Status Updates From Star Wars: Tales from the M...

The pipe smoker's tale: Well I guess we needed a little more scum and villainy in our collection of Mos Eisley stories. It's also neat that Star Wars has it's own vampires, but otherwise this was not an enjoyable story, and seeing the Cantina scene from yet another POV is getting tiresome. 1 star.

The Stormtrooper's Tale: 4 stars. Nice to see the nameless faceless Empire get some characterization. This short story intersected a little too much with the movie for my taste, but it was entertaining enough for me to read in one sitting.

The Ranat's tale (rat man). Very, very short. Almost more of an appendix to the previous story. Not awful, not great or even good. Meh. 2/5

The Jawa's tale - easily my second favorite so far behind the Ithorian tale. We get some interesting insights into the Jawas as a people, a plucky protagonist, and a surprisingly open ended conclusion. 4.5 stars

The story of the Devaronian - Meh? It was neat to have this one tied in with both the previous tale and the first one of the collection. I liked the beginning and the backstory to the devil man. Somewhere around half way I found myself asking, "Where is this going?" And the answer was nowhere, kinda. I'll give it 3 stars for being alright.

The tale of Trevagg & Nightlily - You know how some female spiders eat their mates? Well what if that was a Star Wars short story about an arrogant playboy getting his comeuppance? ... Yeah I don't know what to rate this one. I guess I'll give it 2 stars, some of it was at least interesting and it didn't go on too long. Safe to say, not my cup of tea.

The final story taking place during the Battle of Endor with flashbacks to the cantina and Hoth was mildly interesting. But the fact he treated it as some sort of metaphysical Force flashback where the characters acknowledged it was a flashback was kind of dumb. Wasn't much of a fan.
And that's that. Finally done. All in all, pretty meh. Im probably still going to read them, but not looking forward to the other Tales

'It was clear she didn't support Eyvind's ideas about my ideas.' Come on, that's just bad writing. There are a number of ways to phrase that better. Stance on my ideas, response to my ideas. It's not hard.
Noticed that this the second-to-last story. I'm glad. I am quite ready to move on from this. It hasn't all been terrible, but it's also not terribly interesting. (Ha.)

'I hoped for the good, that's what I hoped' is a sentence that should've been caught in a proofread. Looks like he reworded it after initially writing it but forgot to completely edit what was originally written.
'I'm sure you guys don't want to be arguing with me five weeks before your wedding.' Lmao, what? That doesn't make any damn sense. Five HOURS before, maybe. But five weeks?? Bad excuse

10,000 days to repay a loan is insane. That's 27 years! Unless days are somehow tracked different in the Star Wars galaxy. No one would ever give THAT much leeway on a loan. That's a loan you're not expecting to ever get paid back.

Wow... that was shit. One of my most anticipated stories in this was Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba. They're the biggest part of the iconic cantina scene! I was hoping for some explanations or whatever. But, nope, the ENTIRE story takes place after EpIV, and not even on Tatooine. The only story in this so far to not include the cantina at all. And it was like Dr. Frankenstein bullshit... what a disappointment.

I wanted to like that story more than I did. BoShek stealing Luke's speeder, and then somehow using the Force to trick the same stormtroopers into repeating the 'these aren't the droids we're looking for' interaction, is way too convenient and nonsensical. Got too cute trying to connect it all. Not everything has to be directly related! Also, what the hell kind of human name is BoShek?

I know that Obi-Wan was shown talking with the spacer before he spoke with Chewie in the movie. But having that conversation be about the Force and Obi-Wan warning him of the dark side is very lame. Also, BoShek getting ready to help Han against Greedo now makes two people in these stories that have done that. I can't remember who the other one was. Too many authors trying to insert themselves into movie events...

The Anzati story was bad. A couple of the other stories hinted at that guy being dark or evil, but did not give any other detail than that, so I was looking forward to what that was all about. She (the author of this) tried to get too weird, and when you force weirdness like that, it just comes off as tryhard and bad. What a disappointment.

I liked the premise of the story, but execution was a bit lacking. Obi-Wan noted the sandcrawler damage was done by stormtroopers, not a tank. Interesting to see Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru get killed, but once again it was by a tank instead of troopers, which waters it down. Describing Han as "athletic" 3 times is weird. Davin shooting the captain in the back being the reason Han gets to escape is kind of lame.

Not done with it yet, but I can't believe they wrote a story about the specific stormtooper that says "look sir, droids!" Lmao. What a dumb idea (in a good way). Although one thing that doesn't make sense is he was shipped off to a bumfuck nowhere assignment to hide the AT-AT flaw he discovered. But he found that out literally his first time in an AT-AT. If a new recruit can find it, surely other people have...

Yeah, it makes sense that KJA's wife would write a companion piece to his story. But the fact that it delivers what essentially is the punchline for the Jawa story is meh. Having a punchline be contained in an entirely separate story is not great. Also, her story has no other purpose aside from that. It was pointless.

KJA's story was lackluster. I liked how he found a way to have a scene with Obi-Wan that wasn't just a rehash of the cantina scenes from the movie. That was neat. But it felt like he had no plans other than that, and had no idea how to end it, so he just ended it quickly.

Empire Blues was a weird story. Not bad, just weird. I'll take not having negative feelings towards a story any time. Did not know the famous cantina song was titled 'Mad About Me' in-universe, and that fact is apparently still canon even though this story was the first time it was identified as such (and the story, like the rest of the EU, is not canon anymore).

The bartender's tale was... baffling. Interesting, slightly grotesque and morbid, and strangely ending with a redemption arc / religious experience to shake him out of his droid bigotry. 3 stars for being entertaining even if I don't know what to make of it.

The Tale of the Hammerhead / Ithorian Mowmaw Nadon. Honestly the best one so far. A gripping character with a little arc. His personal story and struggle between pacifism and the need for justice is well done.
5 stars

The tale of Muftak & Kabe. Charming little story about two aliens. Not the most interesting, original, or riveting, but enjoyable nonetheless. I liked the odd duo and their dynamic. I'll give this one 3.5 stars

What the fuck, Barbara Hambly? No, really, what the fuck? Didn't expect to read about a misogynist Gotal wanting to date rape a woman. That was... beyond fucked. What an awful story. And yeah, it has the praying mantis style twist ending, but that doesn't excuse it.
Also, a Gotal would not be an Imperial official of any level on any planet. The Empire is racist towards nonhumans. They'd do grunt work, but that's it.

Alright, the Wuher story is now my lowest ranked (thus far), because it kind of pissed me off. When he went to collect the droid, they started speaking in ridiculous flowery language, to the point where I thought it was a joke. Like it would turn out to be Wuher recounting and embellishing this story to someone. But nope, it was played straight. Also, him making alcohol from Greedo's literal corpse is fucked up.

Yet another story that contradicts Greedo's earlier story. In this bartender story, he is a seasoned bounty hunter that has traveled enough to call Wuher a bad bartender, and invokes Jabba's name. But in his own story, Greedo was a fresh-faced 19 year old who was a new arrival on Tatooine who barely met Jabba. Those two things clash. Having these contradictions in the same volume makes this look really amateurish