Books Journey to TFA: Smuggler's Run by Greg Rucka (spoilers must be tagged)

Alright - I decided to plow through this one first. Really enjoyed it. Fun prose, Han sounded very much like Han, and the brief Chewie POV (seen in the excerpt) was fantastic. (He did get a medal at Yavin! It was in his hand!)

First, General timeline setting notes of the main OT-era story:

Spoiler

Apart from the frame story, the events of the main story look like they would best fit basically right as the Princess Leia series is ending, and some point before Heir to the Jedi. The evac of Yavin is basically complete, and it looks like Chewie and Han were as good as their word when in Princess Leia they got to helping.

This happens in PL #1:

Implying Han and Chewie are going to help get everything off, then Leia basically takes off for her (days long?) mission. Then, at the end of all that
This happens in PL #5:


It makes sense for this book to be at this point, after her return. This book makes no mention of the events of PL, but it would seem to fit.

Okay, more specific spoilery info:

Concerning State of Affairs during the TFA time period:

Spoiler

So we see the three key Gang Lords during the ST period namedropped -

• The Irving Boys
• The Guavians
• Ducain

I know we've seen Guavian thugs on action figure packaging, and in the SDCC behind the scenes footage, and the guys bugging Han and Chewie don't appear to look like them. Han thinks they may be working for 'Ducain'.

Concerning Clones in the OT period, and The Fate Of A Character In The Story:

Spoiler

The Imperial Beck during the OT period (whose fate is literally left for another tale, "Tell you next time," Solo says.) has a Kamino Clone (Torrent) in her squad! She seems surprised that he's there, and assumed he must be one of, if not the last Kamino Clone serving as a Stormtrooper. He looks to be in about his 40s, suggesting his was from a last batch at the very end of the Clone Wars.

Really fun, and really set some questions in play for the state of Solo during the TFA saga, without really giving any solid answers. Definitely some seeds of intrigue, though. Recommended!

 

This has nothing to do with the plot, but reading this book is the first time I have ever found a fictional character with my exact name, spelling and all, and I nearly dropped my kindle.

 

But your name is Aphra?

 

Pardon me while I shriek incoherently.

Spoiler

Any specifics on his personality, combat ability, or just the dude in general? Or is that the long and short of it?

 

Finally we got some confirmation on this.

 

Don't like the UK covers as much as the normal ones. Just started this book and enjoying it thus far.

 

Well he seems very competent and motivated also he is great at playing dress up.

 

So, I was expecting excellence from the Fry books, because, well, Jason Fry has never led me wrong with Star Wars. But I've only ever encountered Rucka in comics and wasn't sure how his experience there would translate to a junior novel. But of the three JttFA junior novels, this one had my favorite prose by a long shot, and an excellent story to go with it.

The rest my thoughts are tagged, just in case:

Spoiler

1) I just love me some Han Solo. I think he can sometimes be a hard character to develop... not to write, necessarily, but to transform. He's stubborn to a fault and that makes it very hard to enact meaningful change in his character, because resistance to change is such a core part of him. The best stories are where that change comes about slowly--so slowly that he doesn't notice it himself. And Rucka pulls that off here, I think. Solo does everything in this book grudgingly--he frames every selfless decision as "not having a choice" because he just doesn't like the Empire or he would rather avoid getting a tongue-lashing from Leia, so on and so forth. But even as he doggedly insists that he only acts in his own self-interest, his actions become more and more selfless and heroic. He may not see the changes in his character, but the reader (and movie-watcher) certainly does. Rucka really nails that aspect of the character.

2) Despite the *blech* EU-standard Imperial Sexism thing rearing its ugly head, I thought Beck was a pretty great villain, easily the best of the three junior novels. She's persistent and consistent, and even she has moments of growth and learning... albeit in the direction of more evil. She's willing to bend rules to get what she wants and I really like her... affable?? relationship with Torrent. She clearly respects him and vice versa, and they work well as a team. It's kind of neat to see an Imperial officer being cooperative with someone.

3) Yes, please, more clones in the OT period. I love how Torrent is just so calm about everything, sort of quietly amused by Beck and everything that's happening around him.

4) Old Han Solo is pretty great. If he's anything like that in TFA, I'll be a happy camper.

5) I really like the idea of a traveling bar stuffed into the cargo hold of a ship. I also really liked Delia Leighton and her wild-west saloon owner vibe.

6) I'm curious to see if Ematt features in TFA, since he's shown up in two books now and is clearly a high-ranking member of the Resistance with ties to Han and Leia at the very least.

 

I've loved Greg Rucka's work for a long time. So this being good is no surprise to me.

 

Just to flag up, Rucka's also a novelist. Don't think he's previously done novels for younger audiences, but he certainly has various books, across a couple of series.

 

Good to know! And can I just say, I'm impressed with how often you jump in with info and recommendations like this. Especially when it comes to comics; I still think of myself as a comics newbie so it's great to have someone pointing the way toward good things to read (for example, you bumped Immonen's Nextwave somewhere here, and that's on my shortlist of things to check out next).

 

Post time and date take priority in mergers with no way to disable, so there really isn't a way to "create" a new OP short of editing an old post. It's one of my beefs with the system.

Anyway y'all can go about your business.

 

Thanks Aphra. My view is there's a whole lot of good stuff out there but you can never read it if you don't know about it.

If you do check out Rucka's Queen and Country series, be aware towards the end it also interweaves with 3 novels! (I found out the hard way and was quite miffed, then after getting the books I liked how he did it.)

Of course, you might end up annihilating your bank account....

 

This was my favorite of the new novels. It just was fun and reminded me why I love Star Wars.

Sent from my BNTV400 using Tapatalk

 

God, I loved this. Like other's have mentioned, didn't even feel like a young reader book. Felt more like just a short story, a novella. Honestly, I going to say this might have been the best book we've gotten yet for the NEU. I feel like the length actually helped it, and kept it fast and light, how I think Star Wars should always be told. That's the main beef I have with the other NEU books, they're too long, and thus they've all ended up repeating themselves unnecessarily in one fashion or another.

 

Pretty much all the NEU books (the adult ones) have actually been far too short.

If you think they're too long then probably you should stick to young readers ones like this. There will be plenty of them coming and all seem to be of excellent quality. I would recommend the Servants of the Empire series wit Jason Fry, which has it's 4th book coming out soon.

 

This was a neat little story.

It also unexpectedly was a star turn for Chewie and demonstrates, albeit unwittingly, why killing the character off in Legends was a mistake.

The other element it drew my attention to was how difficult it is to fly a ship as contrary as the Falcon - it's easy to think Chewie ain't doing much, but he's flying it too! It isn't a, ahem, solo job!

Finally, Ematt completes the character array that Han needs to work. One of the weaknesses I've found in other solo Han stories is that, on his own, he ain't that interesting - Han needs characters to play off. Chewie fills the role of long-term friend, who'll tell him when he's being a git. Emett provides the idealism that Solo considers to be foolish yet, if pushed, admits to finding admirable. Take those away and there's not that much left.

Meanwhile, running in the stakes of Most Villainous and Amoral Piece of Crap to Walk the Galaxy, discounting Sid 'n, Vader, is Beck. There really is nothing this vicious fascist won't do for her perfectly ordered world.

Great stuff and I hope for more SW work from Rucka.

 

Just read "Smuggler's Run" and thought it was great! Here's my little review... https://joshgill.wordpress.com/2015/09/14/book-review-star-wars-smugglers-run/

 

After finishing this book here is my review

Spoiler

I loved old man Han and thought they nailed his character perfectly.
I like the legend status the Falcon has reached over the years.
Beck is the biggest scum in the bunch for this book with almost destroying a worlds population
I liked Torrent (clone) in this book and thought it really weird that his disguise was a sweat shirt.
I also liked Commander Hove because he related to his troops and did not want to kill them with the tractor beam like Beck
Finally the Plot was also very good with them saving Ematt and the Bounty hunters that want to catch him before Fett.

9/10

 

Part way through this story. Great fun read.

 

I take it this book occurs concurrent to Princess Leia issue 1....

It seems after the medal ceremony and Leia spots Evaan eyeing up her father's statue, she goes to find out what missions need doing. She gives Han and Chewie their mission then realizes there are no missions for her, so she goes to Admiral Ackbar who directs her to Dodonna and her adventure begins........

 

So this is a thing that happened.