I love the idea of these books, building on the old Tales from the Cantina Legends novels to give background characters more focus. The execution in my view has been very hit and miss.
Inevitably there will be stories that you don't like, some you do, and some that are just alright. As such when going into this and all the FACPOV books it's about the consistency of engaging stories that I feel add to the movies events. I was apprehensive, ANH book focused too much on the cantina and ESB had far too many Hoth and Tauntaun tales for my liking. I was worried we would get a big focus on Ewoks. Not that I don't like Ewoks but there's lots of them in the movie so we could get lots of these stories. Thankfully the balance in this book was a lot better with a good weight attached to each act of the movie.
Between Jabbas Palace, Imperials, Endor and the Rebellion, the variety is greatly improved. The flow worked better too as I found some writers complimented the previous story, again enhancing the reader experience . Not all stories worked for me, some I found far too long and some I felt didn't add that much to proceedings.
Highlights for me included all the scout Troopers stories, Obi Wan's recount, the Emperor's countdown to death, Mothma's adventure and of course Brotherhood. If theres currently a better author of Anakin than @mikechenwriter I have yet to read it. Superb! As such, I was satisfied with what we got, although overall I find myself frustrated. I think these stories could go further with better canon links. Dexter story aside, many are safe, I selfishly want references to the comic Adventures or other books that have come out since 2015. Yeah, Nora Wexley and Shara Bey aside, there's no reference to the Forces of Destiny shorts, no Gorax, nothing about SW(2015) or Dr Cylo for example. Agreed, that working them in may not be practical, but when listing battles or key events, would Vader Down or the Screaming Citidal hurt to get a nod?
That's a personal nit pick and I stress nitpick. This is by far the best FACPOV to date! CANON PLACEMENT: 4ABY (return of the jedi)
Although it should be noted, its canon status is grey and left up to the reader mainly to determine if a story is canon or not!