As the rest of the galaxy burned, his path remained true. It is the kind of victory that most people never recognize and yet the bedrock all goodness is built upon. —Claudia Gray, Master and Apprentice
Just when you thought there was nothing about the original Star Wars film that hadn't been dissected and analyzed and digitized and rereleased, From a Certain Point of View manages to breathe new life into A New Hope. The collection of short stories, published to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Star Wars, varies wildly in tone and voice. Some stories feel more Star Wars-y than others, but as a collection, it's a fun and endearing tour through the humor, the sorrow, and even the mundane that orbit the already well-documented heroics of Luke, Leia, and Han.
Importantly, From a Certain Point of View continues the trend of increasing LGBT visibility in Star Wars books. Wil Wheaton's touching Laina references a pair of female minor characters who will act as the title character's new mothers. And E.K. Johnston's and Ashley Eckstein's By Whatever Sun is told from the perspective of Miara Larte as she stands at attention during the final Rebel awards scene. Miara and her sister Kaeden were protagonists in Johnston's Ahsoka novel, and Kaeden is an openly queer young adult.
This anthology also outs Ackmena, the gruff cantina bartender so valiantly played by Bea Arthur in the universally panned 1978 Star Wars Holiday Special. Leave it to Chuck Wendig, author of We Don't Serve Their Kind Here (and the LGBT inclusiveStar Wars: Aftermath trilogy), to throw in an offhand reference in his short story to Sorschi, Ackmena's now-canon wife. And Ackmena, freshly minted as a queer character in Wendig's story, plays more of a role in the really outstanding The Kloo Horn Cantina Caper by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Matt Fraction.
But From a Certain Point of View goes beyond mere references to LGBT peripheral characters: Doctor Aphra, one of the most popular characters in the new canon, who is also queer, is the star of The Trigger by Kieron Gillen, the bisexual writer of Marvel's Aphra comic series. The short story describes how Aphra navigates her moral ambiguity after Alderaan's destruction and reveals what was going on at the abandoned rebel base on Dantooine that Leia offered up when threatened by Grand Moff Tarkin.
And speaking of Grand Moff Tarkin... Of MSE-6 and Men by gay author Glen Weldon has received some attention for its unique perspective of a tiny MSE (or "mouse") droid: it turns out some readers don't enjoy reading a piece largely composed in droid programming language. (The more you get into it, the more endearing—and revealing—the language becomes.) The eponymous MSE-6 droid tells the story of its owner, the hapless male stormtrooper TK-421, who manages to catch the eye of a senior male Imperial officer. And although that senior officer is never directly named, it seems all-but-certain that the gay Imperial officer is none other than Grand Moff Tarkin himself. In any event, the story's portrayal of a clandestine same-sex romance in a heavily regulated society feels almost like a period piece. And ultimately, the story is touching and comedic, which is quite an achievement considering that it's a story about a gay Grand Moff Tarkin (or so we choose to assume).
With less than 48 hours before Star Wars: The Last Jedi opens, fans learned in a recent Collider interview that the newest film will still not include an openly queer on-screen character (unless you count Laura Dern's Amilyn Holdo, who is identified as pansexual in the books but evidently not in the film). While we wait for any LGBT onscreen representation, From a Certain Point of View is a welcome infusion of LGBT representation into the original source material.