Title Canto Bight Series --- Editor --- Cover Art Matt Taylor Publisher Del Rey - 2018 First Printing Lucasfilm - 2017 Category Science Fiction Warnings None Main Characters See below Main Elements Aliens

• "Rules of the Game"
• "The Wine in Dreams"
• "Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing"
• "The Ride"

Welcome to Canto Bight, 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 in the city of deception and danger, these four original novellas explore the lavish casino city seen in Star Wars: The Last Jedi.

• A honest salesman meets a career criminal as a drea vacation turns into the worst nightmare imaginable, in a story by Saladin Ahmed.
• Dreams and schemes collided 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 change to turn his luck around; all he has to do is survive one wild night, as told by John Jackson Miller

I'll admit I'm more a Star Trek person but I read an occasionaly Star Wars book to shake things up. This one fell into my hands for free through a book exchange and I intended fully to put it back for another person to enjoy, but after reading it...I'm very tempted to just keep it. I think what I liked about it so much were the stories about the "regular Joe's" in the Star Wars world. No Jedi's here, no Empire, nada, just a bunch of regular...(umm, if regular can apply to someone with two sets of eyes or a heat frill on his head)...people just living their lives on this gambling city.

Rules of the Game - we start with Kedpin, a hardworking salesman who finally, after a century of trying, manage to win employee of the year and get a free trip to Canto Bight. But as a newbie tourist to the planet, he's a sucker for every con...and in a city like this, there's a con around every corner. But while Kepdin might look, literally, like a bit of a spineless blob, when push comes to shove, the little guy will fight!

The Wine in Dreams - here is the opposite of the first story, Derla is a professional sommelier, and the best at her job. So when she comes to taste the finest wine that ever there was, perhaps even from another dimension, there is a lot of competition to get a bottle.

Hear Nothing, See Nothing, Say Nothing - Lexo is a masseuse, and when his human adopted daughter is kidnapped by the Councillor, he will stop at nothing to get her back.

The Ride - Kal is a professional gambler who was just about to make it big, when the appearance of three brothers throws a monkey wrench into his carefully laid plans. He's then forced to regain all he lost and more before his creditors come calling, and the only way to do this, is to tag along with the brothers, frustrating though they may be, they also bring a certain kind of luck with them, assuming he doesn't lose everything (including his shoes) along the way, and perhaps in the process, remembering why he's a professional gambler in the first place.

In all four of the stories I was drawn into the story by their main characters. No superhumans here (though all, except perhaps Kal are alien), just people trying to survive the best they can in a city that will destroy you far more easily than it can make you rich. And in a city like this you have a range of characters, from tourists, to gamblers, from people who work in spas to people who work in bars, along with crooks, con men, assassins and other unsavory members of society. No one was born here, but no one can afford to leave (well, except Derla). And of course one thing Star Wars always had with Star Trek lacked (of course movies have bigger budgets for puppets/cg/etc while TV is limited to people with a little makeup) are truly alien aliens, so was a pleasure to get in the heads of the various creatures, and see how they experience the world through their different shapes and senses. And the fact that some key locations/characters will be referenced in more than one tale really brought the sense of a single shared world.