Book Review: 'The Han Solo Adventures: Han Solo at Stars' End / Han Solo's Revenge / Han Solo and the Lost Legacy'
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| (C) 1997 Del Rey Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) |
Pros: The novels capture the essence of Han and
Chewbacca in their pre-Rebellion days
Cons: No Darth Vader, no Empire, no Princess
Leia or Luke
One of the first things I noticed the first time I listened
to National Public Radio's Star Wars: The Radio Drama was how
Brian Daley had fleshed out the role of Han Solo; starting with the episode
titled The Millennium Falcon Deal, the Corellian with a starship
for hire not only was faithful to the character played on-screen by Harrison Ford,
but he was more intense and conflicted, especially in his dealings with the
galactic underworld. Indeed, Han seemed to be Daley's favorite character to
write for, since the writer often gave him some of the best lines in the
13-part adaptation of Star Wars (a.k.a. Episode IV: A
New Hope).
That Han and his Wookiee co-pilot/first mate got such a cornucopia of good material in the three Daley-scripted Radio Dramas shouldn't be surprising, for the late science fiction author had gotten the NPR-Lucasfilm job because he had written a trilogy of pre-A New Hope novels that chronicled several of Han's pre-Rebellion adventures in a part of the galaxy known as the Corporate Sector Authority.
The first entry in the trilogy, Han Solo at Stars' End: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker was the first book set before Han and Chewie's fateful encounter with Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Chalmun's Cantina in Mos Eisley, and because Daley had to write an officially-sanctioned story that wouldn't be contradicted by any of the planned sequels to Star Wars, hardly deals with any of the established planets or institutions established in the first film. The Empire is mentioned in passing and there is a reference to an "erg timer on Tatooine," but other than that Daley's focus is on Han, Chewie, and the Millennium Falcon and their run-ins with the Imperial-sanctioned Corporate Sector Authority, which is, I suppose, a huge capitalistic entity (think of the Trade Federation from the filmed prequel trilogy) that runs part of the galaxy as a money-making source of raw materials. It's the Empire-lite, with ruthless administrators, wealthy industrialists, and even its own dreaded Security Police, whose troops are nicknamed "Espos."
Just as in the first episodes where Han and Chewie appear in Star Wars: The Radio Drama, Daley portrays the dynamic duo as two tumblin' tumbleweeds of the galaxy, friends with a starship for hire and always looking for a big charter that will give them enough credits to travel the galaxy with no ties to any world, political entity, or even persons. They crave the freedom of space travel but are kept from it by their lack of cash, so Han and Chewie take on dangerous assignments that place them on the Corporate Sector's "black list."
One such job -- running guns to rebellious slave laborers on Duroon -- nearly ends disastrously when the Falcon is damaged while Han performs a risky maneuver to evade a Sector Authority vessel. Being the good pilot that he is, Solo lands the ship safely and delivers the guns to their intended recipients, but the Falcon is blind without her main sensor dish, so Han and Chewie take the ship to an "all-but-deserted, played out mining world where the Authority didn't even bother to maintain offices." There they seek a man named Doc and his band of outlaw techs, the best starship repair crew in the galaxy...and among the very few people Han trusts to touch the Millennium Falcon.
But when he and Chewie arrive at the outlaw tech's hidden base, he is frostily received by Jessa, Doc's beautiful and spirited daughter, and a woman who apparently has a history with the Corellian space pirate. After a tense reunion in which Jessa explains that her father has been abducted by the Authority and taken to a hidden prison code-named Stars' End, Han agrees to her terms: in exchange for a new sensor dish for the Falcon, Han and Chewie must go to the planet Orron III, a small agricultural world with one precious asset -- an Authority Data Center. There, the Falcon will make a simple pickup, and hopefully the location of Stars' End and its prisoners will be at last revealed.
Daley gives the reader a revealing glimpse of Han (and Chewbacca's) Solo's life before he reluctantly joined the Rebellion; he's brave and foolhardy here, with his superficial cynicism and selfishness somewhat tempered by his hidden noble side. And although Han Solo at Stars' End doesn't go into the now-accepted backstory of Han's Imperial service (in other authors' later works and references, we learn that Han attended the Academy on Carida and was briefly an officer in the Imperial Navy until he was courtmartialed for saving Chewbacca's life from an Imperial impressment gang), Daley's novel does reveal that Han did fly starfighters in combat once, and there is an exciting sequence in Chapter Four that puts Solo in the cockpit of an ancient Z-95 Headhunter and into an all-out dogfight with Authority starfighters.
Daley's style flows naturally and sparsely; there is not one wasted word in the late writer's prose. The scenes that focus on Han and Chewbacca evoke memories of the rapport between the two characters in Star Wars, and one can almost see and hear a young Harrison Ford (or hear Perry King) while reading this fun and fast-paced novel. It's not, of course, up to the same lofty standards of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy books of the 1990s; the absence of the more familiar Empire -- with its wedge-shaped Star Destroyers, white-armored stormtroopers, and screeching TIE fighters -- is keenly felt, but it is still good as a lazy-Sunday-afternoon read, particularly for fans of George Lucas' Star Wars Trilogy.
Han Solo's Revenge
With the success of Han Solo at Stars' End science fiction novelist Brian Daley (The Star Wars Radio Drama) continued the pre-Star Wars adventures of Han, Chewbacca the Wookiee, and the droid team of Bollux and Blue Max as they continued to try to earn credits as "independent operators" and smugglers while attempting to stay clear of the Imperial-affiliated Corporate Sector Authority in Han Solo's Revenge, the middle volume of a three-book cycle.
Set a few months after the events of Stars' End, the novel starts on a quasicomical note on the planet Kamar. There, as is often the case with the Millennium Falcon and her crew, Han, Chewie, Bollux, and Blue Max are on the planet surface making hasty repairs to the battered starship Luke Skywalker will someday refer to as a "piece of junk." In the meantime, Han has been keeping the inhabitants of the region known as the Badlands happy by running a holofeature that seems to captivate the primitive creatures. Thinking that the audience is getting bored with a travelogue that features lots of water, Han gets a business acquaintance of his to acquire a more exciting feature, but all Sonniod can acquire is a holo called Love is Waiting.
Unfortunately, the Badlanders react very badly to the new feature -- apparently, they were fascinated by the travelogue's footage of water, and to the somewhat water-deprived watchers the holofeature's nightly showing had become a religious experience, complete with sacrificial offerings that our Corellian space pirate and scoundrel thinks are what the natives are paying as "admission." So when Solo cluelessly switches to a cheesy romantic comedy/musical, he is surprised by the angry reaction, and he, Chewie, and Sonniod witness, and they all must "haul jets" and lift off from Kamar.
Soon, Han and Chewie find their cash reserves are running low, so they take on what they think will be a nice, easy cargo run for 10,000 credits. But when they land on the inhospitably cold planet Lur, they're stunned that their charter isn't ordinary freight or even spice; instead, a gang of ruthless slavers intends to carry off indigenous sentients offworld to provide cheap slave labor to one of the galaxy's many business entities.
A file of small figures trooped aboard, heads hung in fatigue and despair. These were obviously inhabitants of Lur. The tallest of them was scarcely waist-high to Han. They were erect bipeds, covered with fine white fur, their feet protected by thick pads of calluslike tissue. Their eyes were large, and ran toward green and blue; they stared around the Falcon's interior in dull amazement.
Each neck was encircled by a collar of metal, the collars joined together by a thin black cable. It was a slaver's line.
Chewbacca bellowed an enraged roar and ignored the answering scream from the nashtah. Han glared at Zlarb, who was directing the loading of slaves. One of his men held a director unit, its circuitry linked to the collars. The director, a banned device, had an unfinished, homemade look to it. Any defiance from the captives would earn them excruciating pain.
Han fixed Zlarb with his eye. "Not on my ship," he stated, emphasizing each word.
But Zlarb only laughed. "You're not in much of a position to object, are you, Solo?"
"Not in my ship," Han repeated stubbornly. "Not slaves. Never."
Zlarb aligned Han's own blaster at him, sighting down the barrel. "You just think again, pilot. If you give me any trouble, you'll end up locked in a necklace. Now, you and the Wookiee go forward and get ready to lift."
Fortunately, the child-like computer Blue Max and the modified labor droid Bollux save the day and the Falcon is soon back in Han and Chewie's control. But with Zlarb dead and the slavers defeated, Han is out 10,000 credits...and he wants them, even if he has to find out who hired the slaver gang in the first place.
So begins another dangerous jaunt across the Corporate Sector's space lanes, and this time Han and Chewie must join forces not only with the skip-runner Spray, but also with the beautiful Fiolla, who at first seems to be a member of the underworld but is in reality a high-ranking Corporate Sector Authority officer...an entity that has already black-listed the Millennium Falcon for breaking most of its regulations.
As in the other Han Solo novels and the three Star Wars Radio Dramas, Daley's affinity for the Corellian smuggler and his Wookiee companion is evident. When I read this book back in the early 1980s, I could hear the unmistakable voice of Harrison Ford in every one of Han's lines; he is not quite the selfless Hero of the Rebellion we saw Princess Leia fall in love with, but Daley makes sure that we see that Solo's brashness and love of credits masks a deep sense of honor and true courage.
Daley, who died of cancer in 1996 just as his radio adaptation of Return of the Jedi was nearing completion, was an acclaimed science fiction writer whose other works include the novelization of the movie Tron and A Tapestry of Magics. His style is free of clutter and his prose flows smoothly, laced with comedic misadventures and Star Wars style cliffhanger sequences. Again, although the Corporate Sector Authority and the galactic underworld Han must contend with here aren't as impressive as the larger Galactic Empire and the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt, Han Solo's Revenge is still interesting because it delves into the pre-Episode IV adventures of one of the Classic Trilogy's most popular characters.
Han Solo and the Lost Legacy
Han Solo and the Lost Legacy is the third and final book in a series of "prequel" novels set shortly before Han and Chewbacca's destiny-changing encounter with Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Mos Eisley cantina. At this point in their career, things aren't going so well for the pair of self-styled "independent operators;" the credits they earned in the previous two adventures have all been spent, and countless schemes -- clotheslegging in the Cron Drift, a failed military script exchange in the Lesser Plooriod Cluster, picking up R'alla mineral water for the smuggling run to Rampa -- have misfired, forcing Han to accept any job he can get to keep the Millennium Falcon spaceworthy and food in his and Chewie's stomachs. If it means working as a swoop mechanic on some dustball, so be it.
Nevertheless, when a cargo-carrying charter comes their way, Han and Chewie accept it with no questions asked. As usual, however, what seems to be a simple mission to take some "college supplies" to the planet Brigia results to be more complicated and the smugglers run afoul of the Brigian authorities. A run-in with Brigia's New Regime results in a showdown with Keek, a pompous bureaucrat who wants to impound Han's cargo; Han uses his persuasive powers -- a blaster pointed at Keek's nose -- and makes sure that his clients get the "college supplies" and begin to destabilize the New Regime.
Still needing credits, Han and Chewie make their way to the academic world of Rudrig, where a chance encounter with Badure, Han's old Imperial Academy mentor and "friend of long standing," leads to a dangerous quest worthy of another George Lucas character, Indiana Jones. For what Badure and several others, including the mysterious Hasti, want Han and Chewbacca to do is to help them look for the legendary lost treasure ship, the Queen of Ranroon, supposedly crammed full of tribute owed to Xim the Despot.
That Han and his Wookiee co-pilot/first mate got such a cornucopia of good material in the three Daley-scripted Radio Dramas shouldn't be surprising, for the late science fiction author had gotten the NPR-Lucasfilm job because he had written a trilogy of pre-A New Hope novels that chronicled several of Han's pre-Rebellion adventures in a part of the galaxy known as the Corporate Sector Authority.
The first entry in the trilogy, Han Solo at Stars' End: From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker was the first book set before Han and Chewie's fateful encounter with Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi in Chalmun's Cantina in Mos Eisley, and because Daley had to write an officially-sanctioned story that wouldn't be contradicted by any of the planned sequels to Star Wars, hardly deals with any of the established planets or institutions established in the first film. The Empire is mentioned in passing and there is a reference to an "erg timer on Tatooine," but other than that Daley's focus is on Han, Chewie, and the Millennium Falcon and their run-ins with the Imperial-sanctioned Corporate Sector Authority, which is, I suppose, a huge capitalistic entity (think of the Trade Federation from the filmed prequel trilogy) that runs part of the galaxy as a money-making source of raw materials. It's the Empire-lite, with ruthless administrators, wealthy industrialists, and even its own dreaded Security Police, whose troops are nicknamed "Espos."
Just as in the first episodes where Han and Chewie appear in Star Wars: The Radio Drama, Daley portrays the dynamic duo as two tumblin' tumbleweeds of the galaxy, friends with a starship for hire and always looking for a big charter that will give them enough credits to travel the galaxy with no ties to any world, political entity, or even persons. They crave the freedom of space travel but are kept from it by their lack of cash, so Han and Chewie take on dangerous assignments that place them on the Corporate Sector's "black list."
One such job -- running guns to rebellious slave laborers on Duroon -- nearly ends disastrously when the Falcon is damaged while Han performs a risky maneuver to evade a Sector Authority vessel. Being the good pilot that he is, Solo lands the ship safely and delivers the guns to their intended recipients, but the Falcon is blind without her main sensor dish, so Han and Chewie take the ship to an "all-but-deserted, played out mining world where the Authority didn't even bother to maintain offices." There they seek a man named Doc and his band of outlaw techs, the best starship repair crew in the galaxy...and among the very few people Han trusts to touch the Millennium Falcon.
But when he and Chewie arrive at the outlaw tech's hidden base, he is frostily received by Jessa, Doc's beautiful and spirited daughter, and a woman who apparently has a history with the Corellian space pirate. After a tense reunion in which Jessa explains that her father has been abducted by the Authority and taken to a hidden prison code-named Stars' End, Han agrees to her terms: in exchange for a new sensor dish for the Falcon, Han and Chewie must go to the planet Orron III, a small agricultural world with one precious asset -- an Authority Data Center. There, the Falcon will make a simple pickup, and hopefully the location of Stars' End and its prisoners will be at last revealed.
Daley gives the reader a revealing glimpse of Han (and Chewbacca's) Solo's life before he reluctantly joined the Rebellion; he's brave and foolhardy here, with his superficial cynicism and selfishness somewhat tempered by his hidden noble side. And although Han Solo at Stars' End doesn't go into the now-accepted backstory of Han's Imperial service (in other authors' later works and references, we learn that Han attended the Academy on Carida and was briefly an officer in the Imperial Navy until he was courtmartialed for saving Chewbacca's life from an Imperial impressment gang), Daley's novel does reveal that Han did fly starfighters in combat once, and there is an exciting sequence in Chapter Four that puts Solo in the cockpit of an ancient Z-95 Headhunter and into an all-out dogfight with Authority starfighters.
Daley's style flows naturally and sparsely; there is not one wasted word in the late writer's prose. The scenes that focus on Han and Chewbacca evoke memories of the rapport between the two characters in Star Wars, and one can almost see and hear a young Harrison Ford (or hear Perry King) while reading this fun and fast-paced novel. It's not, of course, up to the same lofty standards of Timothy Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy books of the 1990s; the absence of the more familiar Empire -- with its wedge-shaped Star Destroyers, white-armored stormtroopers, and screeching TIE fighters -- is keenly felt, but it is still good as a lazy-Sunday-afternoon read, particularly for fans of George Lucas' Star Wars Trilogy.
Han Solo's Revenge
With the success of Han Solo at Stars' End science fiction novelist Brian Daley (The Star Wars Radio Drama) continued the pre-Star Wars adventures of Han, Chewbacca the Wookiee, and the droid team of Bollux and Blue Max as they continued to try to earn credits as "independent operators" and smugglers while attempting to stay clear of the Imperial-affiliated Corporate Sector Authority in Han Solo's Revenge, the middle volume of a three-book cycle.
Set a few months after the events of Stars' End, the novel starts on a quasicomical note on the planet Kamar. There, as is often the case with the Millennium Falcon and her crew, Han, Chewie, Bollux, and Blue Max are on the planet surface making hasty repairs to the battered starship Luke Skywalker will someday refer to as a "piece of junk." In the meantime, Han has been keeping the inhabitants of the region known as the Badlands happy by running a holofeature that seems to captivate the primitive creatures. Thinking that the audience is getting bored with a travelogue that features lots of water, Han gets a business acquaintance of his to acquire a more exciting feature, but all Sonniod can acquire is a holo called Love is Waiting.
Unfortunately, the Badlanders react very badly to the new feature -- apparently, they were fascinated by the travelogue's footage of water, and to the somewhat water-deprived watchers the holofeature's nightly showing had become a religious experience, complete with sacrificial offerings that our Corellian space pirate and scoundrel thinks are what the natives are paying as "admission." So when Solo cluelessly switches to a cheesy romantic comedy/musical, he is surprised by the angry reaction, and he, Chewie, and Sonniod witness, and they all must "haul jets" and lift off from Kamar.
Soon, Han and Chewie find their cash reserves are running low, so they take on what they think will be a nice, easy cargo run for 10,000 credits. But when they land on the inhospitably cold planet Lur, they're stunned that their charter isn't ordinary freight or even spice; instead, a gang of ruthless slavers intends to carry off indigenous sentients offworld to provide cheap slave labor to one of the galaxy's many business entities.
A file of small figures trooped aboard, heads hung in fatigue and despair. These were obviously inhabitants of Lur. The tallest of them was scarcely waist-high to Han. They were erect bipeds, covered with fine white fur, their feet protected by thick pads of calluslike tissue. Their eyes were large, and ran toward green and blue; they stared around the Falcon's interior in dull amazement.
Each neck was encircled by a collar of metal, the collars joined together by a thin black cable. It was a slaver's line.
Chewbacca bellowed an enraged roar and ignored the answering scream from the nashtah. Han glared at Zlarb, who was directing the loading of slaves. One of his men held a director unit, its circuitry linked to the collars. The director, a banned device, had an unfinished, homemade look to it. Any defiance from the captives would earn them excruciating pain.
Han fixed Zlarb with his eye. "Not on my ship," he stated, emphasizing each word.
But Zlarb only laughed. "You're not in much of a position to object, are you, Solo?"
"Not in my ship," Han repeated stubbornly. "Not slaves. Never."
Zlarb aligned Han's own blaster at him, sighting down the barrel. "You just think again, pilot. If you give me any trouble, you'll end up locked in a necklace. Now, you and the Wookiee go forward and get ready to lift."
Fortunately, the child-like computer Blue Max and the modified labor droid Bollux save the day and the Falcon is soon back in Han and Chewie's control. But with Zlarb dead and the slavers defeated, Han is out 10,000 credits...and he wants them, even if he has to find out who hired the slaver gang in the first place.
So begins another dangerous jaunt across the Corporate Sector's space lanes, and this time Han and Chewie must join forces not only with the skip-runner Spray, but also with the beautiful Fiolla, who at first seems to be a member of the underworld but is in reality a high-ranking Corporate Sector Authority officer...an entity that has already black-listed the Millennium Falcon for breaking most of its regulations.
As in the other Han Solo novels and the three Star Wars Radio Dramas, Daley's affinity for the Corellian smuggler and his Wookiee companion is evident. When I read this book back in the early 1980s, I could hear the unmistakable voice of Harrison Ford in every one of Han's lines; he is not quite the selfless Hero of the Rebellion we saw Princess Leia fall in love with, but Daley makes sure that we see that Solo's brashness and love of credits masks a deep sense of honor and true courage.
Daley, who died of cancer in 1996 just as his radio adaptation of Return of the Jedi was nearing completion, was an acclaimed science fiction writer whose other works include the novelization of the movie Tron and A Tapestry of Magics. His style is free of clutter and his prose flows smoothly, laced with comedic misadventures and Star Wars style cliffhanger sequences. Again, although the Corporate Sector Authority and the galactic underworld Han must contend with here aren't as impressive as the larger Galactic Empire and the vile gangster Jabba the Hutt, Han Solo's Revenge is still interesting because it delves into the pre-Episode IV adventures of one of the Classic Trilogy's most popular characters.
Han Solo and the Lost Legacy
Han Solo and the Lost Legacy is the third and final book in a series of "prequel" novels set shortly before Han and Chewbacca's destiny-changing encounter with Luke and Obi-Wan Kenobi in the Mos Eisley cantina. At this point in their career, things aren't going so well for the pair of self-styled "independent operators;" the credits they earned in the previous two adventures have all been spent, and countless schemes -- clotheslegging in the Cron Drift, a failed military script exchange in the Lesser Plooriod Cluster, picking up R'alla mineral water for the smuggling run to Rampa -- have misfired, forcing Han to accept any job he can get to keep the Millennium Falcon spaceworthy and food in his and Chewie's stomachs. If it means working as a swoop mechanic on some dustball, so be it.
Nevertheless, when a cargo-carrying charter comes their way, Han and Chewie accept it with no questions asked. As usual, however, what seems to be a simple mission to take some "college supplies" to the planet Brigia results to be more complicated and the smugglers run afoul of the Brigian authorities. A run-in with Brigia's New Regime results in a showdown with Keek, a pompous bureaucrat who wants to impound Han's cargo; Han uses his persuasive powers -- a blaster pointed at Keek's nose -- and makes sure that his clients get the "college supplies" and begin to destabilize the New Regime.
Still needing credits, Han and Chewie make their way to the academic world of Rudrig, where a chance encounter with Badure, Han's old Imperial Academy mentor and "friend of long standing," leads to a dangerous quest worthy of another George Lucas character, Indiana Jones. For what Badure and several others, including the mysterious Hasti, want Han and Chewbacca to do is to help them look for the legendary lost treasure ship, the Queen of Ranroon, supposedly crammed full of tribute owed to Xim the Despot.
And as always seems to happen to Han Solo and his Wookiee
companion, things get complicated....for within hours of landing on the planet
where Xim's hoard is rumored to be hidden, the Falcon is stolen, his small crew
and band of passengers is stranded, and assasins -- including his old foe
Gallandro -- and hundreds of war droids stand between Han Solo and the lost
legacy of Xim the Despot.
As in all his Star Wars projects, Daley infuses his crisp and very readable prose with a genuine sense of fun and adventure that captures the essence of Han Solo's character as Lucas first introduced him in A New Hope. Han's dialogue is so true to the spirit of the role as played by Harrison Ford (and, in the Radio Dramas, Perry King) that one can hear the distinctive voice and sardonic tones fans are familiar with. The interplay between Han and Chewie is wonderfully depicted; there is a true bond of friendship between the two, and their scenes together "foreshadow" their involvement in the Rebellion, with Han's outward shell of cynicism balanced by Chewbacca's attempts to act as Solo's conscience.
As in all his Star Wars projects, Daley infuses his crisp and very readable prose with a genuine sense of fun and adventure that captures the essence of Han Solo's character as Lucas first introduced him in A New Hope. Han's dialogue is so true to the spirit of the role as played by Harrison Ford (and, in the Radio Dramas, Perry King) that one can hear the distinctive voice and sardonic tones fans are familiar with. The interplay between Han and Chewie is wonderfully depicted; there is a true bond of friendship between the two, and their scenes together "foreshadow" their involvement in the Rebellion, with Han's outward shell of cynicism balanced by Chewbacca's attempts to act as Solo's conscience.
While Han Solo and the Lost Legacy may
never be considered high art, it's still among the better novels set in the
Star Wars galaxy and provides readers with a much-needed dose of escapism and
sheer entertainment.
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