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

Book isn't out til tomorrow here - Amazon UK order will go in tomorrow morning. (There are other books on the list).

 

Spoiler

Red Two from the Battle of Endor identified at last?

Devoured it in one sitting yesterday, much like the original. As expected, "Rendezvous Point" and "Ion Control" are two of my favourites.

The many continuity nods were certainly a surprise, but very welcome.

While the book isn't physically out in the UK until tomorrow, it is already available on the UK iTunes store.

 

Ding Ding Ding! Well done Commander!

 

Spoiler

Oooh, that would definitely make sense, especially because Red Two and Horton Salm are lookalikes.

 

Yeah. In fact, I think the Star Wars Fact Files may have drawn that same connection in their entries on the characters. Don't really remember.

I know. I liked to think Revan's successful defence against a team-up served as the genesis of his rule-by-two thinking. It worked quite nicely with PoD later having his holocron tell Bane "anyone who takes more than one apprentice is a fool, in time they will combine forces and turn against the master." (or wtte)

I also used to figure that was when Malak lost his jaw.

(Of course, there was no especially compelling reason to think that any of Revan's non-Malak apprentices were ever going by "Darth". Nothing about that in the crawl. I just liked to think so. Yay fanon.)

Voren and Glovoc were the kind of WotC additions that embittered me precisely because they spoilt what I took to be obvious.

Bandon is the only Darth encountered in game alongside Malak (every other Sith being named a "Sith Master" at most) and implied to be his second. BioWare could have justified Uthar Wynn being a Darth. Yuthura, even. Or a bunch of other Sith characters. They pointedly were not.

TSL obviously has a triumvirate but that's in the wake of Malak's defeat and the Sith Empire splintering. While all three Sith Lords may have been around and kicking in Revan and Malak's rule, there was no cause to think they were rocking "Darth" or even "Lord" titles at the same time. Sion was later given a GSW backstory in the KotOR Campaign guide but in game we were told (well, via a lore loading screen, so it was easy to miss) that he had learnt his unique dark side skills on Malachor.

. . .

This is really off-topic. I blame darklordoftech.

 

I’m not done with “Rendezvous Point” but @jasonfry, thank you.
Thank. You. I could not stop laughing and I have warm fuzzies.

 

Spoiler

A relative of Salm for Red Two at Endor has been one of my top suggestions for several years now. @jasonfry I commend you

 

I don’t like “The Final Order (too dry for me) but I am tearing up and want to cry at this end.

Spoiler

None shall pass. </3

 

Spoiler

Yeah, and smash smash, bye bye Star Destroyer.

 

Ordered my copy (and a few other things) from Amazon UK this morning. Should get it next week.

 

Reading in order, i’m only up to the Jason Fry’s Wedge story. So far some really great stories and some very low. I noticed A bunch of discrepancies between stories and canon. It feels like the editors were not reading the stories and how they fit into continuity and between themselves. One example- the operation of the snowspeeders

 

I guess but just seems a perfect excuse for lazy storytelling

 

Some stories directly go against other stories in the same book.

 

In terms of whether or not the snowspeeders have flown before on Hoth, I'd defer to the film - "Are the speeders ready?" "Not yet - we're having trouble adapting them to the cold."

Trying to marry the two accounts together, from a certain point of view after all, perhaps they've flown on short test flights in good conditions rather than in the middle of a blizzard as night is falling, as in the film when Han goes out on the tauntaun.

 

It's not "lazy storytelling", it's a different approach. As @Todd the Jedi says, the intention is for the authors to tell their own unique story that's as weird or specific as they want it to be. They deliberately ignored continuity for this purpose. To use the parlance of our times, it's a feature, not a bug.

It's like complaining that the characters in the Lego specials seem to be acting silly and overly comical. That's the whole point of the exercise.

 

For forty years now, I was certain Han yelled "HE could use a good kiss!", referring to Chewie, at Leia in the Echo Base hallway.
My entire world has been blown to smithereens.

 

OTOH things from Legends that are brought in are now things I consider FULLY CANON, thank you very much.
I'm looking at you, "There is Always Another." *salutes Mackenzi Lee*

Also, @R4-D4 inconsistencies happen, even in real life. You ask someone how to drive a car, and how they work, you'll get different answers. Too, I've listened to a few episodes on a new podcast featuring the authors ("Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View: The Empire Strikes Back" Author Commentary), and it sounds as if the authors weren't collaborating with each other on the stories. In that case, one person focuses on one aspect of Hoth and another focuses on another,...so they seem to contradict each other, but that doesn't necessarily have to be the case.

It is really funny though how so many focused on betting on Han/Leia without realizing it until later.

 

Sigh... the way the authors have free reign and contradict each other... this book needs an infinities label. That really annoys me and ruins the enjoyment of it... so far I have yet to find a story I enjoy, the first few were boring me. Despite some good writing styles, the ideas or characters didn't do it for me.

And could authors at least research existing squadron rosters instead of randomly adding new names to them?

Still a pity this and the ANH facpov are noncanon... like the new canon movie novelisations from few years ago that were really fun and innovative with new added scenes. Those I loved, but nobody remembers them anymore, at least nobody of the authors.

 

Are you talking about "The Princess, the Scoundrel, and the Farm Boy" and the others from that series? Those are canon, aren't they? Pretty sure they are. And I remember them... that first one in particular was great. I still say Alexandra Bracken needs a shot at a Big Three novel.

 

Again? SW diet for greedy gannet Sinny.

My SpeedyHen copy is in the post.