From A Certain Point of View is a short story anthology released for the 40th anniversary of A New Hope. Released in 2017, it has forty authors who each take some different character--some shown in the movie itself, others interacting with the story in the background--and tells their 'side' of it. It's a Disney EU piece, and so it sometimes contradicts Legends, playing on a mostly blank slate. Considering the concept, there's also a high risk of Skippy The Jedi Droid shenanigans showing up. Though I've been told that some liked him, so maybe I'll have my own favorite Skippies by the end.
People who know me know that I'm a fan of Legends, warts and all. So is this some sort of hate read, about how they've sullied the glory that is A New Hope, and the Legends EU? Nope. I have read just four stories in this anthology, and so there's plenty of time for it to go way south, but I'm also oddly enthralled. So far even the worst of them is 'okay' and the best is legitimately amazing.
So, how will this work?
For each work, I'll provide a spoilered plot summary, an analysis/critique, a section of highlights, in which I might quote bits of prose or lore or whatever else that I especially like.
Finally I'll do a several sentence summing up, and give it a rating… not out of 10, but instead in comparison to the other works. So, for instance, the first story isn't my favorite of the four I've read so far, but because it's first it'll briefly occupy the #1 slot on the list that will be below.
Sounds simple, no?
Hope y'all enjoy. Please do ask questions, whether about the works, or why I like this, that or the other thing. And if you are tempted to read--or if you've already read it--feel free to point out things I miss or disagree with me.
Don't spoil any of the stories I haven't gotten around to reading, though. Spoilers aren't always bad, but in this case I want to come into it… relatively blind.
1) Stories in the Sand by Griffin McElroy
2) Duty Roster by Jason Fry
3) The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction
4) Grounded by Greg Rucka.
5) Incident Report by Daniel M. Lavery
6) The Baptist by Nnedi Okafer
7) Time of Death by Cavan Scott.
8) Master and Apprentice by Claudia Gray
9) The Red One by Rae Carson
10) Eclipse by Madeline Roux
11) There Is Another by Gary D. Schmidt.
12) The Angle by Charles Soule
13) The Trigger by Kieron Gillen
14) The Sith of Datawork by Ken Liu
15) Palpatine by Ian Doescher
16) Bump by Ben Acker and Ben Blacker
17) The Luckless Rodian by Renee Ahdieh
18) Fully Operational by Beth Revis
19) The Bucket by Christie Golden
20) Desert Son by Pierce Brown
21) Verge of Greatness by Pablo Hidalgo
22) End of Watch by Adam Christopher.
23) The Secret of Long Snoot by Delilah S. Dawson
24) By Whatever Sun by E.K Johnston and Ahsley Ekstein
25) You Owe Me A Ride by Zoraida Cordova
26) Laina by Will Wheaton
27) Of MSE-6 And Men by Glen Weldon
28) Not for Nothing by Mur Lafferty
29) Whills by Tom Angleberger
30) Change of Heart by Elizabeth Wein
31) Beru Whitesun Lars by Meg Cabot
32) Born In The Storm by Daniel Jose Older
33) Rites by John Jackson Piller
34) Reirin by Sabaa Tahir
35) Raymus by Gary Whitta
36) Contingency Plan by Alexander Freed
37) We Don't Serve Their Kind Here by Chuck Wendig
38) Sparks by Paul S. Kemp
39) Added Muscle by Paul Dini
The story follows Captain Raymus Antilles of the Tantive IV, beginning just with Leia's Rogue One line--that even I, who hasn't seen it, know--that they have sent us "Hope."
He reflects on her enigmatic nature, and the fact that the Tantive IV's hyperspace systems are half-broken. They're leaking a unique energy signal that won't be hard to follow, and the ship itself might not even be able to keep in hyperspace long enough to make it to Tatooine. Certainly, going to Yavin IV is a mistake.
He preps the escape pods, expecting the best scenario to be a desperate evacuation, and they learn that the Empire has sent out, basically, a galaxy wide APB to stop all C90 Corvettes. Palpatine's fucking done being subtle.
The second officer on the ship reflects on how terrifying Darth Vader was, while Antilles thinks about his wife and two daughters and tries to think of how to write letters to them… but he's interrupted from even trying by the ship exiting hyperspace eight minutes from Tatooine. Shortly after, as they make the impossible race, a Star Destroy appears on their tail.
He orders the rear shields to full power and orders his men to the escape pod.
He meets with Leia, who he trusts, and who says goodbye, knowing this would probably be the last time they met. Captured by the Stormtroopers after a vain resistance, he's confronted by Vader, who obviously doesn't buy his excuses about a diplomatic mission.
In his final moments, all he can do is hope that Leia and the Rebels can win.
Analysis
One of the secrets of character pieces is that the character has to be interesting. Raymus Antilles is, to a large extent, a stock character. He's written competently, and I did feel his love for his wife and his devotion to duty. But like the prose, his characterization is workmanlike. It makes sense: Antilles didn't seem like the sort to engage in over the top metaphors, but as a character piece it falls a little flat.
I did, however, love the details about its worldbuilding. The prepped escape pods, the leaking hyperdrive trail, and the brief hints of a galactic ship-hunt are all well put in. This is very much a story to read for the bits of lore and ideas it might give you. Like, I will probably include the risk of hyperdrive energy leak at some point, thanks to this. It apparently fills in some uncertain areas in Rogue One, which makes sense when I looked him up and learned that...
Gary Whitta is, apparently, one of the people who developed the story of Rogue One, which makes this make more sense. It's a second bite of the apple, an expansion and an explanation of what he was going for. Unfortunately for him I didn't watch Rogue One. So maybe if I did, this would resonate far more, as a conclusion to everything and the last link in the chain between Rogue One and Episode 4. It makes sense, considering it's Disney Canon, that this would be the place to start.
Highlights
As I said, the prose was mostly workmanlike, but I did like a few sections that I want to talk about.
But the Tantive IV's impaired hyperdrive was like a leaky oil pan, leaving behind a residual energy signal that was unique--and traceable.
I both like the little simile, and like the idea. It makes the world feel a little more real.
"That… thing. In the hallway, while we were trying to get off the Profundity. It killed at least a dozen of my men, cut them down like they were nothing. Blasters had no effect, it just kept on coming, kept on killing. It was like… like a nightmare. I've never seen anything like it, like some kind of death angel."
Raymus and Leia exchanged a grim look as they realized what this must mean. To retrieve what had been stolen from them, the Empire had dispatched none other than Darth Vader himself. And that was the most dire news of all.
I certainly felt the fear a lot more powerfully than the force. Yes, the dialogue here isn't great, but it also makes sense that a rattled person would talk that way, and I did like how it portrayed Vader.
This is the end of a longer section about hope, and is the final line of the story. I'm not sure whether being a fan of Rogue One would have made this hit harder, or whether it would have felt an unnecessary callback. Rogue One fans who read this… please comment on how you feel about this story.
Rating/Summary:
A workmanlike piece of writing, it has enough emotion and pathos to keep you going until the end, but doesn't do anything particularly exciting, either with its plot or its characters. Its worldbuilding details are solid, but it certainly wouldn't be #1 if it wasn't the first. I admittedly didn't help the story by not having seen Rogue One. The chronological nature of all of this definitely doesn't do the anthology any justice, considering some of the stories coming, which really excite me to talk about.
I appreciate feedback. I was thinking of releasing a new short story review every day, to give myself a bit of a buffer (I've written up a review for the second and third story, both are much longer) and time to read, analyze and so on.
It's a good comparison and a good bit of sensible worldbuilding that I'll likely steal, since it isn't nailed down. Those sorts of things were the real draw of that particular story for me, since as I said I lacked the emotional connection that Rogue One might have given me.
I honestly really enjoyed reading this book when it came out, hit or miss. It was a damned interesting concept. I'm glad they're making one of these for the Empire Strikes back, and I'm also glad to see an excuse to talk about it.
This opening story ain't much, but it is a nice little cog for those who want to smooth out the connection between Rogue One and A New Hope.
I honestly really enjoyed reading this book when it came out, hit or miss. It was a damned interesting concept. Glad to see an excuse to talk about it.
This opening story ain't much, but it is a nice little cog for those who want to smooth out the connection between Rogue One and A New Hope.
Cool idea for a read. I also thought this was a cool concept and I remember enjoying most of the stories, even if only a couple really stood out and there were a few clunkers.
The bucket follows a Stormtrooper, TK-4601, and opens with him thinking about how he likes how his helmet hid him from the world, including a voice device that helped hide his nerves, or his awkward blond hair, or a coloration that meant his every emotions as revealed instantly.
"The bucket" hides that he's grinning like an idiot at his good luck in being assigned as part of "Vader's Fist" taking the fight to the Rebels. He feels some of the orders he follows are senselessly cruel, but behind "the bucket" he can hide from that. He's given orders with four others to find the Princess.
He's heard of her, and is startled that she's a Senator at nineteen, younger than him. He thinks that she must be young and naive, and when they find her he's startled at how small she is, having assumed she'd be some "strong and muscular" warrior princess, to be a rebel. He realizes how dangerous she is just before she actually takes down the Captain of the group with a single well-aimed shot. She goes down in a hail of stun bolts.
With the Captain dead, he was temporarily in charge, and he reflects how Stormtroopers are to be left where they die until after battle, and the Princess at his feet. We get his name in passing: Tarvyn Larenka. Looking at her makes him lose his nerve, and he requests to be sent down to the planet, because he knows what Vader will do to her, and would rather not be there.
He loved the Empire, but being a faceless mask and killing people he could truly see was terrible, especially in an uneven fight.
In a spontaneous moment he takes off his helmet, and the Princess nods at him. The story ends with him thinking that he's reminded her that there's a person underneath the bucket… and reminded himself as well.
Analysis
I'm probably going to be repeating this, but "The Bucket " was shorter than "Raymus". It has no right to pack as much as it does into it, though it too will be surpassed as a short story before too long.
Emotionally it does a very good job of placing you within the slightly closed off world of a stormtrooper, and developing the inner emotional life of its character through, and it times despite, their outward actions. As worldbuilding it was pretty good, and as characterization it was pretty good, though the section where he's surprised at Leia was slightly off.
Still, all in all it's a pretty good piece of writing that doesn't outstay its welcome, or create a huge revelation where the characters and events wouldn't support it. He even downplays the final moment, knowing that it wasn't some grand connection or sea change, just a moment of, well, humanity amid a vicious civil war.
I'd like more little pieces like this, that know what they're about and know what Star Wars is about. In that way, Raymus is similar: for all its problems, Raymus, like this works, knows what Star Wars is about.
Of course, what it's about can change, and not every work needs to hit on themes of the value of hope, the importance of human/sentient connections, or the wonders of the galaxy. But it certainly doesn't hurt The Bucket, which not so subtly contrasts these human connections with the dehumanization that Stormtroopers are expected to engage in with both themselves and others.
The author, Christie Golden, has a long Star Wars pedigree of mixed reception, beginning with books for the old EU and stretching past it, into the newest works. Beyond these facts, I've never read anything else by her.
Highlights
There were a few more passages than last review that I'll want to look at.
First, at the start:
TK-4601 was disproportionately grateful for the stormtrooper helmet. For one thing, it smashed down the unruly tuft of blond hair that would never obey a comb or brush--the one that made him look like he was thirteen. His fair skin reddened and paled easily, too, which meant that no matter how diligent he was in schooling his expressions, his coloring always betrayed him. With his helmet on, though, and with the device that rendered the voices of stormtroopers almost completely identical, his reactions--good or bad--were much harder for others to determine.
This is a pretty solid way to introduce a character and its themes. He seems to appreciate, at least at the start of the story, the way his helmet hides his true self… who is quite awkward. There's a definitely focus on the real and the mediated in the story, as seen…
TK-4601's heart was still racing and he could feel the heat in his cheeks and the smile on his face. He'd deliberately pushed the casual murder of the captain out of his mind, and now he was beyond excited. He felt exultant. They were not just conducting random raids on sullen populations of distant worlds. They were in search of the real thing. Real rebels, with real cunning, who'd managed to steal plans from a major Imperial base that ought to have been impregnable.
He clearly doesn't know about the Death Star, but you're driven along by his excitement, and it almost makes sense, his combination of dismissiveness and respect for the Rebels, the foes of Law and Order.
Younger than he was, and already a Senator. Astonishing. It wouldn't be surprising if she had indeed been seduced by the siren song of the Rebellion. Its "championing of the innocent", its defiance of the order of the Empire. He'd been nineteen too, once, and remembered the appeal such ideals could have. But he had been smart and resisted the call. He was a staunch Imperial.
An Emperor outranked a princess, and the Senate's days were numbered.
By putting 'Rebel sympathies' as the fake fancy of some nebulous idealistic young woman, he separates himself from his own emotions and the clear appeal that rebellion has to him, even as he supports the 'order' that separates him from his personhood in ways large and small.
When he meets her, he realizes that she's real in a way he didn't before, that she doesn't fit stereotypes and understands
why she had sympathy for the rebellion. Why people followed her.
For a moment he didn't reply. He knew the orders. Stormtroopers lay where they fell until after the battle, and TK-9091 [The Trooper that Leia killed] could be no exception to that rule. TK-4601 could still hear the screams out in the corridors--both the high pitched sounds of blasters firing and the cries of agony from their victims.
As the narrative reveals, to him TK-9091 was a person, who told bad jokes, and now he's dead and someone and something covered by rules and regulations.
Finally, after his request to go down planetside, he has this moment:
The four escorted the princess to meet the Dark Lord, each of them towering above her diminuitive height. As TK-4601 watched them go, the princess turned to look at him searchingly.
Spontaneously, without thinking, he removed the helmet.
The princess seemed startled to see him--a human male not much older than she, fair haired, blue-eyed, his cheeks flushed.
Their gazes locked for a moment, then she gave him a slight nod and turned around. TK-4601 didn't kid himself that she understood the gesture, or that they had made any kind of connection.
But damn it, he'd reminded her that there was a person inside the plastoid armor. And more importantly, he'd reminded himself.
As an ending, this resonated far better than the first story. It was a real moment, but one which is not milked as being larger or more dramatic than it really is. It doesn't change anything, but the point of short stories is that they don't have to change anything.
It's certainly heartening to see something so very solid this early on.
Rating/Summary:
This is a very good work, especially for its short length. It has a lot to do, and it does it all skillfully. I'd definitely recommend that people trying to write Stormtroopers read this, as it is definitely a pretty good portrayal, especially if you're operating within Disney Canon. This will be my new #1… out of two. So there's a lot left to go.
I'm reminded of a quote from one of the directors of The Clone Wars:
Dave Filoni said:
"The Clones, over their development time, because of their relationship with the Jedi, they had colorful armor, they wore symbols, they had individual names, they disregarded their numbers and they became real people. And then the Empire took a bunch of real people and turned them into a bunch of numbered clones."
Which is also about how the Empire dehumanizes stormtroopers, and uses the Clones (during the Clone War(s), at least), who were decanted to be identical, replaceable, disposable meat-droids, but grew and became their own individual selves, as a contrast and inversion.
This work is a first person narrative by Arviva, a fleet logistics liaison who is known for being especially cunning at navigating the bureaucracy of datawork--the Star Wars term for paperwork. Their gender isn't specified, as far as I can tell.
They are approached by gunnery Captain Bolvan, who ordered their gunner not to fire on the escape pod that, we all know, contained our two intrepid droids. Now he's afraid that his refusal to fire will look very bad, since it's clear that the plans aren't aboard the vessel.
Arviva's narration, filled with the forms and bureaucracy, leads them to ask why: to which Bolvan reveals that a new policy put in place, attempting to address rebel propaganda that Imperials are bad shots--ties a gunnery officer's promotion to their kill ratio. So ordering a shot on a lifeless escape pod would hurt his record. So he comes to Arviva, who of course finds a clever solution using datawork.
To summarize, the plan is:
Send all the gunners on a "mid-cruise extra-vehicular-armament inspection" with "Form INS-776-TX." This will occupy the gunner who is the only other witness of Bolvan's mistake. It also allows them to put down 'non-responsive triggering mechanisms' as the reason for inspection, to add an alibi.
Bolvan should convince his commanding officer to fill out inspection forms for the Tantive IV, so that his *officer* is the one who discovers that the plans aren't there, thus raising the problem of the pod… but distancing Bolvan from the act.
A maintenance form request for droids to clean the viewports. This itself will completely obscure the view. Thus if his commanding officer looks he'll see the foam and assume that Bolvan couldn't have seen the escape pod. And even if he digs, Bolvan can argue that he ordered the viewports cleaned because he couldn't see through them.
With this, Parji will have to bring the bad news to Vader, and Bolvan will be safe… for a price. Arviva operates in a network of favors in exchange for their help… and for this they want a little target practice section with the guns.
And thus ends the story.
Analysis
This was a truly amazing story. It was short, and focused mostly on the dialogue between two officers, which makes it good that its dialogue was so well written. I managed to get a good understanding of smooth, smug datawork wizard Arviva in just under ten pages. It was fun to watch their frustration at how Bolvan couldn't understand what to them was a simple little scheme, and the endless stream of paperwork had their own sort of themes attached. These are ones not usually seen in Star Wars.
Of the three works thus far, it's certainly the least 'Star Wars-y.' But it's also very, very excellent. I loved the 'howdunit' mystery of the cover up, and the story didn't outstay its welcome, presenting itself as just a small peek into a larger life. Arviva is a fascinating character, but it's certainly likely that the cloud of bureaucratic forms would grow boring if extended over even a hundred pages.
As it was, it had the feeling of watching Sherlock Holmes or some other fictional genius unveil their plans or revelations.Obviously if that sort of thing is completely anathema to you, you might not like it, but even then there's little personal moments in the dialogue, or twists and turns on how they're both portrayed.
Also, that is how I imagined the Empire functioning, especially with the orders-on-high involving Kill Ratios.
Ken Liu is apparently well known for his short stories, to the point where his first big epic fantasy novel was written in a very short-story sort of way, apparently. I'm definitely going to get it sometime. His experience with short stories is definitely evident here.
Highlights
And I shared my wisdom [on datawork] liberally. Junior officers who wanted to avoid snoring roommates came to me for advice on the XPTS-7 Bunking Application (claim a propensity for sleepwalking and punching sources of noise); senior officers who wanted to maximize their shore leave came to me for help with the SS-VAC-2B Visa (pick a departure port on the other side of the vacation planet from the arrival port); and even the captain came to me when it was time to fill out the estimated operating budget (the trick:... Ha, as if I'm going to share that trick here.) Some called me a datawork wizard, or maybe even a datawork Jed--Oh, never mind that. The point is: I liked helping people, and if they chose to thank me with little favors or gifts or credits, it would have been polite to say no.
Oh, all right, let me just come out and say it. It was nice to have people in your debt.
The conversational tone, the casual use of jargon, the twists and turns of the text… even when it's not dialogue, the short story is very dialogue-like nature. It's a very smug sort of narration, but that's half the fun of it. In a longer story there'd have to be ups and downs, but this is just an ordinary day for a datawork professional, helping to manage and direct these matters.
"Don't you pay attention to the training holos? You filled out an acknowledgement stating that you watched a holo on this family of forms just two days ago."
Bolvan's confused expression told me that he probably signed the acknowledgement without reading it just to get it off his desk.
"The SUG-171-TI is used to dispatch an operational suggestion to another officer. It's used when you need to bypass the chain of command and there's no military emergency. Fleet command is proud of this innovation in improving the initiatives of all officers."
He acted like he wanted to tear his hair out, but he managed to force himself to calm down.
God, this is just so hilarious to me, and also just fun to read. I like the byplay between the two of them, the idea that this SUG-171-TI is some grand innovation that Bolvan literally hasn't heard of, and how there's such a disconnect between the two. That makes the part where Bolvan finally sees the plan richer.
He got up, tablet in hand, and ran for the door. But before exiting he turned around. "What can I do to make this up to you? A game of cards tomorrow night?"
Aha, so maybe he didn't know much about datawork, but he did know how to pay for a favor without being too obvious. Maybe. But you know, I've always wanted to know what it's like to fire the guns on this thing. Even datawork wizards like pew-pew-pew, you know?"
He grinned. "I'm sure I can work out a target practice session sometime."
I waved for him to go and returned to my endless datawork, glad to have laid down another strand in my invisible web of influence.
That's why they're the Datawork Sith, but it's an oddly personal note to end on, despite the manipulation involved. It charms me a lot, because of the vignette like nature. It's a chunk of a life crystalized in amber and presented to us. Or that's how it feels, since of course they were made up specifically for this story.
Rating/Summary:
This was the best yet. Charming, strange, lovely in its shortness, I was really, really impressed by what I got. Also great for anyone writing Imperials in general. I'm definitely going to be checking out this man's other work, after this showing. Now it's #1, edging out "The Bucket" by a few degrees.
The usage of "Sith" in the title suggests that this is intentionally part of the recurring Star Wars theme that forgiveness, mercy, and compassion are good, especially when used consistently, and that revenge and excessive punishment are bad. In this case, the fear of punishment causes the officer to conceal the mistake, rather than admitting to it so that it can be fixed.
Basically, it's an example of how the Dark Side destroys itself.
I like both of these for their glimpses at regular people in the Empire, because it shows that they are people while still remembering that the Empire as a system is terrible and not trying to justify it.
I like both of these for their glimpses at regular people in the Empire, because it shows that they are people while still remembering that the Empire as a system is terrible and not trying to justify it.
Jot is a particularly small and dreamy (as in he dreams) Jawa, who finds a small nook in the Sandcrawler that only he can just barely fit into. He grows to love the privacy of his (very uncomfortable) 'home', in a society where privacy is basically nonexistent.
The story slowly unfolds, of Jawa society and its storytelling--he tells the story of finding a Krayt Dragon's bones--and the second backup module he finds in the uncovered spaceship of a long-dead bounty hunter. With it, he can view the memories of this droid, and the things said in a language (Basic) that he doesn't understand.
Jot has always dreamed of the galaxy above, different than many other Jawa… but often in ways that reflect his society as well. But with this droid's memory banks, he was distracted, and even missed a shift in 'salvage.'
Jot transfers to a job preparing droids. Jawas often wipe a droid's memory banks to increase their performance temporarily, all the better to make them seem 'like new.' Jot was very good at the job, but he always took their memory banks to play them on Storyteller's first. He'd watch all those memories of far off places and events he couldn't understand once. Just once. Then he'd wipe them forever.
One day the Jawas 'recover' a droid who looks remarkably new by the standards of Jawa salvage. And of course, it is Jot's job to look through the memory processors for this 'R2D2' though of course he never knows the name.
He sees desperate repairs to a silver ship. Battles in the sands. A secret marriage. Death and destruction and doubt, the pagentry of the entire galaxy displayed before his eyes in the hot, miserable cramped little sanctum.
And he realizes that there's a larger story, and that he can't destroy this droid's memories… or the pressing information that isn't like many of the Stories, old news…
He also realizes he needs to go out in the galaxy, to be part of everything he saw. He returns R2-D2's memories and resolves to flee the Sandcrawler and reach the stars, no matter what.
Analysis
Holy shit. Holy fucking shit. This is amazing as a character piece, as worldbuilding, as an exploration of themes and an entire character arc...you wouldn't believe that it's only slightly longer than Raymus.
Jot is a fascinating character, in one sense an archetype--a dreamer who dreams of the stars--but in another sense unique and specific, versed in Jawa beliefs about how all things can be broken down to parts. He doesn't understand hyperdrives, but he's sure if he had some time to tinker around he'd figure it out.
Jawa society, driven by an exploration of the sands which they think are far vaster than the skies above, is fascinating as well, with their clothing, their habits, everything carefully outlined.
The theme of telling stories is especially fascinating considering the end is essentially someone watching large chunks of Star Wars (albeit without knowing the language) and realizing that there's something amazing to the galaxy. The sense of wonder that Jot has for the galaxy beyond his home, and for the privacy he has contrasts wonderfully with how small it is.
The work itself opens with a description of the compartment, which is entirely an accident of design. It's noisy and loud, the top part of it sometimes buckles with the weight of the cargo, and another of the walls is scorching hot during the day--Jot sometimes touches it and screams. It is no kind of sanctuary, and yet the narrative makes it into one.
Thematically, it feels to me that the author manages to tell two stories at once. One, the one you expect, and second, the one of the audience. Children, in a darkened theatre, watching wonders they could not always fully understand, of a larger, wider world just waiting for them to enter it. By speaking to themes and resonance both in-universe and metatextual, the story is, to use the academic term, really fucking rad.
Jot is an excited dreamer, philosophical in a nuts-and-bolts way, and the prose is just gorgeous, carefully providing just enough details. It's a very lonely short story, in a way, with only one named character who truly matters and not a single line of dialogue. But how can you be lonely when you have "Stories In The Sand?"
The work manages to have twists and turns without needing either dialogue or character interaction. It's interior in a way I really, really dig. I love dialogue, but I also love the slow unfolding of a character. But the secret is: it's not that slow. There's a way for a very good author to compress time, to make a short story feel like a long and slow evolution towards a single moment of revelation.
It is, I am not joking, a beautiful story, and if you haven't read this particular one, it's literally worth checking out the entire book just for it.
This is the story that made me go "I wanna do a Lets Review." I haven't read that far beyond this one, at least at the time I'm typing this up (buffer reviews, woo!)
So, let's talk about the griffin in the room. I didn't actually know who the author was, no joke. I looked him up thinking, "Hey, maybe he has some short stories or novels I can devour." Only to learn that he has two reasonably famous podcasts. I'd heard of The Adventure Zone, and even heard some of its music, but I never associated it with Griffin McElroy, who is apparently the DM of that particular game. When asking my friend, @NemoMarx, she said this about him as a DM:
Me: Hmm, what would you say his GM style is?
NemoMarx: honestly he's mostly just trying to like, corall the three family members into not being too silly, but... griffin also has this penchant for like
pulling back and doing really nice descriptive things?
like um
[Sample follows]
The_LaurentToday at 7:51 AM
Huh.
I think you should get From A Certain Point of View.
Adorkable AliceToday at 7:52 AM
the thing is, like, obviously in terms of DMing
griffin writes and voices all the npcs?
and they stuck to that from the podcast
so he's got.... a lot of range
including like, all my favorite characters
none of whom are really the three MCs
so yeah I like his character voice at least
I buy that he can write
what was his star wars story about?
if that's the right anthology
And she was right to buy it. To return to the story: holy shit.
Highlights
It's against the rules to just copy the entire story, right? Right. Okay, then.
Every centimeter of a sandcrawler is prudently designed to fit the ship's grueling function, and sandcrawlers have a lot of centimeters. Each ship is an identical monument to practicality, and performs each day's wok with exacting precision. They do so indominatably, overcoming Tatooine's considerable environmental hazards with ease.
On the uppermost deck of a sandcrawler stationed in the Western Dune Sea, a sloped bulk belt carried scrap hoisted from the sands below to a salvage bay seated at the vessel's peak. Underneath the belt was a small hidden gap measuring one meter long and, at the incline's tallest point, half a meter high, with a width most non-Jawa would find oppressive. It was an unintended compartment in a vehicle shrewdly designed for maximized efficacy of space.
In this wedge-shaped gap, a Jawa named Jot dreamed of starships.
This exacting description, the physical construction of this space which will take on metaphysical importance, is fascinating. It isn't much. But just as the Falcon looks like a hunk of junk, so too is the sandcrawler amazing… and as a way to introduce the central stage of the story, I can't think of a better one.
When Jawas first learn to walk, they're given the insulated moisture-regulating robes that will sustain them their whole lives. As infants, their robes are hemmed nearly to the armpit, the fabric doubled and folded within. As Jawas mature, the hem is lowered to better cover their newfound height. Most Jawas measure themselves by the number of hems they've had put in; the average Jawa has five or six by the time they reach adulthood, leaving telltale striations in the thick brown canvas of their life-giving garment.
Inject five-hundred cc's of this worldbuilding directly into my veins, please. Wait, I'm supposed to be doing intelligent analysis. I just… like this so much? This worldbuilding is great, and the way the author knows to always bring it back to Jot is important.
The starboard wall of the gap was actually the sandcrawler's outer hull, which grew unbearably hot to the touch fourteen hours of the day. There was enough room in the gap for Jot to sit without leaning against the starboard wall, so it's searing heat wasn't an issue, so long as he didn't absentmindedly try to stretch out and get comfortable while admiring his hoard.
Unfortunately for Jot, losing his concentration was one of his most honored pastimes. It was not uncommon for passerby to hear a muffled yelp coming from the gullworks of the lift's machinery, followed by the uniquely unpleasant smell of singed Jawa fur wafting down the sandcrawler's corridors.
But every Jawa, especially those who ship out of a crawler, knows the truth: the surface of the dunes is lifeless, yes, but the sand stretches downard forever. Entomped in the endless, gritty expanse were more downed ships than there were ships in the sky. More droids than any ten factories could produce in a century. More wealth, more resources, more history than could ever be excavated or recorded.
There was not a Jawa on Tatooine who did not believe wholeheartedly that there was more sand below than there was sky above.
Damn. Just damn. Jot tells a story of his own find, a Krayt dragon, but over time it begins to growing boring to tell and retell endlessly, when he discovers a freighter with a dead bounty hunter on it. It is there that Jot gets his prize.
The ship was crashing, but it had not crashed, which meant--for the next few minutes, at least--Jot could continue to witness its descent. This custom droid component had given Jot a firsthand account of a ship's final, doomed flight through the stars.
When Storyteller first flashed this image into existence, Jot's eyes flooded with stinging tears. Seeing this story--seeing stars and flight, and the only planet he'd ever lived on from kilometers above--his eyes would not dry for some time.
Okay, this next part is even better. It's right afterwards.
Jot couldn't recall when his desire to leave Tatooine first surfaced. As a child, he'd loved to tinker with whatever busted gadgets the sands of Tatooine proffered--holo-chess boards, landspeeder engines, droid servomotors, and the like. He was encouraged to pursue his experimentation, but it wasn't nearly enough to satisfy his curiosity. He hungered for the opportunity to bury himself in the guts of a Corellian corvette, to optimize the thrusts of a starfighter, ot repair the hyperdrive motivation of a galactic cruisers-carrier.
Jot, of course, did not have the first clue how to do any of those things. But that wasn't really a concern. Starships, like everything else, were just parts. They might interlock in inscrutable ways, but, by Jot's calculator, when broken down the requisite number of levels, everything in the universe was made of connected parts.
Sandcrawlers comprised speicalized systems that let them operate in Tatooine's harsh environment. Those systems were made of complex and simple machines, all of which were made from interlocking parts.
The bright-white bones of Jot's krayt dragon were just parts of a skeleton engineered over countless generations by unforgiving biological imperatives.
The stars, too, were parts, of a sort. Jot knew as much about astronomy as he did about galactic carrier-cruiser hyperdrive motivators, but he knew the stars moved through the sky in a set, immutable order.
if it had parts, it cold be understood. Jot knew that, given enough time inside a starship, he could learn its parts, learn how to make them behave. And if he could learn how to make them behave, Jot could earn his place in the sky.
What a fitting cosmology and way of viewing the universe for someone growing up in Jawa salvage culture.
Finally, after he finds R2-D2 and views his memories…
This wasn't like the other stories Jot had borrowed from the desert-weary droids he serviced. This wasn't an ancient flight log of a long-crashed freighter, or the final moments in the life of a wandering, abandoned droid. This story, with the magic and the fire swords and the crouching woman and the planet-sized ship--it was happening right now.
The gravity of this realization descended on Jot suddenly. His face went numb.
His entire life, Jot had happily served as a spectator to the stories that constantly unfolded around him. Even in the tale of his krayt dragon, he wasn't the star. His brothers were the first to find the skeleton that morning. His father finished excavating it. His mother adorned the skull with a crown of desert sage and funnel flowers. Jot was just there.
But being there wasn't good enough, now. The next part of this droid's story--if not a chapter, just a line--was Jot's responsibility to author.
Like the glistening bones of his dragon, like the stars in the sky, like every panel and fiber and joiner in the machines he had worked with every day of his life, Jot was now part of something, too. For the first time, he felt like he wasn't just a passive observer of the story of his life. He was a participant.
It was an enlightenment the likes of which few are lucky enough to experience during the span of their lives. Jot just happened to find it in a furnace-hot, coffin-sized design flaw in the side of a rolling junkyard.
What can I say? I loved it, because it's great, and because it spoke to me and to a lot of things all at once. "The Sith of Datawork" was great, but this surpasses it with comical ease in a way I think might be hard to top. But I hope they do! Easily worth having checked out this book just for that story.
