Review of 'From a Certain Point of View (Star Wars)' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
The idea was better than the execution.
As an example of my irritation, the Biggs Darklighter story should've been great because…well, Biggs. Maybe I was just so jaded I couldn't appreciate it enough. But it really bugged me that Biggs made an analogy comparing the number of farming communities under Imperial rule to "the number of sands on a Mon Calamari beach" – when literally EVERY other metaphor in the story was related to Tatooine. Why would a guy from a desert planet use sand from the beach of some other planet in a comparison? (And does Mon Cala even have beaches? I was always under the impression it was surface was entirely covered in water, but maybe I'm wrong.)
Some of the stories were fine, but none of them rose to the level of great. Others were real stinkers. The TK421 story, as seen through the eyes of a …
The idea was better than the execution.
As an example of my irritation, the Biggs Darklighter story should've been great because…well, Biggs. Maybe I was just so jaded I couldn't appreciate it enough. But it really bugged me that Biggs made an analogy comparing the number of farming communities under Imperial rule to "the number of sands on a Mon Calamari beach" – when literally EVERY other metaphor in the story was related to Tatooine. Why would a guy from a desert planet use sand from the beach of some other planet in a comparison? (And does Mon Cala even have beaches? I was always under the impression it was surface was entirely covered in water, but maybe I'm wrong.)
Some of the stories were fine, but none of them rose to the level of great. Others were real stinkers. The TK421 story, as seen through the eyes of a mouse droid, probably is better in print, but hearing the narrator read the string of repetitive commands and systems checks didn't do anything positive for my opinions of the audiobook as a format in general.
If I were to be magnanimous I'd give this a 2.5 star rating, and maybe round it up to 3. But heck, I'm feeling ornery tonight.
