma’s character development from cave-dweller to the silver-suited character that you see on the silver screen, but it’s her personality that shines in this tale, not her later shiny accouterments.
The other book I have to recommend, which relies heavily on its movie source material, is From a Certain Point of View, an anthology of 40 short stories that retell the original Star Wars movie (Episode IV: A New Hope, even though the title is taken from Obi-Wan’s line in Return of the Jedi). Released in honor of the 40th anniversary of that movie’s release, each of its protagonists are either minor or unseen characters that provide fresh perspective on the story we see onscreen. It also includes a story apiece from both Delilah Dawson and Daniel José Older.
The tone and quality of the stories do vary wildly, but when they are good, they’re really good. Some of funny, some are serious, but at best they really expand the universe and make it feel lived-in. Some of favorites were about a random Jawa who decided not to erase R2-D2’s memory, and observing the final moments of Alderaan from the queen’s point of view on its surface, and the circuitous hi-jinks of the motley cantina crew, and the toll the mission to blow up the Death Star took on regular, anonymous members of the Rebel Alliance flight crews.
From a Certain Point of View takes you back to the start, completing a circuit of wonder and awe, that I, and surely many other Star Wars fans, were looking for when we first made our trip into outer space.
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