I was pleasantly surprised. How do you tell stories when the new post RotJ canon is still in flux? Liu pulls a clever trick and couches all of Luke's tales in narratives that range from unreliable to over-awed. It makes for a fun and wide ranging group of short stories. Not a lot of lore, but enough bits of interest to tide you over until The Last Jedi. ( )

I didn't entirely love all the short stories in this one, but I liked how much we learned about The Force and all the different names for it. I love that we start looking at the mythos of a hero are bigger than the hero itself, because of the good such mantles can take on. I love a lot of the little tropes. I did feel like the writing let me down in several places though.

Including plurk live readthrough below here:


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Star Wars book five billionth of the last two, now beginning of a third, week. But at least they are helping keep me sane in the way that some other things aren't quite right now while hiatus, new-school, and DC-prep are going on.

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The Myth Buster

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Luke, Stop sass-goading normal people quietly.

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This is totally going to be like the Smuggler’s Run set up. Also, amusing that this is two deep nested stories already.

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Luke “Baby Face” Clodplotter.

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TELL ME SOMEONE WROTE THIS AU.

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The Starship Graveyard

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I love this kind of story. The one that tells you the inside stories of the other side. The deep gaslighting. The fear. The only stories.

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Sometimes the villains are the heroes.

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”We are all Luke Skywalker.”

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Interlude 2
Mysterious Person #2!

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Fishing in the Deluge

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“We all lift each other up.”
I really liked this one. I like the different way of working with/envisioning “The Tide” (/The Force).

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I, Droid

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EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
THIS ONE MAKES IT OFFICIAL THAT PADME WAS AN ACCOMPLISHED POET FROM HER YOUTH.

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“mandroid”

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“There’s still good in her. I know it.”

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A great man and a great Droid.

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The Tale of Lugubrious Moat

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Luke Skywanker: It’s a fabulous little collection of interwoven Luke Stories told from other being’s points of view. I am loving it.

Luke Skywanker
cool, I'll have to find it

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Well. That. Was a thing.

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Oohhhhhh. I forgot to put the title of this one.
But oh oh oh

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The Force = The Tides = The Mist

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”We’re all Luke Skywalker. We all lift up each other.”

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Well, that whole book ended up super cuter than I expected. It’s good to know two of the pre-Canto books are story collections. ( )

Stories come in many forms and points of views, and they often evolve with each telling. The Legends of Luke Skywalker by Ken Liu resembles a giant game of telephone as the crew members of a transport barge on its way to Canto Bight pass the time recounting legends about Luke Skywalker they have picked up in their travels. Six separate stories are presented ranging from the somewhat believable to the downright bizarre. While the illustrations preceding each tale are stunning, the words on the page lack depth and relevance.

The opening narrative, which continues in interludes between the short stories, is dull and uneventful. The crew, composed of characters that somehow all manage to sound the same, tread trivial and mundane topics between forced segues into each legend. Unfortunately, the legends themselves do not make up for the unappealing plot holding together the book’s structure.

Besides focusing on Luke Skywalker, each legend explores the concept of heroism, particularly how one man’s hero can be another man’s villain. The most entertaining legend (“The Starship Graveyard”) focuses entirely on this concept, as it is narrated by an Imperial gunner who is saved by a rebel, presumably Luke, after the Battle of Jakku. The only other legend (“Fishing in the Deluge”) that succeeds at bearing an iota of relevance to the Star Wars universe follows two siblings on the ocean planet of Lew’el who help teach Luke the ways of the Tide, their translation of the Force.

The rest of the legends (“The Myth Buster,” “I, Droid,” “The Tale of Lugubrious Mote,” and “Big Inside”) miss the mark because they are too exaggerated. The outlandish nature of these tales should be amusing, but they are more annoying than humorous. The most horrific of all relates the events of Return of the Jedi from the perspective of a flea living in the hair of Jabba the Hutt’s crony, Salacious Crumb. I am not kidding. The more outrageous the tale, the less invested the reader becomes as they lose interest in deciphering what is true and what is fake. If nothing is true, then why read it at all?

Ken Liu’s The Legends of Luke Skywalker is a self-indulgent and irrelevant piece of fluff that struggles to find its place in the beloved franchise. As a companion piece to The Last Jedi, it hurts more than helps stoke excitement for the new movie’s release. In fact, it made me wary of buying future Star Wars books. Skip this one, and stick to Claudia Gray’s novels instead. ( )

Magical!

Liu weaves a spell with a multitude of characters telling tall tales about Luke Skywalker. Fiction, fantasy and fact are spun together in a charming collection of stories. Unlike any Star Wars book I've ever read. ( )

Ken Liu's Star Wars: The Legends of Luke Skywalker follows a group traveling to Canto Bight (the casino in The Last Jedi) who trade various stories of Luke from events in the original trilogy to Luke's role in the Battle of Jakku and search for other Jedi knowledge prior to starting his school. Each story is an interesting experiment in how the average person in the Star Wars galaxy would understand or know of a character like Luke. Some stories are funny, but others are more introspective, examining the role of the Force and different interpretations of its place in the galaxy. J.G. Jones's illustrations each look like posters for mini-episodes, which these various stories are. The overall framing device links this to The Last Jedi, but fans need not have seen the film to appreciate the book. Since Liu presents the stories as having been altered after various re-tellings, this will remain an entertaining read even if later novels contradict some of the events set after Return of the Jedi. This is one of the more creative additions to the new canon of books and worth checking out. ( )