A review by kndacus
From a Certain Point of View, by Elizabeth Schaefer
4.0
Cumulative rating based only on the stories I read (see list below): 3.5
I wish I could have rated this higher -- the concept of retelling the story of the original Star Wars film from peripheral characters is fascinating. But, unfortunately, it has a tendency to get bogged down in scenes that really don't need that many viewpoints, or with characters who really aren't interesting enough to care about. (There are so many stories set in the cantina scene that I thought we'd never get off Tatooine!)
For me, the two best stories were "Born in the Storm" by Daniel Jose Older, and "Eclipse" by Madeleine Roux. And the audiobook is the best way to experience these stories!
I didn't read all of the stories in the book---and several were DNFs for me (due to the above-mentioned extended layover at the cantina). So here's what I read and how I rated them:
Whitta, Gary – Raymus – 3
Golden, Christie – The Bucket – 3
Liu, Ken – The Sith of Datawork – 3.5
McElroy, Griffin – Stories in the Sand – 3
Tahir, Sabaa – Reirin – 2.5
Carson, Rae – The Red One – 3.5
Gray, Claudia – Master and Apprentice – 3.5
Cabot, Meg – Beru Whitsun Lars – 3.5
Ahdieh, Renee – The Luckless Rodian – 3.75
Older, Daniel Jose – Born in the Storm – 5
Revis, Beth – Fully Operational – 2.5
Ortberg, Mallory – An Incident Report – 3
Wein, Elizabeth – Change of Heart – 2
Roux, Madeleine – Eclipse – 4.5
Hidalgo, Pablo – Verge of Greatness – 3
For my reading challenge, this will count as Gary Whitta's "Raymus." I will find other titles by the other authors to include, as I count individual short stories in my reading challenge numbers, but GR doesn't let me break them out when they're in an anthology like From a Certain Point of View.
I wish I could have rated this higher -- the concept of retelling the story of the original Star Wars film from peripheral characters is fascinating. But, unfortunately, it has a tendency to get bogged down in scenes that really don't need that many viewpoints, or with characters who really aren't interesting enough to care about. (There are so many stories set in the cantina scene that I thought we'd never get off Tatooine!)
For me, the two best stories were "Born in the Storm" by Daniel Jose Older, and "Eclipse" by Madeleine Roux. And the audiobook is the best way to experience these stories!
I didn't read all of the stories in the book---and several were DNFs for me (due to the above-mentioned extended layover at the cantina). So here's what I read and how I rated them:
Whitta, Gary – Raymus – 3
Golden, Christie – The Bucket – 3
Liu, Ken – The Sith of Datawork – 3.5
McElroy, Griffin – Stories in the Sand – 3
Tahir, Sabaa – Reirin – 2.5
Carson, Rae – The Red One – 3.5
Gray, Claudia – Master and Apprentice – 3.5
Cabot, Meg – Beru Whitsun Lars – 3.5
Ahdieh, Renee – The Luckless Rodian – 3.75
Older, Daniel Jose – Born in the Storm – 5
Revis, Beth – Fully Operational – 2.5
Ortberg, Mallory – An Incident Report – 3
Wein, Elizabeth – Change of Heart – 2
Roux, Madeleine – Eclipse – 4.5
Hidalgo, Pablo – Verge of Greatness – 3
For my reading challenge, this will count as Gary Whitta's "Raymus." I will find other titles by the other authors to include, as I count individual short stories in my reading challenge numbers, but GR doesn't let me break them out when they're in an anthology like From a Certain Point of View.