Lit The Legendary 181st Imperial Discussion Group: The Hutt Gambit

It's the 181st again, and it's A.C. Crispin's Han Solo Trilogy again. This time, we skip the iconic moment of Han meeting Chewie and move over to The Hutt Gambit.

Last month's discussion of The Paradiese Snare, which had a few interesting tangents but didn't really go anywhere, can be found here (notice how I don't clarify whether I mean the discussion or the book ).

Now, since I'm not entirely convinced by this trilogy but we have a few fans here, this time around I'll let you suggest which parts we should concentrate on for now.


Next month, we'll finish another year along with the trilogy, discussing Rebel Dawn (which had the interesting german title "The King of the Smugglers")

 

Bump.

Not even you, Ackbar's Fishsticks?

 

Oh hi, new thread! I missed this somehow.

Anyhoo, I vaguely remember this being my favorite of the three Han Solo trilogy books, but I'm not sure why now (it's been a while since I've read it). Is this the one with Baron Fel? It also has the Battle of Nar Shaddaa, yeah? And...I can't exactly remember what else I liked about it. It was my first introduction to Vuffi Raa, though, who was about the only good thing to come out of the Adventures of Lando Calrissian, IMO (don't shoot me).

Er...I also like the color blue they used for the cover?

 

Loved reading how Han and Chewie met. That is my head canon on how they met. Also how he met Lando and Fett and first impressions of the Falcon. Great in-depth details on the Hutts, Nal Hutta, Nar Shadda and other smugglers as well. The battle of Nar Shadda was perfect.

 

There isn't much about how they met, though, is there. Plus, there's two interesting factors here: First, in this book series, Chewie kind of steals Muurgh's established role from the first book (and you could easily imagine a pre-Chewie trilogy of books in which Muurgh returned for every adventure, especially when using the life debt angle); and in addition, Dewlanna's sacrifice kind of neuters Han's decision to save Chewie. The Paradise Snare has Han vow to help one of Dewlanna's kind in the future to repay his debt; thus casting the entire life debt concept into a dubious light, which Han points out immediately but Chewie obviously cannot accept since that would wreck the canon.

I can see how the whip-on-Coruscant scene can be glued to the Chewbacca comic book scene in which Han finds Chewie on a starship; however, for me, the comic book scene is so iconic that I don't get a lot returning to the book version. Especially since you don't get to live in the scene; like many other scenes, you relive it through the narrator's voice, or through a character becoming the narrator himself.

 

I know, I'm being derelict on my work.

Uh, the main thing this book's about is him going back to the fringe, after he spent all of the first book trying to escape it for something "noble" (which turned out to be even less noble than the fringe). Apart from that, this is where he meets up with a bunch of people who end up being key to his life - Chewie, Lando, Boba Fett, even the Falcon.

I didn't think Chewie was stealing Muurgh's established role, since it was pretty clear that it was Muurgh who was the placeholder for Chewie in the first place, if anything bothered me it would've been that. Dewlanna's sacrifice neutering the decision - maybe, but I didn't think so. As Han admits to himself, something like that would've happened pretty soon in any event, the fact that it allowed him (as he saw it) to pay off a life debt was just the icing on the cake. Actually, the thing that surprised me rereading the book this time is that I'd forgotten how short his stint in the Starfleet was - he's only in for a year before the final straw rolls around. Says a lot about how much the Empire ended up rubbing him the wrong way that it only took him that long to get out.

Meeting Lando, no complaints.

Meeting Boba Fett. Mehhhhh... I didn't really see the need for him, but I suppose that's symptomatic of the bigger EU hype around him.

Meeting Jabba. I can see why he became a star - saving the boss' life will do that to you.

Other than movie characters, I liked Roa and the whole "gentleman thief" vibe around him, and I can see why Han would be drawn to him - it gave him a community of people who were part of his fringe lifestyle while still having a code of honor of sorts (that thing he longed to find in the Empire), so he can feel like he's not falling as low as the Shrike crowd.

Also, what was up with Jarik? He wasn't a character from anywhere else, was he? I didn't mind him at all (there was a Short Round vibe to Han keeping him around), it just seemed like a random choice to throw him into the mix.

 

I have to say that I'm positively surprised by how well the Hutt parts are written. There's just a tiny hint of the greed culture thing being portrayed a bit too simplistic (this "we are greedy and we there's hope for you if you're too"), and microscopic traces of Han being not as confident as he acts, but when you can simply fall into Han bragging and bullying his way around, establishing himself as someone to be reckoned with, it's just fun to read.

It's interesting that the Luceno/EU-connectivity comparison has been made last month; here it's really evident that almost every tiny shrapnel of canon that could be worked in is invited for the ride. It's funny that we just did TNR in the 181st, otherwise I might not have noticed the crowd from those books (I had to read up on Xaverri, for example, since the 181st always neglects The Crystal Star ). However, just like with Luceno, I feel like it's sometimes a bit too much. Vima, for example. But I'm not really sure if I'd enjoy the middle ground - either keep the continuity nods simple, either as total easter eggs or always relevant to the story, or make a complete everything-and-the-kitchen-sink festival like here.

Oh, what's the word on the street regarding Firespray-class ships and the amount of modifications done to get Slave I? Whenever someone modifies a ship for better performance, I always see it as some kind of engine tinkering, not really a complete rebuild. That's why I fully ignored the "Kuat build it" stuff from TBH - it didn't make sense to me, and since many of Jeter's choices didn't, I just threw it out with the other stuff. Especially since you can see generic Firesprays in X-Wing Alliance. So, continuity lovers, please enlighten me about what I got wrong about Fett's ship.

But you wouldn't know that when starting the trilogy, that's my point. I mean, of course it's obvious to everyone who knows SW, but I meant this more from a storytelling/payoff angle. We don't get a proper story for Chewie's entrance into Han's life; we get a few vague flashbacks and one fight at a sabacc table, and suddenly we're up to another round of "faithful companion who has to visit his homeplanet and marry his girl in the end". And even if Chewie had been locked in for the second and third book, it's a somewhat... boring decision to go for a proto-Chewie in the first volume. Sullustan pilot buddy would have been a more interesting choice as a contrast to "The Chewie". And that even though it would still have been kind of derivative of Nien Nunb next to Lando (and who knows, maybe being derivative was the goal, so two points for Sullustan pilot buddy).

 

double post, since nothing draws attention like being stupid!

 

I loved the Hutts in this, too, it was the high point of their portrayal in the EU.

The thing about shoehorning everyone in from the EU... This is what I meant in the last review when I said that it really didn't feel that way to me when I first read it. I figured that clearly some of these people had already been introduced somewhere (which makes sense given that the rest of the EU often goes with the "oh, hello, smuggler/bounty hunter I've met before in some other cantina" approach to Han's past), but it didn't stand out to me as much as it did to so many others, and one of the main examples is Xaverri herself. Her being a character from an earlier book - I had no idea when I originally read this, and now that I've read it again it still doesn't stick out to me. Her purpose as a character still works fine if you've only read her in this book. Hey, look, Han's got a new girlfriend. Well, that's not a shock - he's Harrison Ford, after all. She's a magician. Why is she a magician? Oh, because that's going to come in handy a hundred pages later when the good guys need a diversion in the battle against the Empire. She also hates the Empire. Why does she hate the Empire? Oh, because it's extra motivation for her to help the good guys in said fight. (Also gives her something to bond over with Han and Chewie, confirms that Han has a type - anti-Imperial revolutionaries - and offers another snapshot of people getting restless and pissed under the Empire). Once the battle's over, her part is done and she leaves and never comes back. Done. I still haven't read The Crystal Star, and I don't feel like I'm missing much in terms of Xaverri - her story as an HST character is pretty self-contained.

 

What stood out to me from The Hutt Gambit was once again the parts about the Hutts, the evolving Rebellion and Bria's role in it (the meeting at Bespin under cover of the Sabaac-tournee). Some of the people Han met made sense (Salla, Lando, Boba), others not so much, if you remembered them from The Crystal Star or The New Rebellion. If you didn't remember them - like I did - they didn't disturb the flow of the narrative.

And I was saddened to see Janusz Nebbl die during the battle of Nar Shadda after he got away alive in the first part of the trilogy.

 

Sorry to disagree twice - first, the Rebellion meeting is at the beginning of #3, Bria is doing astonishingly little in #2; and the way Boba Fett was handled didn't really make too much sense if you ask me.

But I'd like to open the latter up to everyone. Boba Fett in this - cringeworthy on a fan fiction level or a great way to introduce the iconic characters (don't forget, Han meets Fett and Lando at the same time)?

Well - I'll agree wholeheartedly that her part works without any connection to any other book. And most if not all of the other cameos are the same. I prefer characers like Mako and Salla actually being developed here to Blue and the Wookiee just appearing for the obvious sex joke and then doing nothing of consequence for the rest of the book (especially Blue whose "interest" in Han once he's married in TNR gets extrapolated into a "she only goes for unavailable men because of the challenge" thing, that's a bit simplistic).

There's one thing about Xaverri I'd like to point out - the way you describe her makes her seem like she's written the way she is written just so that she can help the plot. Now that souns depressingly simplistic... The thing is, though, that Han and Chewie disappearing to be stage act support is an odd turn of events, and while this is probably extrapolation from a half-joke in TCS, it could have been worked better into this here. Half of the time, it seems as if Han does stuff and meets people because someone somewhere else wrote something about that.And if you look back at it, and it's more obvious, it drags the original parts down because it's so... by the numbers. Smugglers uniting to stop the Empire from fighting Nar Shaddaa is a really weird, over-the-top thing on its own.

How would people who've read the Dash Rendar novel comapre this, though? The whole smuggler-joins-stage-act thing, even if it's more bodyguard there?

insert obvious reference to The Crystal Star being kind of a stinker, even if it's not thaaaat bad

I didn't remember her, either. The first time her name popped up I thought she might be one of the Jabba Special Edition dancers (most probably the one Fett flirts with).

 

Hutt Gambit has without doubt one of the best space battles of any SW novel.

 

What does this space battle make right?

 

One more thing I'd like to bring up is Han falling in love with the Falcon at first sight, and vowing to "steal" her from Lando (not literally, obviously). What do you think of that part? Is it one of the dangers of writing a prequel? Narrowing everything down at the start because we all know what the future will look like, and everything is just an insider's joke?

Ironically, this stands in contrast to the Bria/Leia criticism we've heard before...

 

I don't mind Han falling in love with the Falcon the first time he saw her. Sometimes a "match made in heaven" is just that, and nobody said it had to be two humans. Just ask Corran Horn.

Seriously, though, it didn't seem off to me at all that Han fell in love with the Falcon at first sight.

 

Corran Horn's match made in heaven was when he saw himself in a mirror.

 

It seems off to me, especially because "she doesn't look like much, but she's got it where it counts". Basically, if you take a look at the Falcon, it's a standard YT-1300 freighter. You modify it, you get a used-look-freighter. If you're gun-happy, you might love her for her second gun tower, but alas, that's not there yet when Han falls in love.

Two things that would make sense to me would be love at first flight since the ship handles ideally for him, or more probably "love at ownership", which is what you get with your bike you get for your birthday, or the first car you own or something like that. Here it's a metaphysical love thing going on, as if love was a scientifically measurable force like gravity, or as if a god or the Force was pushing Han and the Falcon together "because it's destiny". And as much as I love the prequels throwing a curveball by ensuring the things that have to happen from a OOU point of view have to happen IU as well because of destiny and prophecy, with something as non-metaphysical as Han Solo flying the coolest ship in the universe and laughing at your hokey religions, it's not the right way to go.

 

Pirates
A Hutt Yacht
A really well done tactical briefing of the situation
Multi POVs
A very interesting set up for why it happens
Imperial Customs
An underdog fight
Irregular tactics
Vuffi Ra and Lando
Soontir Fel
Small scale conflict

 

I always assumed that the Falcon was supposed to look harmless and normal to the unsuspecting eye - e.g. a guy like Lando who just drives the thing but doesn't really know how it works (like most of us are with our cars), or a lot of Imperial officers who aren't used to judging "pieces of junks" full of add-ons and spare parts like the Falcon, because whenever their ships break down or otherwise stop performing as expected, they just send them back to the shipyards to be fixed (again, like most of us with our cars, when something stops working you just get a professional to fix it, or get a new one). But that someone who was actually enough of a starship nerd, like Han, and who'd grown up among Outer Rim smugglers where these ships are the norm, would know better when he saw it.

The Millennium Falcon is the Star Wars version of those American cars that were sold in Cuba in the 1950s and that somehow, thanks to the black market and heaps and heaps of creativity, the mechanics down there have managed to keep running until today. If you're a tourist, or if you're a car expert but used to more official car dealerships in the developed world, and heck, probably even many Cubans... you look at the car and see a pile of rusting junk and marvel at the fact that it's even able to squeak from your home to your work place ten minutes away. But if you're actually from the community that deals in these cars or keeps them running, you'll probably immediately be able to tell the genuine piles of crap from the cars that look that way but actually have "got it where it counts."

 

Well, and I wouldn't know if this probably is probable. I could buy people noticing if someone generally takes care of a motor and if it is probable that the car in question is working well; but on the other hand, a used car might not even have an engine in it if you're just having a look. The Falcon as a Hot Rod stand-in only works as far as Chewie keeps welding on it; but neither does it look flashy, nor does it look cobbled together. Just used.

I'd buy Han falling in love with a YT-1300 because these are somewhat hard to get your hands on at this point (which probably wouldn't gel with canon), and because he can identify with a Corellian Classic. But it would be enough to just have him acknowledge the ship as something he approves of, and which he might be interested in owning. But all this gut-feeling "I'm going to marry you someday" when he's looking at the property of a man who just saved his life is weird. I'd prefer it if the Falcon had be interesting for Han, even desirable, but it just had been some vague feeling since it was obviously unattainable.

And in addition to that, I think him having a ship called Bria before this paints another picture entirely - he's already been close to a ship before, to his first ship; why would some other ship blow him away like it's something from that Woody Allen sheep scene? It's definitely this "this is my destiny" moment with the Falcon that's bugging me.


Another topic: I think sustainability is a really strange factor in this book. Han and Lando getting rid of Fett just doesn't work; making them "too nice" to simply get it over with and kill the most dangerous foe that's out to get Han (and Lando since he doesn't remain unknown to Fett) is a crutch; and Fett not going out of his way to correct fate's mistake afterwards is a too convenient extrapolation of the Mereel concept. And on top of that, this book ignoes the question why a "unified smuggler union" (which seems just as likely as a pirate kingdom in that Pirates of the Caribbean franchise we already mentioned last month) dealing an embarrassing blow against the Empire wouldn't result in the Empire's grip tightening even more afterwards to the degree that they want to blow Nar Shaddaa out of the sky even harder (remember, the suggestion that the operation was an Imperial setup to get rid off Moff Shild doesn't come up until way into the next book; here it's simply someone setting him up for failing). In the end, it's a story that needs to jump through justification hoops that wouldn't need to be there if the story had flowed more naturally out of what would actually make sense for these characters and organizations.