The Choosing

Fanfiction
Title:	The Choosing
Author(s):	Marcia Brin
Date(s):	1983
Length:
Genre(s):	gen
Fandom(s):	Star Wars
Relationship(s):
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The Choosing is a Star Wars story by Marcia Brin.

It was printed in Skywalker #6.

Summary

"The Rebellion has many enemies ... and one person fighting on its side it doesn't even know about."

Fan Comments

Marcia Brin's vignette, "The Choosing" is an excellent beginning to a novel, grabbing the reader emotionally from the first word. Unfortunately, the story stops before it has really started-an enthralling idea published before fully developed.

"The Choosing" by Marcia Brin is a melodramatic character sketch of Han Solo. I am sure that fans of Marcia's work will enjoy this addition to her massive explorations of his inner self.

My second favorite was "The Choosing," a nice, tight, well-written short story. After I read it, I thought it would be quite a jolt if Han really was "the other" after all. If so, he could have mastered the ability to block off his Force aura or nearly so to prevent Luke from picking it up. Han would have put on quite a performance with all of his "force mumbo-jumbo." But like everyone else, we must wait until May to find out. ((Well, we know now, I suspect, although this was written in October 1982 and typed in February 1983. BCD))

I also loved Marcia Erin's "The Choosing." I doubt it happened that way, but I rather wish it had! (being a Hanatic, you see!)

Marcia Brin's "The Choosing" — I got the feeling she read Daley's books about Han, took the hints he put in the books about our Corellian's background, then came up with an interpretation of those hints that Daley probably would never think of. I don't really think Han would have come in contact with any Jedi, at least not closely, before he ran into Luke and Kenobi. Alternate explorations, infinite possibilities, are fun to think about, though.

Marcia Erin's "The Choosing" is an interesting interpretation of the court-martial business, but personally I can't take the premise seriously.

"The Choosing" has my vote for the other best story in the zine. Marcia Brin's ingenious concept of Han being a Jedi and "in the know" from the very start was a brilliant one. The only flaw in the well-told drama was one of logic...once Obi-Wan sought Han out in the Mos Eisley cantina later, there was no real reason for him to con tinue the charade of not knowing him. There was even less, once he had openly joined the rebellion- It couldn't be to protect his family...they'd know who he was once he was captured anyway, no matter what he'd changed his name to...At any rate, I enjoyed it immensely.

...I didn't much like "The Choosing." Although I agree that Han was probably in the space service at one point in his life, I don't think he deliberately chose to have himself court-martialed. This all implies that for the past ten years or so, he has been an undercover agent for the Jedi and has more or less manipulated all that has happened. The whole concept strikes me as contrary to Han's character.

... "The Choosing" rubbed me wrong...My problem with "The Choosing" was an in ability, by every stretch of the imagination, to picture this Han as the SW Han (and that comes from someone who stretches Han pretty far in her own stories). Prequels are so much harder to work out because everything you have the character say and do must somehow link with what will come. Maybe if Marcia had hinted at some reason for Han's so convincing and consistent portrayal of a mercenary about to be ambushed by fate ten years later... Maybe I just don't believe that even Jedi could be such good actors; mostly, I don't think Lucas was lying so much in his presentation of Solo in SW. ...For a story that, through its tie-in with the given SW and its implications, must fit what we already know about Han, its idea seemed to fall short.

"The Choosing": Frustration, Marcia! I got to the end of page two and turned it...to find another story! ((Not Marcia's fault, Linda. The layout was done by me and should have indicated the end of the story more emphatically. Sorry. BCD)) Well written. You did the obvious, the drumming out of Han Solo, the wounding of family and friends, and then turned it into the chosen course, the planned not the unseen happening. I liked a Han Solo with the strength to make this decision and while I'm not sure that he could quite be the same man as we were presented with in the first movie, I still like it, him, and the story.

Marcia Brin's "The Choosing" is a good exploration of this possibility — and a little more plausible than some of the "Han's court-martial" stories I've seen. I also enjoyed "Fantasy's End" by Carol Mularski. Somehow, those kids are all so real to me. Wynn is like my kid sister, and even baby Luke really seems like Luke.