A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I started reading these books…

The Star Wars Expanded Universe is a big place, and one that’s easy to get lost in. To the extent that my bookshelf allows, every Tuesday I or another reviewer will be guiding you through the EU with (generally) chronologically placed reviews of Star Wars novels. Today I will be reviewing Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of Thonboka, the third and final novel of L. Neil Smith’s trilogy The Adventures of Lando Calrissian, and the book that cemented this series’s place as the eccentric uncle of the EU.

After months of harassment by both the Renatasians and Sorceror of Tund Rokur Gepta, Lando comes up with a final plan- really, more of a final gamble, the big sabaac pot- attract all of his enemies and their allies to one place, of his own choosing, where his own allies await under dire threat. All parties involved, some we’ve met, some we haven’t, and some that may surprise you, prepare for the coming confrontation.

Oh, L Neil Smith. What have you gotten us into this time?

Starcave of Thonboka is one of the most interesting books I’ve ever read. It combines the message of The Voyage Home with the vengeance of Wrath of Khan. It simultaneously shows L Neil Smith’s skill at crafting an intricate and captivating scene and his ability to recycle a gag that has no place being where it is. The opening sequence is one of the most crafty openings to a novel I’ve ever seen, forcing you to challenge your perceptions as you apply Earth logic to an intergalactic scene. Not only does it do the best job in the entire series of introducing you to a new character, but it really allows you to get into the head of a species that otherwise would be almost impossible to fathom.

Then we go to the other characters, and the plot starts to get weird.

Lando is bruised up like a bad comedy, internally monologuing about how bad his problems are, with the Renatasians and Rokur Gepta plaguing him and Vuffi Raa. It might be intended to show that Lando is in dire straits, and he needs to resolve the problem before it gets worse, but what it really does is show just how incompetent the villains of this saga are. For a being that’s revealed throughout the novel to have lived for thousands of years and have designs on the galactic throne (and, eventually, higher), Rokur Gepta is really incompetent. Not only has he failed to gather more power than a mere human such as Tarkin, but his bungling attempts at revenge on Lando for simply surviving too long have gone on way too long even by the time this novel starts for Gepta to ever have a career as a credible villain. That’s it, Gepta. It’s over. It’s no wonder Palpatine’s been known to let the Sorceror take whatever he wants- he’s no threat to him, despite all he’s done in removing the Emperor’s possible rivals.

Yet still, somehow, we spend the rest of the novel trying to beef up Gepta’s destructive capabilities, despite his inability to discipline a simple-minded soldier from a low-tech world or take out a target over the course of several months. He has control over a strange green mist, which he’s used to level entire planets of life. At one point he even refers to it as an electromagnetic torpedo, which makes so little sense in context that I have no choice but to assume that despite this is supposed to be an example of his secret weapon, it’s a different weapon. Of course, looking at the rest of the Gepta plot, it’s entirely possible for me to believe that they could know it’s a purely technological weapon and still attribute some sort of mystical qualities to it. The entire trilogy carries dubious references to the entire concept of the Force being tricks of technology, as though Smith balks at the entire idea of Science Fantasy.

On top of this, of course, there are the Renatasians. Remember them, the pointless plot device designed to build up for the next book and explain some of the convoluted mess and action? Well, now they’re the convoluted messy plot device with no action. I kid you not. The entire Renatasian plot could have been pulled out of this novel and all we’d have is a more credible villain. The only thing the Renatasians do for the first 90% of the novel is make Rokur Gepta look incompetent and exposit plot information that is only relevant because they are pointlessly here. Oh, and because they have the frontier spirit.

The plot, such as it is, centers around Lando and the Oswaft, a ray-like “vacuum breathing” species who have earned the ire of the Empire for being unknown. Unlike the Duinuogwuin Star Dragons, the Oswaft are not very inclined to defend themselves, and therefore face extinction at the hands of the Empire (specifically referred to only as the Navy, perhaps to leave uncertainty as to whether the Navy was of the Empire, or the Centrality, or simply being vague for no reason) and Rokur Gepta. Lando is summoned by the Oswaft Lehesu, whom he and Vuffi Raa met and learned to communicate with in the prologue. The crew of the Millennium Falcon are then taken to the Elders, who Lando swiftly proceeds to teach to play sabaac.

I kid you not.

As a way of teaching Oswaft about games, competitions, and other things to later lead to combat, Lando decides that, naturally, they should learn to play a card game. In addition to dropping my jaw, this scene also gives us some chances to see how omnipotent the Oswaft (who can already travel through hyperspace) are, as they show off their ability to decipher military codes and almost instantly learn foreign languages, despite being so noble as to never take advantage of their knowing each one of Lando’s cards. This is the same scene in which we learn of an Oswaft “shout”, which is powerful enough to destroy a TIE fighter or an unshielded cruiser. Their only weakness, supposedly, is their lack of shields against Imperial weapons… and yet, a “shout” is not considered harmful to them. Unless they repeatedly beat the osik out of those who irritated them, I smell an inconsistency.

Though it’s possible. One thing this trilogy seems to be adamant about is to never make assumptions about a species.

Eventually, all of these plots (and a couple more I’ve left out for the sake of brevity) come together. At this point, if you’re concerned about spoilers, or about the book making any sense, go read it now. Other than the stupid sabaac game, I haven’t really spoiled anything important other than the twist in the prologue.

To make an unnecessary long and convoluted story short, Lando comes up with a pacifist plan for the Oswaft, who then rally a number of themselves to join him in actually fighting back (which makes the entire pacifist issue a waste of time as Lando didn’t even have anything to do with it any more than logic did). Vuffi Raa also, by some unexplained method, talked himself out of his pacifist programming, which is the equivalent of a human being sitting down and deciding that he wants to stop being afraid of things ever and succeeding with no drawbacks. Or explanation, other than that it was inconvenient.

Rokur Gepta and the Renatasians finally arrive at Thonboka (the titular Starcave, home of the Oswaft) and, in a dramatic show, halt the battle. Apparently driven to madness by the idea of people not cowering in front of him, Gepta is feeling like he needs to compensate for something and challenges Lando to a public duel, rather than just killing him or taking him prisoner.

At this point, a minor character who anybody invested in the Renatasian plot has been wondering about for a short time declares that there is another plot that the author neglected to write in. Since there aren’t very many such people, I’ll give you a bit of a reminder that he was the one who decided Vuffi Raa would have such a public role in the fall of Renatasia. So he publicly declares that he has a mysterious Master, and all of a sudden the Renatasians flip out because, guess what, they’ve found him.

I’ll leave you to figure out the ending, if it was in doubt in the first place (again, up to you). By this point, you’re just begging for it to be over. The big reveals at the end have been drawn out so long that I’m not even going to bother hinting at them here. Nope. I don’t care. You don’t either. Or maybe you do, but only it’s because you’re as much of a psychotic continuity fan as I am. You don’t care about the characters any more- they could have died halfway through the book and you would have spent the rest of it wondering just who it was who sold Han out to Darth Vader.

This book isn’t horrible. I don’t want to give you that impression. It’s just… well, it’s interesting. But nothing else. I’m not sure if the writing got a little less purple, or I just stopped noticing, though I’m pretty sure it’s split down the middle between the two of them, because I did notice in the second book.  There’s a lot of padding in this book, and also a lot of really weird interesting stuff.   Still, despite the weird stuff, I wouldn’t read this unless you liked the first two books, and want to know why Rokur Gepta didn’t make it to Cloud City.