Star Wars Insider: The Fiction Collection Volume 1

Star Wars Insider: Fiction Collections #1

by Jason Fry, Matthew Woodring Stover, John Ostrander

Star Wars Insider, the official magazine of the Star Wars saga, presents an amazing collection of exclusive short stories from the galaxy far, far away.

Includes tales starring iconic characters such as Han Solo, Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian and Darth Vader, this collection also features stories showcasing supporting characters such as Darth Plagueis, Hondo Ohnaka, Captain Rex, and Darth Revan.

Includes fiction written by renowned best-selling Star Wars authors such as Jason Fry, Matthew Stover, John Ostrander, and Paul S. Kemp, this volume also includes stunning art from some of the saga’s best-loved interpreters, including Joe Corroney, Brian Rood, Jan Duursema, and Magali Villeneuve.

Genres: Star Wars, Science Fiction, Fiction, Short Stories, Anthologies

144 pages, Hardcover

First published March 23, 2021

About the author

I am the author of The Jupiter Pirates series published by HarperCollins -- visit the official site at http://jupiterpirates.com.

In addition to Jupiter Pirates, I've written or co-written more than 30 novels and short stories set in the Star Wars galaxy, including The Essential Atlas, The Essential Guide to Warfare, The Weapon of a Jedi, and the Servants of the Empire quartet.

I spent more than 12 years at The Wall Street Journal Online, where I wrote or co-wrote the Real Time and Daily Fix columns. My non-fiction work has appeared on ESPN.com, Yahoo! Sports, Poynter.org, Deadspin and Baseball Prospectus. I blog about the New York Mets at Faith and Fear in Flushing and live in Brooklyn with my wife and son.

Reviews

[Khurram · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an awesome book. It is a lit more then I was expecting. I thought it was going to be a quick read of tiny text with an illustration at the start of each chapter/story. Instead ot is a fill magazine style short story with excellent illustrations sandwiched around the story.

It was also awesome to once again read stories in the Expanded/Legends Universe. Great stories in the Disney Universe as well, but the Legends is my favourite. My favourite story in this collection was of one of my favourite couples of the Legends series. It was great for me to see they were married in the end. There is also a great group of stories following Blade Squadron in the Disney universe.

Another nostalgic moment for me was to see the Hildebrandt brothers artwork. I grew up collecting their artwork on the Marvel Masterpeices and Shadow of the Empire card sets among other places. On a side note does anyone else see the resemblance between Dash and Cable?

Not every story was a five star story but I can honestly say I enjoyed every short story in the book so it more than deserved a five star rating as a whole. I really hope these books continue I already ordered volume 2. My hope is in the future more stories are run and give answers and closure to especially the Expanded/Legonds universe, as well as extending the Disney Universe.

[Daniel Kukwa · Rating 3 out of 5]

As far as I'm concerned, this is a collection that typifies feelings about "Star Wars" fiction -- it highlights what I love, and it also contains stories I don't actually hate...simply corners of the Lucasverse that hold no interest to me and leave me feeling "meh". This collection has a number of such stories, but it also have others that fired up my imagination, including two Vader stories (he is and always will be my favourite character), a Jaina/Jag/honeymoon tale, and a story of the ancient Je'daii rangers. The three star rating is literally splitting the difference between my "wow" and "meh" reactions.

[Don Bennie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some very good stories and ploy lines that add some interesting detail. Was tough getting into some of the stories before the present continuity.

[Phil · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was super cool. Except for the fact that it was overwhelmed with typographical errors. And there was no appearance by Princess Leia. And there was an overabundance of stories about Blade Squadron (they were cool, there was just one too many of these tales, in this reader's opinion). The stories were well-crafted, the full-page, full-color artwork was top-drawer, and the reason it took me so long to finish this is because I keep falling asleep during normal reading hours (unrelated to quality of collection). May the Force be with you!

[Jaime K · Rating 4 out of 5]

Out of all of these, I've only ever read one of the short stories since I stopped subscribing to Insider in 2005 and this goes from 2011 to 2017. The one I read is the Sloane story from JJM, though I don't remember from where.

I really like these are in publication order, and we get stories on the following:

Legends
- Vader after ESB when a clone stormtrooper reminds him of friendship
- Vestara Khai's first kill
- Lando pulls shenanigans for future plans
- How Dash Rendar met Leebo
- Khedryn Faal and Marr Idi-Shael who I forgot about. I didn't like the writing too much.
- Tenebrous (and Plagueis) and morality, and the possibility of a One Sith rule. It was odd.
- Han and Chewie find more than they bargained for in the Rishi Maze. I wasn't a fan of how it's written...and the authors are the same in the Blade Squadron stories which I also felt are stilted.
- An Imperial Captain named Shea during the battle of Kelrodo-Ai. I LOVE the art!
- Parella the Hutt hunts a swamp ape.
- Jaina and Jag on their honeymoon. I didn't like the first piece of art. Both look 16 or 18 which is bonkers.
- Myri on a mission on a gambling ship. I love her gadgets.
- A random story about Cad Bane.
- Lanoree Brock and her help with negotiations between two families

Canon
- How Alderaanians are treated on Coruscant after the events in ANH, and how two kids find comfort in sharing the pain of exclusion among other species.
- How a new Vader meets Cadet Sloane.
- The last 4 are all about Blade Squadron and Gina Moonsong, with missions from Endor to Malastare to Kuat to Jakku. She is egotistical and absolutely annoying. If it was just about her, I'd give this book a 2/5 stars. Sure she grows but she's whiny and constantly breaks rules and then gets huffy when someone else does. I want to punch her and while I knew she wouldn't die, I wanted her to. As noted above, the writing is is stilted too.

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fully-illustrated collection of short stories originally printed in 'Star Wars Insider' magazine.
A mixture of old canon (Legends) and new canon (evil Disney), the stories range from the Dawn of the Jedi era all the way through to the Legacy era and feature characters such as Darth Vader, Vestara Khai, Lando Calrissian, Dash Rendar, Han Solo, Jaina Solo-Fel, Cad Bane and the pilots of Blade Squadron.

I'll be totally honest and say that I probably over-rate this book if taken on the quality of the stories featured alone, but for me it was so nice to reacquaint myself with familiar characters and situations from the now-defunct EU canon that I enjoyed it immensely as a result.
Karen Miller's 'Roll of the Dice', for example, is a fairly unremarkable story, but the sheer fact that it stars Wedge Antilles and his spy-trained daughter Myri gave it enormous nostalgia power from its associations with the X-Wing novels.

Of course don't be deceived into thinking that it's not worth reading this if you don't have nostalgia for the EU canon because there are a number of stories which are part of the current canon, including an enjoyable X-Wing-esque set of four stories which follow the B-Wing pilots of Blade Squadron from the Battle of Endor through to the Battle of Jakku.

Regardless of which canon you prefer (or if you couldn't care less and just like Star Wars), there are some really good short stories here, many of which either show us previously unknown adventures of familiar faces or expand upon the settings of longer novels, or both.
For me the highlight was Matthew Stover's 'The Tenebrous Way', a tie-in to James Luceno's brilliant novel 'Darth Plagueis', which follows the thoughts and plots of Darth Tenebrous as he is murdered by his apprentice (Plagueis).

* More reviews here: https://fsfh-book-review2.webnode.com *

[Joe Santoro · Rating 4 out of 5]

I discovered this book existed from Previews funnily enough, and ended up ordering the first one after I was getting into re-reading the Thrawn Trilogy. These are are from Star Wars Insider magazine, not sure if the art is new for these collections or it as as it appears in the magazine.. the book is not quite coffee table sided, but definitely larger than normal.. and thus a little unwieldly to read.

Of the 18 stories, more than 1/2 are 'legends' stories, which is good. There is a Zahn story about Lando that takes place just before Heir to the Empire, a sort of a Cad Bane origin story, Wedge's daughter as a spy, a Jaina Solo story from further down the timeline than I ever read (but good) and perhaps my favorite, the first one which took one of the stories from the original Marvel cartoon and connected it to the Clone Wars cartoon. About 1/2 were direct connections to popular characters, and the others were just random stories in the Star Wars universe. Those were less good, as they felt like random fiction that was just sort of plunked in, but not terrible.. one with a Hutt on a hunt for a sasquatch like legend was pretty good.

4 of the Disney era ones were about 'Blade Squadron and its leader Gina Moonsong.. didn't do much for me.. they start at the Battle of Endor and go to Jakku (where Temmin Wexley gets in the action).

The one I DID like was about a training vessel visited by Vader and the Emperor just after they took over, that happened to had Rae Sloane on it as a cadet. She's probably my favorite Disney era character so that was fun.

I might potentially get another of these... the art is pretty nice and at least some of the stories are worth reading.

[Milan Pohl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kolekce povídek Star Wars publikovaných v časopise SW Insider v letech 2011 až 2017 obsahuje asi tucet povídek z kontinuity starého kánonu (Legends) plus pár kousků z nového. Je tu pár dobrých až velmi dobrých kousků (z Legends např. Vader Adrift od Rydera Windhama, Buyer's Market od Zahna, povídka o Rendarovi a Leebovi od Reevese a Bohnhoffové, z nového kánonu Orientation od J. J. Millera), ale bohužel i spousta balastu - což je dáno tím, že tato kolekce se spolu s následujícím svazkem pokouší pokrýt celé výše zmíněné období Insideru, aniž by se z něj snažila vybrat pouze ty skutečně dobré příběhy.

Celkovému dojmu výrazně pomáhají skvělé barevné ilustrace předních výtvarníků Star Wars včetně Corroneyho, Trevase či bratří Hildebrandtů; naopak ho sráží závratné množství překlepů a typografických chyb, jako by publikace neprošla jakoukoli korekturou. Škoda - kdyby místo dvou knížek vyšla jedna, zato s důkladnějším výběrem povídek a pečlivější redakční úpravou, výsledné hodnocení by možná atakovalo plný počet.

[Leo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book of collected short stories from Star Wars Insider. Some stories are from the Legends universe, others are canon (not that it makes a difference to me). All good reads illuminating different perspectives of the War in the stars. Some of my favorite characters make an appearance like Jaina Solo and Jagged Fel, other characters are so minor, they are like the unknown people in movie credits but essential in filling the Star Wars galaxy with victory, love, defeat and hope.

[Alyce Caswell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A solid collection of Legends tales, which I really enjoyed (mind you, I skipped over the Dawn of the Jedi one, since I'd read it recently in the associated novel - I recall it being decent, though). Great choice of authors. But I don't agree with the decision to add Disney-canon stories to the back of this book. They felt very out of place - and the Blade Squadron stories just weren't that interesting. Ignore those and you've got a great collection of stories here.

[Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A cool set of short stories found in the magazine. I am glad they came out with these so that the stories aren't locked behind a magazine subscription. This one has a mix of both Canon and Legends stories. I think it is weird that they didn't separate them, but oh well. I'd only really recommend this if you want to collect all of the short fiction.

[Katie]

I enjoyed this. The stories I liked best were the ones focused on Lando, Jaina Solo, and the pilots at the end. A couple stories focused on characters I really don’t care for but most were interesting.

[Tina Reitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun short stories on some of my favorite Star Wars characters

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actually was really good, even the canon stuff

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cool collection of short stories published in Star Wars Insider magazine. The art accompanying each story is also beautiful.

[Jeff Nylander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favorite Stories:
First Blood: Christie Golden

Reputation: Ari Marnell

Orientation: John Jackson Miller

[Wannes Carpels · Rating 3 out of 5]

Most of the stories contain an insight into the grander universe. Some of the older stories are a bit tough to get into though.

[Alain del Risco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Favorite section: Blade Squadron and Hunting the Gorach.