2/5 Rancors - Any fan of Star Wars is fond of the cantina in Mos Eisley on Tatooine. That is where we first got an idea of the huge variety of characters we might meet in the films and that is the basis for this book. Why not take each of the characters in the famous cantina scene and write a backstory for them? The idea is a good one, but I think the stories meet with mixed success. All of the tales are original, and they are all by different authors, so completely different styles of writing can be found.
The book begins with a tale about the band Figrin D'an and the Modal Nodes. That gets us off to a good start as it is fun to picture the band and the problems they run across. We are also treated to tales about Greedo, Dr, Evazan, Ponda Baba, a Jawa, a stormtrooper, the Hammerhead, and the bartender - plus others. Each tale does give us new information about the residents of the wretched hive of scum and villainy, but I found that some of it I just did not care about. For example, the tale "Soup's On: The Pipe Smoker's Tale" about Dannik Jerriko was just strange and uninteresting. The tale of Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba was another that did not hold my interest. Kevin Anderson's editing of all of the tales from the cantina is good. He manages to tie the tales back to the famous scene with Luke and Obi-Wan at the bar consistently, and we also read about Greedo's demise at the hands of Han Solo in a number of tales. I would look forward to additional collections of tales from other settings.
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