Thursday evening, Del Rey (at their @DelReyStarWars account) stirred up Star Wars fandom on Twitter by teasing the announcement of something called Operation Blue Milk. The hashtag, #OperationBlueMilk quickly blew up with speculation followed by various authors, some new and old to SW writing, revealing they were part of the project. While Amazon might have beat Del Rey to the official announcement, the details have finally been released and it’s a pretty exciting surprise: 40 different authors retelling events from A New Hope from random background characters’ points of view! Whether or not this is your cup of caf, you should probably pick this up because not only is the talent involved nothing short of spectacular, all author proceeds are being donated to charity (!!) so read on for the list and more details!
From the official announcement:
“Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, coming October 2017, will bring together more than 40 authors for 40 stories. Each will be told from the perspective of background characters of A New Hope — 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. “
Each story in the book has been described as “scenes” over at Barnes & Nobles’ announcement of the project (and they include the Journal of the Whills verse from Empire’s End), so don’t expect these short stories to be as close in length to 2015’s Tales: Aliens (Volume 1). In that collection of short stories one of them is a retelling of the events on the Death Star by Bobbajo, who claims his various animals were integral for saving the day, and it’s an enjoyable tale that had a deeper meaning regarding the importance of what’s true or not aka should we enjoy something about Star Wars if it isn’t exactly canon or not. The “scenes” in From a Certain Point of View are based in canon, though that doesn’t mean they are, but as Bobbajo’s tale puts it: should it really matter if its fun?
The list below of talent involved has several names familiar to Star Wars fandom already, a few I’ve recognized from elsewhere like Paul Dini (Batman: The Animated Series, for starters!) and Ken Liu (whose short stories I just can’t stop reading), while a pairing between E.K. Johnston (author of Ahsoka) and Ashley Eckstein (voice of Ahsoka) certainly leaves one wondering if that means their story will be about Ahsoka Tano (which would be pretty crazy, to say the least), but don’t take any recognizable name to mean they’re here only to tell a tale connected to their past works, per the Assistant Editor at Del Rey (tweet 1 and tweet 2 about it). Though it does seem John Jackson Miller is returning to Tatooine, so maybe, hopefully, he recanonizes something from the ever excellent Kenobi novel!
Personally, I hope there’s a “scene” about two people who have to clean up Greedo’s body from the bar and the whole time they debate over who they saw shot first, throwing some fun shade at the fan debate that just won’t ever die.
And here’s the really cool bit about how this helps a great charity!
“All participating authors have generously forgone any compensation for their stories. Instead, their proceeds will be donated to First Book — a leading nonprofit that provides new books, learning materials, and other essentials to educators and organizations serving children in need. To further celebrate the launch of this book and both companies’ longstanding relationships with First Book, Penguin Random House has donated $100,000 to First Book, and Disney/Lucasfilm has donated 100,000 children’s books — valued at 1 million dollars — to support First Book and their mission of providing educational resources to children in need. Over the past 16 years, Disney has donated more than 57 million books to First Book.”
And below is only part of the eventual list of contributors to From a Certain Point of View:
- Ben Acker & Ben Blacker
- Renee Ahdieh
- Tom Angleberger
- Meg Cabot
- Rae Carson
- Adam Christopher
- Zoraida Cordova
- Delilah S. Dawson
- Paul Dini
- Alexander Freed
- Jason Fry
- Christie Golden
- EK Johnston & Ashley Eckstein
- Paul Kemp
- Mur Lafferty
- Ken Liu
- Griffin McElroy
- John Jackson Miller
- Nnedi Okorafor
- Daniel José Older
- Mallory Ortberg
- Madeleine Roux
- Gary D. Schmidt
- Cavan Scott
- Sabaa Tahir
- Glen Weldon
- Chuck Wendig
- Gary Whitta
- And more!
What do you think of Star Wars: From a Certain Point of View, which launches this October? Any type of scene you’d like to see? Feel free to leave a comment or tell us on Twitter!
Ryan is Mynock Manor’s Head Butler. You can follow him on Twitter @BrushYourTeeth. You can follow the website @MynockManor.
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