Write Out Loud (Reviews and Writing)

“…absolutely excellent for all true Star Wars fans.”

I won’t deny it, I’m not ashamed: I am a die-hard unabashed Star Wars fan. I was there for the original movie in 1977 and lived, dreamed and ate Star Wars with my very soul for the time leading up to seeing it until at least the release of the third movie and end of what would eventually be the middle trilogy.

And while I was horrified when George Lucas sold out to Disney and all the books we’d loved and cherished ceased to be canon, I have absolutely bought into the Disney world version because, at the end of the day, Stars Wars on our screens is better than Star Wars not on our screens. Disney are merely doing what the storybooks and comics did for so many decades: giving us the Stars Wars universe.

And it is glorious.

So, you’re not going to get a strictly objective review of this collection of short stories, written to celebrate forty years of Star Wars back in 2017. But then, I would argue that there is no such thing as objectivity in any writing and anyone who tries to pretend otherwise is fooling themselves. Whatever, there was no way I wasn’t going to enjoy these stories.

But…oh…how I enjoyed these stories.

The brilliance of having different writers tell the tales of numerous characters – some on-screen and many never seen before – is that you get a full range of ‘feels’. Some are funny, some are all action, some are incredibly poignant. Yeah, of course, this is Star Wars and you can’t take anything too seriously. It isn’t Tolstoy. Nevertheless, if you’re a fan, many of these stories are going to bring tears to your eyes.

Some stories just give us the back story to many of the characters we’ve seen in the background – like characters from the cantina, the Tusken Raiders who attacked Luke and Aunt Beru, telling her tale from the grave. Others fill in the details we didn’t know – like what happened to Ben after he died, were Leia’s parents on Alderaan when it was destroyed and even the bizarre case of ‘fake Wedge’. And then there are stories that are just something else. One of the most brilliant stories comes from the unlikeliest of sources: the trash compactor monster. It was truly lovely; so superbly written.

From time to time, some stories are very funny. One tale of a burgeoning homoerotic relationship between a solder and his superior on the Death Star is so much fun, especially as it is told from the point of view of the mouse droid. The very final story is funny too, but more importantly, brings into canon ‘The Whills’ – something only those of us who really know our Star Wars knows about. I have a badly battered copy of the original book from the movie, back in the days when George Lucas had barely begun to map out his universe and hadn’t even conceived of Luke Skywalker’s father yet. You’ll find the Whills in there, never referred to again in canon, until now.

My general rule of ‘do I care about the characters after the book is closed’ is, of course, a slam dunk here. I’ll die a fan of Star Wars just as I effectively started life with it (at least in terms of how far back I can remember). So of course I care about the characters and the whole world built by George Lucas et al. But these stories add extra characters, many of whom I’d like to see again. There is a sequel – two in fact – dealing with the next two films in this trilogy; I do hope some of these characters are going to reappear. Some of them, of course, can’t.

What amazed me most is that none of them seem to go against the current canon that Disney has given us since the pandemic. With so many stories and characters brought into this universe, it is surely inevitable that timelines and histories will conflict. This series written in 2017 should surely have plenty of issues. But I found none. If there are any, I missed them. Certainly, there’s nothing glaring. Instead, they seem almost prescient – especially with the building of the ‘other world’ where dead jedi lie. This is something we’ve only just begun to see in the Disney shows, yet here it is in essence seven years ago.

So yes, this is good stuff. I expected it to be fun and worth at least doing the first movie. I suspected it would be frilly and probably not something that would lead me to do the next in the series. Well, it might not be a collection of literary geniuses, but it is absolutely excellent for all true Star Wars fans. And, yes, I’m buying the next two books in the series.

My Verdict:

You can buy me a coffee if you like! More accurately, you can help support my work either as a one off or monthly if you really want to show your love…

Social Entrepreneur, educationalist, bestselling author and journalist, D K Powell is the author of the bestselling collection of literary short stories “The Old Man on the Beach“. His first book, ‘Sonali’ is a photo-memoir journal of life in Bangladesh and has been highly praised by the Bangladeshi diaspora worldwide. Students learning the Bengali language have also valued the English/Bengali translations on every page. His third book is ‘Try not to Laugh’ and is a guide to memorising, revising and passing exams for students.

Both ‘The Old Man on the Beach’ and ‘Sonali’ are available on Amazon for kindle and paperback. Published by Shopno Sriti Media. The novel,’The Pukur’, was published by Histria Books in 2022.

D K Powell is available to speak at events (see his TEDx talk here) and can be contacted at dkpowell.contact@gmail.com. Alternatively, he is available for one-to-one mentoring and runs a course on the psychology of writing. Listen to his life story in interview with the BBC here.

Ken writes for a number of publications around the world. Past reviewer for Paste magazine, The Doughnut, E2D and United Airways and Lancashire Life magazine. Currently reviews for Northern Arts Review. His reviews have been read more than 7.9 million times.

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