2017 is a rather special year for Star Wars, and there will be a new book to help commemorate the anniversary of A New Hope.
April is turning out to be a very good month for fans of the Star Wars books. Not only is Timothy Zahn’s new Thrawn coming out next week, today brought confirmation of a huge new project coming out this year as part of the commemoration surrounding Star Wars‘ original release in 1977. As we’re still getting new material 40 years later, it seems like a good idea, right?
The official website of Star Wars announced Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View earlier today. Although the line may be from Return of the Jedi, it does apply to the story Obi-Wan Kenobi tells Luke Skywalker about his father, so it still works. The official description promises more than 40 authors will work on the project, but here are the ones we know about now, with some added details about their other works added by us:
"Ben Acker & Ben Blacker (Star Wars: Join the Resistance)Renee Ahdieh (The Wrath & the Dawn)Tom Angleberger (The Strange Case of Origami Yoda)Meg Cabot (The Princess Diaries)Rae Carson (Walk on Earth a Stranger)Adam Christopher (The Burning Dark)Zoraida Cordova (Labyrinth Lost)Delilah S. Dawson (The Perfect Weapon)Paul Dini (The Batman Adventures: Mad Love)Alexander Freed (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story novelization)Jason Fry (The Weapon of a Jedi)Christie Golden (Dark Disciple)EK Johnston & Ashley Eckstein (Ahsoka)Paul Kemp (Lords of the Sith)Mur Lafferty (“The Voice of the Empire,”Six Wakes)Ken Liu (The Grace of Kings)Griffin McElroy (My Brother, My Brother, and Me podcast)John Jackson Miller (Kenobi)Nnedi Okorafor (Binti)Daniel José Older (Shadowshaper)Mallory Ortberg (Texts from Jane Eyre)Madeleine Roux (Asylum)Gary D. Schmidt (The Wednesday Wars)Cavan Scott (Adventures in Wild Space: The Escape)Sabaa Tahir (An Ember in the Ashes)Glen Weldon (The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture)Chuck Wendig (Star Wars Aftermath)Gary Whitta (First screenwriter, Rogue One)"
That isn’t even the complete list, and already fans of science fiction as a whole are probably salivating. The best part? There appears to still be room for titans like, say, Timothy Zahn or Claudia Gray to contribute.
So what exactly are they all doing? Simply put, they’re going to write about A New Hope from the point of view (see, it does tie back in) of different characters. The range, per the official StarWars.com announcement, spans “from X-wing pilots who helped Luke destroy the Death Star to the stormtroopers who never quite could find the droids they were looking for.”
Basically, between the concept and the huge list of already confirmed authors, From a Certain Point of View looks like it really will be a must-read for Star Wars enthusiasts. Prior to the shift in canon, anthology books like Tales from the New Republic and Tales from Jabba’s Palace helped broaden the world and really expanded the universe, if you’ll excuse the pun. From a Certain Point of View seems like a new version of that concept.
Next: Spoiling The Last Jedi Has Begun
It’ll be on shelves in October of this year. Which authors would you like to see on this list?