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 Han Solo at Stars’ End, the first novel in Brian Daley’s Han Solo Adventures. When many people who were alive in the early 1980s speak fondly of Star Wars novels, this series is often first in their hearts and minds. But does the first book of the trilogy live up to the hype?

Han Solo and his trusty copilot Chewbacca have fallen on hard times, and have even been forced to resort to gunrunning in the Corporate Sector to get out of debt and on track. But when the man they need to make the Millennium Falcon usable in this part of space goes missing, it falls on Han to do what goes against every bit of logic he has and take matters into his own hands against one of the deadliest enemies of all: The Corporate Sector Authority.

I picked up this novel with certain ideas in mind. I was expecting a novel worthy of respect, but not, in my mind, worthy of the Star Wars name. I knew Brian Daley was well regarded among Star Wars fans and authors, that these books were the reason why- and that the EU at this time was far from the powerful literature force it became in the early 90s. I already reviewed L. Neil Smith’s Lando Calrissian books; these books came first- in fact, Han Solo at Stars’ End was published before The Empire Strikes Back. (For those who missed it, I give a more complete timeline of the Expanded Universe prior to the Bantam Era in my review of Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu). On top of that this was a short book at only 183 pages, which to me equates to being written for a younger audience. That is why when I opened the book and started reading, I was amazed.

The Star Wars universe is deep and rugged, and the Expanded Universe especially (barring the newer The Clone Wars franchise) has a certain feel to it. If anything, one expects their Han Solo EU entries to be the deepest and most rugged of all. This has a grounding almost as old as Star Wars itself- Han Solo was the only three-dimensional human- the only human, save the anti-droid bartender, Wuher- present in the most wretched hive of scum and villainy you will ever find. He was the average viewer’s link to the world of Scarface and The Godfather with a hint of Aaahh Real Monsters!.

And so it is in Stars’ End, as it rightfully should be. Our first scene opens with Han and Chewie, making a delivery that Han obviously wishes he had nothing to do with. Every time the recipient opens his mouth, Han reminds him of this fact, which makes perfect sense when you realize he’s delivering rifles to an untrained insurgent group on a Corporate world. Chewbacca, on the other hand, always the kind-hearted Wookiee, convinces Han to give the insurgents a few tips on how to stay alive before they take off, which serves both to demonstrate the natural biases of the two characters, but also Han’s tactical intellect.

After this mission, Han and Chewie stop by to pay back loan shark Ploovo Two-For-One, who really lives up to his name; he gets paid back in two ways at once, he stands in for two characters- Jabba and Greedo- and represents two trilogies, by coming across as a slightly more badass version of Watto. Like the Lando books, we are quickly treated to technology unlike anything else in the Star Wars saga, this case in the form of an entire cantina rigged up with an artificial gravity setup that makes my head spin if I try to understand it with real science but makes perfect sense in a world where the Millennium Falcon is able to maintain perfect internal gravity.

The writing here brought with it a depth of character, a Star Wars environment that I had long believed Timothy Zahn to have introduced to the EU. Han and Chewie were very much in character, the same way I would have expected them to be depicted prior to the Battle of Yavin. It’s not perfect- Han seems more like a Queens native than a Corellian, spouting such lines as “Yo, now, what we need is a tight corridor out of here,” and “Nice shooting, doll”- but these few out of place Earth lines are the exception, rather than the rule, and they are an example of trying too hard rather than the usual apparent laziness or lack of synch with the characters that usually produces bad dialogue.

I was also amazed at how well Daley got the atmosphere- it has the same “lived in” feeling of the Lando Calrissian novels, yet it invokes the same familiarity, the same feelings that any Star Wars novel written after the early 90s does. The book obeys a definition that would not be defined for twelve more years after it was written, and this was obvious to me by the time I had finished the first chapter.

No, not that Doc.

Han and Chewie get out from their meeting, narrowly escaping an unexpected scuffle with law enforcement, courtesy of the local branch of the Corporate Sector Authority. Here is when the real trouble begins: Han realizes that to continue to operate within the Corporate Sector, he needs some serious paperwork quick or face impoundment in any system he enters. Enter Doc and the outlaw techs. Doc is an old spacer, one who has been around the block and has built up an operation of legendary proportions, all for the purpose of keeping outlaws like Han in business with the best starships money can buy, repair, modify or bribe into being allowed to land.

Only one problem, as Han finds out upon entering the operation (which he is obviously very familiar with): Doc is missing, and nobody knows where he went. His daughter, Jessa, is running his operation in his stead and offers Han what sounds like a pretty sweet deal: she will fix up the Falcon, arrange all of the necessary waivers, all at no cost to Han, provided he pick up some passengers and drop them off wherever they ask to go.

Wait a second… isn’t this one sort of familiar?

Unfortunately for the smuggler, Han hadn’t had a chance to pick up Star Wars yet, so nope. Nothing familiar about this scene at all. And you know what that means…

As an extra part of Han’s mission, we are introduced to a pair of droids. And I am going to tell you right here, Brian Daley deserves every bit of praise he gets as far as Star Wars goes.

A fair few authors get the job done right when it comes to getting inside the heads of droids. I can name a few off the top of my head- Matthew Stover and Aaron Allston, for starters. All of these authors basically amount to what I see as the top tier of Star Wars authors- you would be hard-pressed to find writing within the franchise that beats theirs. They are the ones who just get it, and they get droids the same way.

With Han Solo at Stars’ End, Brian Daley earns his place among these greats. His writing of Bollux, an old labor droid who’s starting to consider his own obsolescence (a droid’s equivalent of pondering one’s mortality), and Blue Max, a young droid with incredible talents, inspires great love from me. He writes droids with the best of them, not to mention Han’s anti-droid tendencies at this point in his life, and the smuggler’s reaction to his own feelings.

As Han is on his way out, a CSA patrol happens upon the outlaw tech base. Han gets a chance to show off his skills in a snubfighter in a nice dogfight, but now, Jessa has to move the whole operation. This shouldn’t be a problem, right? Once Han completes his mission, he shouldn’t need to return here anyway. Right?

As Han and Chewbacca land on Orron III to fulfill their end of the bargain, it’s pretty clear this won’t be a cut and dry extraction. First off, the group, comprised of individuals who believe their loved ones have been spirited away to an unknown location, by the CSA, is expecting them, but they’re split up. Secondly, the enigmatic leader of the group, a former professor by the name of Rekkon, is insistent that Han and Chewbacca accompany him in completing his mission on Orron III- the mission that Bollux, and specifically Blue Max- were designed to help him complete. Third and most important, Rekkon informs Han that one of his four companions- he doesn’t know which one- is a traitor to their cause. Naturally, Han’s a little ticked at the change in plans, (”Next time I fall for one of these tempting offers, sit on me till the urge passes.”) and there’s a bit of debate between Han and Rekkon about where Han stands on the issue of righteous rebellion, which serves to foreshadow events not only in the films, but later on in the novel.

After a surprise door knock, during which Han announces pointedly to the future “I like to shoot first- as compared to shooting second.” we’re introduced to the rest of the group, including Torm, the second in command, Atuarre, a cat-like Trianii (a species whose glory Daley describes quite well), and Atuarre’s cub, Pakka, who was tortured into becoming a mute. Atuarre reports that the fifth member of the party, has been killed, and that his quarters were under surveillance by the CSA. Daley is smart here, showing us the effect on the characters, but not wasting his time trying to make readers mourn a character we’ve never met. Instead, the death is treated as something expected, almost inevitable, but still tragic, much like the deaths of Beru and Owen Lars would have been if Luke Skywalker had any Genre Savvyness.

Blue Max is given a chance to show off his ability to sift through enormous amounts of data, as well as his childish tendencies to ignore irrelevant information- information like the hordes of Security Police, or Espos, converging on their location. Once this information is revealed, Han’s natural leadership and love of all things overkill is displayed as Han orders Blue Max to overwhelm the Espos with false alarms all over the planet.

In the midst of escaping the planet, Chewbacca, attempting to create a last minute diversion to ensure the escape of Han, Rekkon and the others in a selfless act reminiscent of the ending of A New Hope, is separated from the group and taken prisoner. Han, in a hot-blooded moment of pure loyalty, plans to return on foot to rescue Chewie from a comparable army of Espos and Rekkon proves that he’s more than he seems by laying Han out with all the precision of an Echani master, knocking Han unconscious with a single blow to the back in an effort to keep him from throwing his life away needlessly. By this point, it’s pretty obvious that Rekkon is more than the simple scholar he claims, a fact that Han hangs a lampshade on by saying, “You must have taught at some pretty tough universities”.

The party escapes on the Falcon, and it’s not long before yet more drama ensues. Rekkon, having finally gone through Blue Max’s information to discover where the missing people are, is dead, and the person responsible is on the Millennium Falcon. Han doesn’t exactly keep his cool, but he does come up with a genius plan to reveal that the butler did it in the kitchen with the candlestick, and spaces him before the jury can go out to lunch.

Is this callous? Hell, yes! Is this classic Han Solo? Double hell yes! Han Solo is a smuggler, he’s the guy who runs past the coast guard on his jet skis so Al Pacino can sell cocaine. That’s how we’re introduced to him- that, and the fact that he kills in self-defense without breaking his stride, and then tosses the person who has to clean up the mess a tip. He’s a criminal, and he’s not a bad guy, but he lives on the run and he lives by the gun. The Star Wars saga (via the 3 films he appears in) is not about a good guy falling in with a good crowd- it’s about Malcolm X finding out that maybe Martin Luthor King wasn’t as foolish as he may have seemed, and then trying to avoid his fate. The one thing Han Solo has always been above anything else is a survivor, and to negate this, either by rejecting this scene or by making other changes I could mention, is to negate his entire story in the Star Wars original trilogy. And let’s face it, when he spaces the being who would have killed him if he was a fraction less wily, less intelligent than he is, he proves just how badass he is.

Once they get there, it’s on Han and his remaining companions to figure out how to get into Stars’ End, which is virtually impregnable, its walls molecularly bonded into what is effectively a single piece of metal. In a move reminiscent of Han and Luke’s plan in A New Hope, the five companions infiltrate the prison and meet Viceprex (short for Vice President of Corporate Security) Hirken. Bollux, standing in for a droid Hirken requested, replaces Chewbacca in this scheme, although the team is thrown for a loop when they discover that they’ve just volunteered the old labor droid for a fight to the death against the Mark X Executioner, the latest model gladiator droid.

The fight between Bollux and the Mark X is enjoyable. Bollux is the only point of view we get in the entire novel other than Han’s, which is unfortunate, because it could definitely have made this book a bit longer and given us some more memorable characters, but in the case of this fight, it’s a plus. I really enjoyed reading Bollux’s thoughts, especially as the question of his survival becomes more and more prominent. It’s during this fight, specifically its surprise turns, that Hirken crosses over from a plausible villain to the paranoid administrator that would become the template for many Star Wars villains for decades. He’s convinced that the “conspiracy” (in reality, a group of unrelated individuals speaking out against government abuses) against the Authority is also against him, personally.

For fans of Han, Hirken’s bodyguard is Uul-Rha-Shan, a renowned reptilian assassin who exists mostly to hype both himself and Han’s reputation among gunslingers up for a final confrontation, including the blow that sets the ball rolling for the climax and ending sequence of the novel, something that wouldn’t have been out of place in a Roald Dahl novel.

No, not that Rebellion

In the end, Han Solo at Stars’ End is a pretty good book. About of the plot elements are resolved to my satisfaction- the quest for missing people, the constantly-hinted-at talk of Rebellion- while some elements I would have liked to be addressed were left hanging- Pakka’s muteness, the fate of Uul-Rha-Shan and how the family of Rekkon’s killer reacted. Wrapping this up I held off hope that these would all be addressed in the next book, but having started that and taken a brief glimpse at Wookieepedia, I don’t think they are.

It’s too late, unfortunately, for Brian Daley to write another story in this era. But if the hanging endings of this excellent book- for both beginners and Star Wars veterans- aren’t wrapped up in Lost Legacy, I heartily hope for Daley’s friend James to one day find this Legacy.

Enough chit-chat, Han Solo’s Revenge calls out to me!