Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina
Sep. 9th, 2010 10:43 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
purplecatI've had Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina edited by Kevin J. Anderson for years and years, fifteen probably if the publication date is anything to go by. It's a short story collection themed around the characters we see in the Mos Eisley cantina in Star Wars. I got about three quarters of the way through it when I first purchased it and then accidentally left it behind in Scotland and it never got finished. However when Mum sold her Scottish cottage I collected it in the clear-out and thought I should maybe give it a second go.
As short story collection themes go, this is a pretty strong one I think. Doctor Who short story collections tend to be themed and I often wonder if it really benefits them, either the theme seems too restrictive and the stories feel bent out of shape, or the theme is sufficiently vague that you wonder if it was really needed. In this case we have that one snap-shot of time and a whole range of different characters to explore. Many of the stories centre on events in the Cantina in the hours when Obi-Wan and Luke were there but some have a focus either before or after and you don't sense that the authors were particularly straight-jacketed in their choices. It provides an opportunity for some world-building of Mos Eisley, Tatooine and the wider Star Wars universe and, frankly, I'm partial to a bit of world-building.
The stories themselves are OK. There are no clunkers but there wasn't anything really stand-out which is a shame in some ways. My favourite is probably Empire Blues: The Devaronian's Tale by Daniel Keys Moran which is told from the point of view of a carnivorous, jaded and cynical, jazz-loving war criminal but even that could have done a lot more with its character and voice if it had really wanted to. Dr Who collections tend to be a lot more variable in quality. This was all competent. The world-building itself is quite up and down. I think they've done a good job of maintaining a fairly Star Wars-like atmosphere while exploring a much wider range of worlds and races. It's oddly variable in how well the stories link to each other. Some such as Swap Meet: The Jawa's Tale by Kevin J. Anderson and Trade Wins: The Ranat's Tale by Rebecca Moesta tie very closely, almost forming two halves of the same story, however in other places one character gets presented very differently in different stories: Nightlily: The Lovers' Tale by Barbara Hambly represents the eponymous Nightlily as a wide-eyed ingenue briefly passing through Tatooine while a throwaway line in Empire Blues has her as a known sexual predator, perched at the end of the bar. But Greedo probably fares worst in all of this. Most of the writers are taking his character at face value from the film, so he is generally described as a seasoned bounty-hunter and known employee of Jabba the Hutt. Sadly A Hunter's Fate: Greedo's Tale by Tom and Martha Veitch choses to tell us of an inexperienced Greedo, doing his first bounty-collection job. The other downside of the collection is that, frankly, there are only so many times in the space of 400 pages that I want to read an account of the fight in the Cantina. This collection exceeded that number by about four or five.
If this book fell into your hands, and assuming you both like Star Wars and world-building then its worth the time to read. That said, I'm not an aficionado of the wider Star Wars universe and it wouldn't surprise me if these stories contradict much that has been written since. However, I don't think I'd recommend seeking it out, there's nothing that special within its covers.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/18422.html.
As short story collection themes go, this is a pretty strong one I think. Doctor Who short story collections tend to be themed and I often wonder if it really benefits them, either the theme seems too restrictive and the stories feel bent out of shape, or the theme is sufficiently vague that you wonder if it was really needed. In this case we have that one snap-shot of time and a whole range of different characters to explore. Many of the stories centre on events in the Cantina in the hours when Obi-Wan and Luke were there but some have a focus either before or after and you don't sense that the authors were particularly straight-jacketed in their choices. It provides an opportunity for some world-building of Mos Eisley, Tatooine and the wider Star Wars universe and, frankly, I'm partial to a bit of world-building.
The stories themselves are OK. There are no clunkers but there wasn't anything really stand-out which is a shame in some ways. My favourite is probably Empire Blues: The Devaronian's Tale by Daniel Keys Moran which is told from the point of view of a carnivorous, jaded and cynical, jazz-loving war criminal but even that could have done a lot more with its character and voice if it had really wanted to. Dr Who collections tend to be a lot more variable in quality. This was all competent. The world-building itself is quite up and down. I think they've done a good job of maintaining a fairly Star Wars-like atmosphere while exploring a much wider range of worlds and races. It's oddly variable in how well the stories link to each other. Some such as Swap Meet: The Jawa's Tale by Kevin J. Anderson and Trade Wins: The Ranat's Tale by Rebecca Moesta tie very closely, almost forming two halves of the same story, however in other places one character gets presented very differently in different stories: Nightlily: The Lovers' Tale by Barbara Hambly represents the eponymous Nightlily as a wide-eyed ingenue briefly passing through Tatooine while a throwaway line in Empire Blues has her as a known sexual predator, perched at the end of the bar. But Greedo probably fares worst in all of this. Most of the writers are taking his character at face value from the film, so he is generally described as a seasoned bounty-hunter and known employee of Jabba the Hutt. Sadly A Hunter's Fate: Greedo's Tale by Tom and Martha Veitch choses to tell us of an inexperienced Greedo, doing his first bounty-collection job. The other downside of the collection is that, frankly, there are only so many times in the space of 400 pages that I want to read an account of the fight in the Cantina. This collection exceeded that number by about four or five.
If this book fell into your hands, and assuming you both like Star Wars and world-building then its worth the time to read. That said, I'm not an aficionado of the wider Star Wars universe and it wouldn't surprise me if these stories contradict much that has been written since. However, I don't think I'd recommend seeking it out, there's nothing that special within its covers.
This entry was originally posted at http://purplecat.dreamwidth.org/18422.html.
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Date: 2010-09-11 08:55 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2010-09-12 06:19 pm (UTC)