This collection is like many short story collections out there in that some of the stories were fantastic to me and some of the stories were just meh. The difference is, of course, these are all Star Wars stories. So I loved the vast majority of them. The premise of this book was to look at Star Wars: A New Hope from a new perspective (or, rather, 40 new perspectives). 40 different writers chose different secondary or tertiary characters and told bits of the story. The collection moves in order based on the events of the film, though there is some overlap.
Quite a few authors chose Cantina stories, which makes sense as there are a vast number of characters from which to choose. I was ready to move on to another scene after the third, however. There were also a large number of stories focusing on the big battle at the end against the Death Star, which also makes sense because there are so many players, but they were all told with so much heart I was too busy crying to be bored. Fake-Wedge making real Wedge out to be a hero especially touched my heart.
There were also some super creative points of view I had not considered. There was a story told by the creature in the trash compactor, another by a Tusken raider, and even one by a mouse droid. So creative! I liked the way events were witnessed by characters who weren’t even in the movie, including Qui-Gon, Yoda, and Lando. Yoda wrapped up in Qui-Gon’s cloak to sleep is my new favorite headcanon.
My favorite story comes as no surprise: Claudia Grey’s “Master and Apprentice.” Reading it during the pandemic, while we were on stay-at-home orders really made this quote jump out at me: “Anyone can fight, given a weapon and an enemy. Anyone can use a lightsaber, given due training or even good luck. But to stand and wait—to have so much patience and fortitude—that, Obi-Wan, is a greater achievement than you can know. Few could have accomplished it.” -Qui-Gon
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