I'm not a huge reader of short stories, but naturally when I saw that there was an anthology of Star Wars related stories in honor of the fortieth anniversary of A New Hope, I had to check it out. From a Certain Point of View: 40 Stories Celebrating 40 Years of Star Wars features stories by--you guessed it--forty different authors, many of whom have written other Star Wars content. (My personal favorite is Ian Doescher's William Shakespeare's Star Wars.) But Meg Cabot also has a story in here (who knew she was into Star Wars?), as does Nnedi Okorafor (one of my favorite sf&f authors).
Most of these stories offer the perspective or backstory of a relatively minor character--Nnedi Okorafor from the perspective of the monster in the trash compactor, Meg Cabot writes from Aunt Beru's perspective--or of a character who is maybe important to the plot but doesn't get much screen time--Ian Doescher writes from Emperor Palpatine's POV (in verse, of course). Others are from more major characters--Cavan Scott's about Obi-Wan Kenobi, Gary D. Schmidt's about Yoda, Charles Soule's about Lando Calrissian--and some are from characters so minor they are not named in the movie or memorable to this casual fan of the films. Almost all are thoroughly enjoyable--if you like Star Wars. Assuming you do enjoy A New Hope, this collection is definitely worth a look, though I can't imagine it would be particularly enjoyable (or comprehensible) for those who aren't familiar with the film.
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