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Star Wars Book Club Episode III: Canto Bight by Ahmed, Carson, Grant, and Miller

By and | March 13th, 2018
Posted in Columns | % Comments

Welcome to the Multiversity Star Wars Book Club! Based on a conversation in the Multiversity Slack, editors Matt Garcia and Brian Salvatore decided to start up this column, where we will be reading and discussing a Star Wars every month or so. So come, enter the ancient library and join us!

Written by Saladin Ahmed, Rae Carson, Mira Grant, and John Jackson Miller

As seen in Star Wars: The Last Jedi, welcome to the casino city of Canto Bight. A place where exotic aliens, captivating creatures, and other would-be high rollers are willing to risk everything to make their fortunes. Set across one fateful evening, these four interconnected stories explore the deception and danger of the lavish casino city.

• An honest salesman meets a career criminal as a dream vacation turns into the worst nightmare imaginable, in a story by Saladin Ahmed.

• Dreams and schemes collide when a deal over a priceless bottle of wine becomes a struggle for survival, as told by Mira Grant.

• Old habits die hard when a servant is forced into a mad struggle for power among Canto Bight’s elite, in a tale by Rae Carson

• A deadbeat gambler has one last chance to turn his luck around; all he has to do is survive one wild night, as told by John Jackson Miller.

In Canto Bight, one is free to revel in excess, untouched from the problems of a galaxy once again descending into chaos and war. Dreams can become reality, but the stakes have never been higher—for there is a darkness obscured by all the glamour and luxury.

Brian: Well Matt, we continue our recent look at books that somewhat predate The Last Jedi, today we look at Canto Bight, an anthology of four stories that all take place in the titular city, the casino city where Rose, Finn, and BB-8 attempt to secure the help of the ‘Master Code Breaker,’ but instead meet D.J.

I got this book a little before The Last Jedi’s release, and read the first story ahead of the film. That colored my experience of both the book and the film a bit. But we’ll get there in a second. Overall, what did you think of the book?

Matt: Overall, I liked it. I thought the stories were engaging, the characters dynamic and a strong indicator of all the other creatures and aliens living in the galaxy, and the whole collection consistent. Even the entry I found the weakest, “The Ride,” was entertaining. I had a great time with “The Wine in Dreams.” Like, I enjoyed some of these stories more than others but I didn’t outright hate or dislike any of them.

I also super dug how we had a collection of material that didn’t feature the usual characters in any way. There were references to the Resistance and the First Order peppered throughout (the chronology list in the front puts this before The Force Awakens) but the drama, dilemmas, and agency came from lives who either ignored all of it or couldn’t be bothered by it. At the same time, I never felt like we weren’t in the Star Wars universe: the book has the tone, spectacle, and feeling I’d associate with the galaxy, as if the stories were written with Star Wars in mind rather than taken from somewhere else and reappropriated.

Which stories stood out most to you? I’m also interested in hearing more about how the Ahmed story colored your experience with The Last Jedi.

Brian: “The Wine in Dreams” was my favorite, for sure, with “Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing” as a close second. “The Wine in Dreams,” in particular, seemed a good fit for a Star Wars story that we haven’t seen before. Straddling the lines of a few familiar concepts/characters, it was a really delightful story. I want to know more about not just the wines, but also the characters. Almost every character you meet is memorable and unique. I really enjoyed it.

As for how the Ahmed story affected my The Last Jedi experience, it is pretty simple. After reading “Rules of the Game,” I was expecting the city of Canto Bight to pop off the screen, to be fabulous and technicolor and over the top. Instead, we got a fairly unremarkable casino, one that wouldn’t have been out of place in Grand Hotel. To me, the Canto Bight of film pales, quite considerably, to the Canto Bight of these novellas, in terms of opulence and intrigue.

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The Canto Bight casino scenes are my least favorite in The Last Jedi (though I thoroughly appreciate what they accomplish, in terms of character development and Justin Theroux cameos), and I wonder if that is, in part, because of the build up I felt “Rules of the Game” gave me for how the city should appear on screen.

Of course, we only saw one area of one casino on Cantonica, so I’m not saying that the ideas/visuals aren’t compatible with each other. I was just expecting more from the city. Does that sound crazy?

Matt: Not at all. All this is completely extra-textual, but I had seen the featurette about Canto Bight and I had expected something bigger, too. And if we’re touching on the film a bit, I can agree that’s the weakest segment of Last Jedi, though that might be because there are so many other great scenes throughout Last Jedi. However, I always interpreted everything as more of a hoity, James Bond casino than the overstimulating Vegas type.

Anyway, even if the stories don’t necessarily feature prominent characters from the films, I think they did manage to thematically stay consistent with the message of the film. And, for an tie-in like this, that’s important. Canto Bight is so closed off from the rest of the galaxy, a great deal of characters don’t even realize the difference between the Resistance or the First Order. All four writers wisely choose to focus on the little guy getting eaten by the system or having to create systems of their own. The saddest part is how frequently they realize they’re secluded from everything but continue getting sucked back into the city.

Brian: Yeah, I was pleased that none of the writers felt the need to shoehorn in anything aside from the broadest concepts from other Star Wars stories and, instead, set up a little world for the characters to occupy that felt of the universe, but not like it was aping anything in particular.

So, we both enjoyed “The Wine in Dreams” the most. What was it about the story that stood out to you?

Matt: Well, I’m always a sucker for a good heist story. More than that, though, I think Mira Grant showed great control over characters — their motivations, desires, and ambitions and then making sure they stayed consistent in them — structural balance — once the story seems to be getting too silly, she throws some intense moments, once it gets sort of boring she peppers it with humor — and a confidence with the Star Wars universe. It’s an exciting and fun story nor does it bite off more than it can chew.

Same question, but for you.

Brian: I felt like it did a few things exceptionally well, the most important was the motivations of the characters were crystal clear, as you mentioned. While there were still twists and turns, no one acted out of character in the slightest. That might sound like faint praise, but I feel like in sci-fi/fantasy especially, a lot of times characters are forced outside of their usual patterns/motivations to fulfil the author’s plot. This had none of that.

The heist nature of it was also something I really enjoyed, as was Grant’s descriptions of the wine. It can be incredibly hard to describe, in text, the sounds, tastes, or smells of fictional objects, but she did just enough to give the reader a sense of what she was talking about, even if the ingredients/descriptions often were full of terms that are not real. This was one the story that made me run to Goodreads to see what else Grant had written, and track one down.

You mentioned that “The Ride” was your least favorite. Why is that?

Matt: I think it may have partly been sequencing. It followed these other, far more enjoyable stories. It also seemed like the one that was the most generic and simple. Down on his luck gambler makes it big with these weird brothers. I also think that John Jackson Miller was the only contributor here who was a veteran of the Legends universe. There’s something in his writing that has that same voiceless approach to Star Wars that made 95.2% of the Extended canon so abysmal. It was serviceable but too much like the old guy trying to keep up with the new kids. Of course, Carson and Grant typically write for teenagers, so it’s not like their writing is complicated or intricate simply because of their usual audience, but there’s a freshness and an excited spark in the stories I don’t think Miller was able to capture in his.

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I wonder, how would you define a Star Wars book and what differences have you noticed about this current crop of books than the old EU?

Brian: Before I answer your question, I just want to say that Miller wrote A New Dawn, the Rebels prequel novel, which I thoroughly enjoyed. My enjoyment of “The Ride” wasn’t as much as the two middle stories in the book, but I felt that it did humor in the Star Wars universe, especially in the written sector, about as well as anyone has. This story, in the wrong hands, had ‘Jar Jar saying exqueeze me’ all over it, but Miller was able to walk that line without diving into full obnoxiousness.

In regards to your question, my Star Wars reading was very limited pre-new canon. I read and loved the Thrawn Trilogy from Timothy Zahn, and had read a few comics here and there, but my Star Wars fandom slacked at a point when I would have been diving into more books. I had read the Zahn books pretty much as they were coming out, as a middle schooler. Then, high school hit and my interests turned elsewhere, which was further hampered by the release of The Phantom Menace when I was 16. So, I sort of put Star Wars on the backburner until the lead up to The Force Awakens.

That said, I find that the new canon books attempt to be more accessible and less dependent on arcane continuity. Sure, there are characters/themes/settings that carry over, but with the exception of clearly labeled sequels, all of these novels, thus far, can be picked up by fans obsessive or casual. I remember in college looking at a friend’s shelf of Star Wars novels, and reading the blurb on one and being totally lost. And I was a 20 year old who doesn’t remember not loving Star Wars!

Beyond that, I fear that these books will take less chances, due to Disney’s more cloistered environment. I don’t know how many whacked out ideas the books could produce before being reined in.

Do you have any different thoughts on the EU versus the new canon?

Matt: I think The Last Jedi was proof enough LucasFilm isn’t shying away from taking risks. However, that’s the film world under the guidance of one ambitious filmmaker. The comics have been fairly safe, for instance. They’ve been fine but safe. And most of these books aren’t straying too far away from the original trilogy or whatever movie is premiering next. Generally, I agree with you about Disney’s oversight taking precedence but if any of that were actually true, the Marvel stuff would be in a much better place.

I dislike most of what I’ve encountered in the Legends universe. I think it’s tacky and overwrought and I think it forgot Star Wars was meant for kids. The books are generally badly written, predictable, and lean more on the science fiction elements, forgetting these are romantic fantasies. From Star Wars to Empire to the prequels, Lucas was producing classic romances. (Or tragedies.) And I think the new canon is more in tune with that, so far.

We’ve spent a lot of time talking about these two stories. What did you think of the other ones? Were there things you liked or not?

Brian: Broadly, I liked all four stories. I thought “Rules of the Game” was, perhaps, the most predictable of the four stories, and so I was maybe least thrilled with that one. It wasn’t a bad story and, as I said earlier, it set a really nice picture of what the city was like. It was the best of the bunch to open the book for that reason. But I felt that both main characters — Kedpin, the rube/mark and Anglang, the gangster — were pretty broadly drawn and easy to pin down from the first few pages of each’s story.

“Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing” was my second favorite story of the bunch, in part because I’m a sucker for father/daughter stories, but also because I think it did the best job of setting up the various tiers of the city’s structure: the political, the criminal, the influential, and where they all intersect. I’m also a sucker for a good rescue story, and a sucker for animals, so again, it checked a lot of my boxes.

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What about you?

Matt: I think our overall ranking is consistent. “Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing” had a conventional plot but Carson did a nice job with the massage guy’s motivations and orchestrations. It also really pushed out of the casino and gave the seedier parts of Canto Bight better than the other stories. “Rules of the Game” was fine and, honestly, if that had been the last story in the sequence, it probably would have been my least favorite. It worked as an introduction to the tone and metre of the place even if the story and style was kind of shrug-worthy. Though to be honest, that’s how I’ve felt about all of Ahmed’s Throne of the Crescent Moon, too.

Brian: My last question for you is about both the city of Canto Bight, and the characters in this book. Do you think we ever see either again in Star Wars media?

Matt:I was going to say Canto Bight will probably be relegated to comics and random short stories but with the shows coming out on the Disney streaming service, it’s likely we’ll see it again. As for the characters, I bet if the writers get more chances to write stories, they will pop up more, too. A huge part of me likes how they simply exit stage left and go off on other adventures throughout the galaxy. But with the way franchising works and how some fans have to have every single element explained or else incorrectly label it a “plot hole,” I doubt they’ll be left to our imagination.

Brian: I could see the city popping up as a destination in whatever future Star Wars television shows come out, specifically animated series. This seems like the type of setting that would get an episode or two every season on The Clone Wars. As for the characters, I know Miller likes to drop old characters into his work all the time, so I wouldn’t be surprised if he worked in Kal or the triplets elsewhere.

As for the others, I’d like more with Derla and her wine business, but I can’t imagine them popping up again unless these specific authors decide to do more with them. I suppose we’ll have to wait and see.

Join us next month, when we discuss Leia: Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray.


//TAGS | Star Wars Book Club

Brian Salvatore

Brian Salvatore is an editor, podcaster, reviewer, writer at large, and general task master at Multiversity. When not writing, he can be found playing music, hanging out with his kids, or playing music with his kids. He also has a dog named Lola, a rowboat, and once met Jimmy Carter. Feel free to email him about good beer, the New York Mets, or the best way to make Chicken Parmagiana (add a thin slice of prosciutto under the cheese).

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Matthew Garcia

Matt hails from Colorado. He can be found on Twitter as @MattSG.

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