Found: The Han Solo Adventures

[jeriendhal]

I'm speaking of course of Brian Daley's trio of Han Solo novels, Han Solo at Star's End, Han Solo's Revenge, and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy. I found them as an omnibus paperback at Border's while I was picking up a couple of magazines for Tracy, and grabbed it on my way to the checkout counter. It's hard to remember in the age of Timothy Zhan and the horde of other Post Empire novels, that these three slim books, along with Alan Dean Foster's novelization of Star Wars and his follow up book Splinter in the Mind's Eye (and a series of really awful Marvel comics) were the only expansions to George Lucas' movie out there in the three year period between Star Wars and the release of TESB.

Daley cheats a bit of course. Whether it was to deliberately avoid messing with Star Wars' very slim canon, or because Del Rey had a limited rights release, the action isn't set against the might of the Empire, but a more generic Corporate Sector Authority. Nevertheless Daley manages to capture Han's voice quite nicely, even in the early bits where it's just him holding a one sided conversation with Chewbacca. I'm just partway through Star's End, and it's still the nice bit of comfort reading I remember when I was ten years old. Far superior in my mind these days to the overhyped adventures of Zhan and his sucessors, whom I've never really enjoyed.

Comments

[scarfman]

The only one of those I've read is Lost Legacy. I recall being moved toward hunting up the others, but I never did.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

I think Star's End is the best of the bunch, with Revenge the weakest. Lost Legacy is great for the little Maltese Falcon twist at the climax though (and the bit with the war droids and the bridge). The omnibus is worth hunting down at least. Three novels for US$8.95 is cheap these days.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. Wonder if I should get it. I got the first one from the library during a search for Firefly methadone and had to return it with 10 pages to go (but the climactic battle seemed pretty telegraphed to me). It was nice reading but not one I've been inspired to reread.

[jeriendhal.livejournal.com]

Well, great literature it isn't. But it is a fun adventure yarn, at least when I was ten years old. :)

[wednesday]

Oh! I remember not being allowed to read those books for years because they were in English!