From a Certain Point of View: A Book Review by Kyle Pollard.

If you are a Star Wars fan and have not read “From a Certain Point of View” you need to move the title to the top of your “must read” list. Seriously, it’s that good.

Del Ray Books created the novel to honor the fortieth anniversary of the first film–A New Hope–and comprises forty short stories which give voice to minor supporting characters glossed over in the movie. A different author created each account to give each Star Wars tale its own individual uniqueness. I am not saying you will fall in love with every story because there are some I did not like, but you will absolutely find this an enjoyable read. If you wanted to know more about the band the Modal Nodes playing in the cantina where Luke hooks up with Han Solo, well, here is your chance to live the dream (Not for Nothing by Mur Lafferty).

My favorite story in the collection is Nnedi Okorafor’s story “The Baptist” which takes the point of view of the large cephalopod in the trash compactor on the Death Star. The garbage dweller in this tale has a soul. In “The Baptist,” the large sentient being named Omi is a female Dianoga captured from a swamp and transported to the Death Star against her will. The language in Okorafor story is ephemeral and hauntingly beautiful. Take, for instance, this section describing Omi’s captivity:

Everything stopped. Quiet, nothing, but everything. There was purpose. Omi twitched. Then involuntarily her body shifted to being transparent and then the black color with pricks of starlight. Home will stay home, but you must go she understood more than heard, and she knew deep in her hearts that she would not die. No, she was in the right place in the right moment. Stay your path. This time she heard the words in the deep complex humming language that her people often spoke in when they weren’t feeding. To speak this language was to scare away all nearby food, the reverberations carried so completely in the water. To hear it now was like feeling a final breeze from home. Though she was gazing into space, she heard the voice humming from her flesh. Maybe it came from within the tiny links that her people said chained with one another to form her flesh? There was a great flash, and Omi instantly knew. She was positive at least in that moment that this place she was in was going to burn, and the moment passed, and she was no longer sure of anything, except that feeling of oneness. What did that feeling even mean though? She was no longer so sure. Maybe it was just her fear of death.
~ Nnedi Okorafor, The Baptist

Isn’t Okorafor’s language ravishing? It’s like drinking Indian tea made by a good friend. There are many such special moments in “From a Certain Point of View” put under the microscope and explored by a cadre of talented writers. For example, there is a story of a Jawa from a sand crawler who dreams about living in the stars. A story about the red droid that blows up on Tatooine forcing Owen Lars to purchase R2-D2 instead. In the highly emotional story “Eclipse” by Madeline Roux we stand with Leia’s parents, Breha and Bail Organa as the Death Star obliterates their planet.

Projects like this are rare so get out there and find this title. So Good. I highly recommend the audio version as the production quality is excellent. All authors contributing stories agreed to give all proceeds to First Book–a nonprofit organization providing new books and learning materials to educators and organizations serving children in need. A must-read for fans of “Star Wars: A New Hope.”

“All Our Wrong Todays” by Elan Mastai: A Book Review by Kyle Pollard

At year’s end I normally put together a best of list highlighting the top ten posts for the year. I am a little late putting that out, and everyone is fed up with top ten lists by now, so I forwent that exercise and instead decided to write a book review of my favorite novel of 2018.

Before reading this gem, I did massive amounts of research on the author, talked to my college advisor, and did some on the street interviews.

Seriously? Naw, that’s not how it happened at all. Picture this scene: I have three minutes before the library closes. I frantically run around the stacks looking for the science fiction genre stickers placed on the audiobooks. Eureka, I find one in time, run down to the checkout and out to my car where I put in CD number one, then CD two and so on. Within five minutes the words swept me away. Listening to the book was like adding another heaping helping of butter on toast already slathered with homemade jam.

First off, the novel is in the first person point of view in a quasi-memoir format featuring the character Tom Barren. The writing is funny, sharp, gritty and raw. Elan has this masterful way of sucking you into the novel and getting you to care about the protagonist. A connection between writer/reader must happen, or you will put the book down after the first chapter. Perhaps sooner. That’s the risk an author takes when employing the first person narrative. Mastai’s novel is so engrossing that I found myself breathing heavy at times while listening to the audiobook.

So, what’s it about? Time travel. Yep, you heard me right–the most overdone science fiction trope of them all. A writer that pens a first-person narrative about time travel and pulls it off has my respect. Fist Pump!

The main character Tom is from a 2016 timeline where the world has blossomed into a technology-based utopia complete with flying cars, space tourism; anything you can think of that should be in a techno-utopian society is there. Tom’s father invents the time machine and plans to use it for time travel tourism. In the utopian timeline, Tom is an outcast of sorts and has a terrible relationship with his father. He is cruising through life doing nothing in a society where creating something is everything. His life, while not uncomfortable, is aimless and basically sucks.

A mishap with the time machine sends him to an alternate timeline version of 2016 and screws up the entire fabric of the universe. The 2016 Tom winds up in is our 2016 with global warming, avocados that go bad, and a world where punk rock exists. In this timeline, however, Tom is a success, his dad is not an asshole maniac scientist, he has a sister, his mom is alive, and he finds love with Penny, the standoffish perfect female astronaut in utopian 2016.  His quandary: Does he fix the timeline he destroyed, or does he stay in our 2016? You see when Tom altered the fabric of the universe billions of people died, and the ones who survived are not who they are supposed to be. They are all living the wrong todays. Perhaps all of us are living the wrong today this very moment?

The novel traverses other timelines and spans continents in Tom’s search for self, romance, and for what makes us human. Along the way, Elan Mastai fills his wonderful novel with epiphany after epiphany that forced me to reevaluate my life, my place in the universe, and come to grips with the person I have become. This novel will force you to look at the people around you as never before, and it portrays emotions with words like no other book I have read. Take for example this sample text:

Death is slippery. Our minds can’t latch onto it. Over time, you learn to accommodate the gap in your life that the loss opens up. Like a black hole, you know it’s there because it’s the spot from which no light escapes. And there’s the sinewy exhaustion, the physical toll of grief that you just can’t seem to sleep away.

Beautiful, huh? The book is constructed with layer upon layer of meaning such as the role of the writer in a techno-obsessed world. Is the novel dead? Is there any difference between memoir and fiction? A sci-fi romance that warps reality, human emotion, explores truth and even has an ending that satisfies.

Yes, this was my favorite read in 2018, and I hope you like it too!

Download Edge of Darkness Today!

Just added the Sci-Fi eBook “Edge of Darkness” to the Offworlders’ Bookstore as a free download.

Here is a copy of Vikki Romano‘s biography:

I’ve been a fan of science fiction for most of my life, but stumbling upon Asimov, Le Guin, and Gibson in my early teens shaped what love of the genre I have today.

And what I know of Sci-Fi was only magnified once the dot-com revolution began in the early 80s. I had always had an interest in technology, about data, about how things worked and so my tech career started early setting up networks at IBM, working on satellite projects for Lockheed Aerospace, and later becoming a database engineer and IT supervisor for a few Fortune 500 firms.

And through all of this, one thing remained consistent – my love for Sci-Fi melded with my need to write. No matter the job I had at the time, writing was always grounding for me. It helped me to vent my ideas and my dreams of where technology could go, about where it could take us. And through my stories, I hope to help others find a love of what first sparked my imagination.

~ Vikki Romano

You can download her novel here: Edge of Darkness