Lit Books FROM A CERTAIN POINT OF VIEW: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK

Burning books is a big NO NO my friend!!! Besides, think of all the electronics in books with audio and light up bonus content. What about digital collections and ebooks? Burning some of those materials is even hurting nature even more.



Besides your kids probably will put you in some unmarked grave and sell off your collection on ebay!

There is only one way to go... Star Wars will never outlive us. Not if we can become a talking head in a jar!

 

'Star Wars': Get under Boba Fett's helmet in exclusive 'From a Certain Point of View' excerpt

Spoiler

Boba Fett was the essence of cool when he first blasted onto the big screen in 1980’s “The Empire Strikes Back,” getting summoned aboard an Imperial starship and receiving a grave order from Darth Vader when hunting the Rebel heroes: “No disintegrations.” But what was going on under the “Star Wars” fan favorite’s helmet in that moment?

That’s the short story told by author Zoraida Córdova (of the "Brooklyn Brujas" series) in "From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back" (Del Rey Books, out Nov. 10), the second collection of tales in which writers — 40 for the 40th anniversary of “Empire” — illuminate a memorable scene from “Star Wars” from the perspective of a supporting character. (Paul Dini wrote the Fett story in 2017's first "From a Certain Point of View" book.)

Córdova re-creates the memorable "Empire" sequence where Vader brings in a host of bounty hunters to track down the Millennium Falcon: “What's going through their minds while they're essentially waiting for their chance? It's a very shoot-your-shot kind of moment — in Boba's mind at least. What kind of reputation do you have to garner that Darth Vader singles you out and tells you not to turn someone to ashes?”

When she was a kid, Córdova memorized all of Luke Skywalker’s dialogue, and as a teen found Han Solo “dreamy.” “But Boba Fett was just cool in a way other characters weren’t,” Córdova says. His anonymity always made him intriguing, and she dug the Mandalorian armor, yet it wasn’t until she got more backstory in the “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” animated series “that I truly fell in love with Boba Fett. His life is consumed by revenge first and survival second. That shapes him into the most infamous bounty hunter in the galaxy.”

Córdova enjoys “fictional characters that have some sort of an emotional bruise," she adds. "Boba witnesses his father's murder and then is raised by the worst scum of the galaxy. He's scrappy and full of rage. And so I wanted to glimpse into that a bit.”

USA TODAY has an exclusive excerpt from Córdova’s “Wait for It” as well as audiobook narration by Jon Hamm. “Boba doesn't say a lot in the movies, but I bet he's thinking a lot, and to me, that thought process has to have a certain confidence and swagger,” she says. Hamm’s interpretation “captures that observant but short-tempered bravado, which is really awesome.”


Read below (or listen) to an exclusive excerpt from "Wait for It," by Zoraida Cordova ("From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back"):

 

I'm impressed that Jon Hamm bothered to do impressions of the other characters. His Dengar voice is pretty good!

 

Spoiler: excerpt from 'Hunger' (Wampa story) by Mark Oshiro

A small pack left the cavern one morning, all riding astride the upright, horned beasts. His instinct took over: He could deal with a group this small. Eventually, all living creatures lost to his kind. And with another upon its back, the horned beast could not maintain its normal speed.

Meaning it could not escape.

It would be too easy.

But the challenge did not matter to him. He followed the pack, watched them split up and spread out over the ice. He remained distant and quiet as he always did. He wanted the last thing his prey saw to be the whiteness of his fur, his ferocious maw cracked open, his sharp claws slicing at the softness of their neck.

He wanted that not for hunger. Not to satiate his need to feast.

No.

He needed to fill the cavern in his body.

And only blood would do that.

He chose one. There was no need to focus on the entire pack. It was the scrawny creature, the smallest of them all, that would be easiest to take down.

Would this reunite him with his clan? Would it reveal their fate to him?

No.

But it was a start.

He moved closer to the plateau, aware that there was not much cover, but there was only this chance. He stilled and observed. Watched the thing bury something in the snow.

He waited. The gangly creature climbed atop the other, and they moved forth.

Stopped.

He rushed forward then, keeping his body tucked in tight, and he closed the distance between them.

The horned beast twisted its head back, and he froze. It raised its snout in the air, sniffed a few times, and he was sure it could sense him, that the chase was about to begin.

It turned back. It remained unmoving.

He continued moving, his body hovering just above the snow, his breath even and steady.

Crash!

He stayed close to the ground, but he could not help turning his head to see the flash of fire and smoke off in the distance. It was not uncommon here; things plummeted from the sky all the time. One had once killed a packmate of his when he was a cub.

But the moment had arrived: the perfect distraction.

He glided over the ice. The creature aboard the other was making noise. Fear? Concern? Communication? He did not know. He just crept ever closer, stilling only when the beast cried out. This was it. If they spotted him, a chase would certainly follow. He would surely catch them, but he didn’t want a chase.

He wanted blood.

He rushed forward.

His massive arm was in the air, and he swung it down and roared as loudly as possible, so as to strike fear into their hearts, to freeze them in place. The smaller one’s body thumped on the snow after one slash, and then he grabbed the horned beast by the neck, snapped it with one powerful squeeze.

Neither creature moved.

And he would feast tonight.

But first, the preparation. He grabbed each of the creatures by a leg and dragged them back to the empty cavern he was now using. It was a long trek, and normally he would worry about other clans taking advantage of him. But many of them were gone as well, most likely frightened away by these strange beasts and the strange thing they had constructed out of the snow, that burst up into the sky.

He was alone out here in the ice and snow. He had been for some time.

He knew he would preserve the tiny one and consume the other. He needed the energy, and it would help him with what came next.

This would not be a lone act.

No, he would seek out the others. Pick them off one by one. Each time he took one of their lives, he would be closer to getting his home back. His den-mate. The cubs. The mother of his children.

He would get them all back.

And he had all the time in the world.

I also see that Penguin Random House Audio posted an excerpt from 'Disturbance' (Palpatine story) by Mike Chen, read by Sam Witwer:

 

http://www.theforce.net/story/front..._Empire_Strikes_Back_Virtual_Event_187946.asp

Virtual ticketed event for the book. Dates are Nov 10-12. Click through for the details!

 

With all the new Whills info directly from George Lucas in Star Wars Archives The Prequels I do wonder how this books Whills story aligns with it, or how FACPOVs for ANH might in retrospective. Legends and Canon both may be far off from what they really are, now it finally had been revealed. Or, then again, how close they came to the truth about the Whills in some regards too.

 

...Have you even read the first FACPOV? The Whills story is a joke. I don't mean that in a passive-aggressive, "I hated this story" way - it's literally a joke about metafiction and Star Wars fandom. It has nothing to do with anyone's "official" take on the Whills, Legends, canon, or Lucas.

 

One more day.....

 

Every fan before a new SW product is released...

 

I hope at least of the continuities has Darth Bane create the Rule of Two in 2000 BBY or earlier.

 

I decided I would read one story tonight before bed and I somewhat randomly chose Jason Fry’s Wedge story. I couldn’t have made a better choice! It was exactly like reading the old X-Wing books. The humor and the banter was absolutely spot on.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Care to tell...

Spoiler

Who is in it? Any Legends characters? Anything interesting?! Would love to know.

 

Why so long ago?

 

Yoda speaks of the Rule of Two as if the Sith should always be expected to follow it, the TPM novelization makes the time period from the Sith founder’s death to Darth Bane sound like a short time (in fact, it makes it sound like Bane was one of the Jedi who followed the Sith founder to the dark side), Lucas referred to the Rule of Two as something the Sith have followed for “thousands of years”, Yoda recognizes Darth Bane in TCW, and Sidious calls the Rule of Two “the first and only reality of the Sith”.

 

So, Shara Bey (Poe's mom) was only mentioned once and so was Sabine. Ahsoka was mentioned twice, and that's it for characters in TV shows, books, and comics.

 

I think canon has already hinted that something along the lines of the "Rule of Two" was in place even before Bane's version. From the junior novelization of TROS:

"The Sith were Many but often emerge Ruled by Two."

The version of the Rule of Two as stated by Darth Bane's databank entry reads:

"...there would be only two active Sith at one time -- a Dark Lord to embody the power, and an apprentice to crave it."

I don't think it would be unreasonable to put these together and conclude that a sort of semi-formal Rule of Two ("the Sith will be ruled by two Sith Lords") existed prior to Bane, who recodified it as "there shall be two Sith, period."

 

Spoiler

It's about the re-formation of Rogue Squadron/Red Squadron/Rogue Group/Red Group after Hoth. I really can't recommend it enough.
We've got:
Wedge's astromech R5-G8, complete with his noisy squealing being compared to a Mynock
Hobbie - Still dead
Wes Janson - Plenty of joking between him and Wedge. Took me right back to the 90s.
The Contessa (from Lost Stars) as Wedge's superior officer/taskmaster
Will Scotian from Shadows of the Empire/ESB
Barlon Hightower and Cinda Tarheel from 80s Marvel
ROTJ Rebel pilot extras Sila Kott and Grizz Fixx
Tomer Darpen from Starfighters of Adumar

 

Rebels also has that ancient pre-Banite Sith temple on Malachor that revolved around the whole "two/paired Sith" thing, IIRC.

I'm a fan, personally, and have been since that kind of "rule of two Darths" system was implied by KotOR. (Even if later sources insisted in throwing in needless extra Darths, like Voren. Still bitter.)

 

Exar Kun and Ulic Qel-Droma seemed to have a similar thing going on as well.

 

Spoiler

Who is Keyser Salm?

 

Spoiler

I believe in the Force, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Salm ...

 

Spoiler

Horton’s younger brother.

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Hmm... @jasonfry

Spoiler

What's Keyser Salm's story?

 

Someone will probably figure out the hole/bump being filled/fixed there. But if not, come back to me after the spoiler period....