Chat corner 152: Short stories

[annathecrow]

Welcome to the Monday chat corner!

Between this week and the next, I'm going to muddle the themes a little between Legends and Canon. This week, our topic is "short stories" - all and every possible Star Wars short story you have read, written, or just encountered in the wild.

Have you ever read a SW short story? Where? In an anthology, a magazine, on a website? Do you have an anthology you'd recommend?

And... well, short stories are probably the closest thing to fanfiction. What are your thoughts about that? Do you see a difference, and if so, what kind? Have you ever read a fanfic that felt like it ought to be officially published... or a short story that felt more like a fanfic?

Comments

[primeideal]

I liked the idea of "A Certain Point of View" but I'm not sure it entirely "works" as canon--when everyone is the most specialest all the time (the trash compactor monster was baptizing Luke! Mon Mothma was the rebellion's designated survivor in case Yavin IV got destroyed! Ahsoka is out doing...something?), to some extent, no one is.

I've seen "The Sith Who Brought Life Day" (OC-POV gen fic, crack treated seriously between ANH and ESB) recced widely, it feels like something that could be published if people weren't worried about secondary canon.

[atamascolily]

In Legends, there were similar anthologies with a more narrow focus--Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, Tales from Jabba's Palace, Tales from the Bounty Hunters--which I thought worked better as a whole. The quality was still highly variable, but it was fun to see the different stories interweave or the same event through different angles. Given the complicated "levels" of canonicity in the old EU, I don't think anyone took them super-seriously, but they were fun!

[snowshus]

I feel the same, and also that some of the crowd scenes get a few too many stories about them. I was very done with the Mos Eisley Cantina scene by like the third story covering it. Also I'm pretty sure some it directly contradicts canon, if not also other stories in the same book. So I assume it's not real canon.

However, the Imperial bureaucracy stories have been absolutely delightful every time they come up!

[havendale]

I went digging for the earliest (official) SW short story,* and per Wookieepedia it appears to be “Cantina Communications” by John Chesterman, published in early 1979. I couldn’t find the original, but I did stumble upon a French translation, and it struck me as very unlike modern SW – it’s got a much harder science-fiction feel, with the focus being all the different aliens you might meet in the GFFA.

* I’d be very surprised if there isn’t fanfiction dating from 1977.