181st Imperial Discussion Group: Han Solo at Stars' End

Welcome everyone!

This month we are discussing Han Solo at Stars' End by Brian Daley.

Here's a link to the TF.n Staff Reviews.

Some discussion points follow but as ever, anything book-related goes, guys!

- So, major difference in style from later novels. It's short, fast-paced, in many ways it borrows a lot from the pulp-era. This is the other part of Star Wars that made us sit up and pay attention. The dirty galaxy. The thirty-different-aliens-in-one-backwater-cantina galaxy. What did you think? Do you prefer stories aimed at forwarding the state of galactic politics, or did you like this narrowing of focus down to one (at the time) fairly insignificant smuggler? Do you even agree it was galactically insignificant?

- Han Solo! As the young, brash smuggler we met at the start of ANH. Do you like him? What did you think of his characterisation? Did Daley handle him well? What did we learn about him from this novel?

- New Characters! Bollux and Blue Max are good examples of droid protagonists, another fairly rare feature these days. They have distinct personalities and an unusual combined function - what did you make of them? What about the various other characters introduced? Atuerre and her cub, Pakka? Rekkon? Jessa? Did they keep the feel of the Star Wars galaxy for you?

- The Corporate Sector. So, interesting, an entire sector of space with no indigineous life ruled by crook-corporation types? Parallels with the Trade Federation could prove interesting. Is this evidence that people who claimed a "trade blockade," was a silly way to start a Star Wars film were wrong all along? Do you disagree with making them the primary antagonists?

And...GO!

In March we will be discussing Han Solo's Revenge by Brian Daley.

 

It was the first Star Wars book I read and I loved it then and still do.

- IIRC there weren't any Jedi in the book
- The corporate sector fighters (IRDs) were described like TIE fighters but weren't named TIE fighter (except for on one page)
- Doc and Jess were great characters.
- I'd love to see a love child of Han and Jess in FOTJ

 

I love these books; they're a perfect example of Han as this roguish, adventuring scoundrel, capitalizing on his ANH cocky swagger rather than giving in to the later TESB-inspired focus on having him flirt with Leia, mouth off at Threepio, and stick out of the Falcon's repair bays. Instead, rather than focusing on the trappings of the film, Daley really grabs onto Han's character and his partnership with Chewie -- something that a lot of the later stuff loses focus on -- and focuses not on recreating film wisecracks or situations but on throwing him into wild new adventures and just having a hell of a time. I love the brash, young, swaggering, and wholly and genuinely scoundreltastic smartass Han, and Daley delivers.

I can't get enough of the fringe in Star Wars, so this is a welcome look into crimelords and trying to make that one big run and underworld contacts and outlaw techs and all kinds of awesome. The pulp feel is just unmistakable, and it's constant, thoroughly absorbing adventure.

I liked the new characters; Bollux and Blue Max especially were a great team. They were Threepio and Artoo replacements in a way, but Daley didn't fall into the trap of trying to recreate Artoo and Threepio, or get one droid sidekick who can replace both; instead we get a sort of laid-back labor droid carrying around a punk-kid slicer droid inside his chest. It's a great counterpart concept with characters that work on their own and, while serving as great callbacks to the original droid duo, don't feel derivative.

The Corporate Sector was a great idea; with so much of the galaxy's situation in limbo, take Han out to the very edge of the galaxy, put him in some minor corporatist dystopia that nicely echoes the Empire and which you can see working with it, but which doesn't force you to get into the broader galactic situation. Plus, it really provides some diversity to the galaxy straight away. It lets Daley play around with politics and authority figures and regular life without having to worry whether the next movie is going to steamroll over it, and lets him get at the pulpy feel of the movies and the characters of Han and Chewie in a somewhat different environment than we see in the movies, one which really lets them run wild. I really wish we'd see more of the Corporate Sector in modern EU.

And no discussion of this book would be complete without mention of the incredibly awesome Russian cover:
[image=http://images3.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars/images/d/da/Han_Solo_at_Star%27s_End_Rus.jpg]

 

I was angry at these books when I was young - I wanted to read about the Empire, the Rebellion, and I felt the trip to the Corporate Sector to be a dodge. Boy, was I wrong...
Reading the WEG's "Han Solo and the Corporate Sector" made me reconsider and I went back and read it. I realized that it wasn't as divorced from the rest of the galaxy as I had assumed, and it was a good read.
The infiltration of Star's End is pretty funny - the documents from HSCS about the switcheroo made it even funnier.
And the dinko just shows that you don't double-cross Han Solo...

 

I read it when I was really young. My teacher gave it to me.

And I loved the fight against the "Hornets" with the aged Z-95s. The quick-draw duel in the end. Trianii. And obviously . . . Pollux.

 

Brian Daley captures Han Solo like no other author in Star Wars. He just gets it, gets who Han Solo is, gets what goes on inside Han's head. Han always ends up helping other people, being the unintenional hero, talking the talk but never being able to match up the talk with his actions.

As Havac mentions, Daley doesn't rely on re-using Han's wise cracks from the then singular film. Daley comes up with all new, amazing Han wit and quotes that are completely original yet in every way Han Solo.

Even after all these years Han Solo at Stars End feels very fresh, very different from everything else that is out there for Star Wars Lit. The stars were so many that no one could catalog all the sentient races they'd spawned. A great take and I think something that has often been lost as the Star Wars galaxy has moved forward over the years.

Creative, fresh, different aliens of many shapes and sizes appear throughout the book. Now day's authors often end up using known aliens instead of fleshing out something new. When Daley wrote this everything was new so he was forced to be creative and his creativity was dazzling.

The idea of creating and using the Corporate Sector as a wild west setting for Han and Chewie to run around in was another brilliant creative stroke. It was almost a lawless, greed driven wing of the galaxy, perfect for Han Solo to have countless adventures.

Also little bits from early in the book like Ploovo, the Galactic Loan Shark, The Free Flight Dance Club and Fronk's Fever just sound so much like Star Wars its as if George Lucas wrote them himself.

I'll be back with more

 

I do love this trilogy, having read it for the first time just a few months ago. Like Havac, I can't ever get enough of the fringe side of the galaxy, so this series detailing the Han/Chewbacca smuggling adventures is a treat to read. Daley wrote a convincing and likable Han, one where we can see the personality that defined him in ANH, but with enough hints of the deeper and more caring man he would later become in the movies.

That said, Stars' End is my least favorite of the books. The first half just feels somewhat uneven to me, but I think it really hits its stride around the middle, when Han starts trying to figure out the ship's traitor and they arrive at Stars' End.

Most of the characters in the story are enjoyable and distinct, though my favorite by far are Bollux and Blue Max. I remember being happy that their stories would continue.

In either case, it's a fun book and I'm glad to have revisited it.

 

It's great to hear that people enjoyed this book. This was actually the first time I'd ever read the novel. My problem is I'm a sucker for "what happens next!" and for epic magic FORCE-WIELDING stuff and so I tend to get lazy and not read the novels that go back to fill things in until prompted.

So I started reading this book with some trepidation. I like Han well enough but he's not my favourite and I was worried a one-off adventure that wouldn't really impact on wider continuity would bore me. Because I have the attention span of a gnat hopped up on too much caffeine.

But I was really wrong. This novel sucked me in and I really loved the fast-paced pulp feel. I'm a big fan of well-executed pulp and Daley totally delivered here. I felt a genuine sense of danger, especially when Chewie was captured, and I loved how it was played against an increasingly ludicrous series of situations culimating in accidentally shooting an entire building into not-actually-anything-like-orbit.

It was insane but the good kind of insane where you believe in it because Daley just sells it to you with such conviction.

Also I LOVED Bollux and Blue Max. I completely agree with Havac that they were a great callback to Artoo and Threepio while being totally different at the same time. Plus the concept is hilarious but makes an odd kind of sense, just like the rest of the novel.

Along with the radio drama, my opinion of Daley is really soaring. Can't wait for the next one.

Although I gotta admit (don't hurt me!) that I'm not really going abundance on that Russian cover. I know it's picky but he looks too much like older ROTJ Han rather than younger, meaner, crazier ANH Han. /pickiness.

Also I wouldn't be that excited about seeing the child of Jessa and Han in FOTJ just because the character would be like...forty something years old by then and I'd feel cheated out of most of that character's life. I think the "let's give Han a secret kid from before the movies," boat has kind of sailed. Which I'm kind of glad of just because I wouldn't be a huge fan of the soap opera nature of it, but even if it was well-handled, I think any pre-film kid of Han's would just be too old to introduce now.

 

But they actually bothered to give him a different set of clothes! And there's some kind of demonic goat-headed Satan in the background!

 

He kind of looks like "MacGyver" Solo...

 

Sticking its tongue out, no less. Least I think that's it's tongue. I do like that cover, though, if only for the smirk on Solo's face.

 

ALL RIGHT, I will concede that the goat-headed satan is pretty kriffing awesome.

blackmyron, however, has completely ruined any appreciation of Han's new gear that I might ever have found due to his unfortunately apt new moniker.

MacGuyver. *shudders* Eew.

 

Han Solo at Star's End is my favorite of these early Star Wars books and I honestly favorably rank it up with the best in the entire series. What works best about the book is the fact that everything we see in the book is NEW. The Corporate Sector is entirely removed from Star Wars: A New Hope and that prevents us from having to deal with about a million later continuity conflicts. The Corporate Sector also works very well because, despite the fact that the Empire is far removed, the oppression and tyranny that Han Solo faces is very real.

If there's one serious problem with this work, I'd have to say that honestly it does feel a little "too" removed from the Star Wars universe at times. There could have been some references to the Empire and so on. It's sort of a "You can't please everybody" situation. Still, the Espos are nice Stormtrooper substitutes and there's still a bunch of huge battleships on 'screen.'

Personally, I think my favorite part of the book is the fact that the Corporate Sector Viceprix is only a middle manager and that Han Solo doesn't bring down the entire Corporate Sector in the book. He barely makes a ripple, other than to strike at the organization and liberate some prisoners of it. Still, the villain only shows up in the latter thrid of the book yet is still thoroughly reprehensible and venal in true Star Wars fashion.

He even has a horrible wife.

 

It's EU freed from the strictures of the EU, ie. continuity with the films and with (most horribly) itself. It is sloppy and roughshod and raw and, consequently, it has more wit, more charm and more energy than anything else in the entire EU catalog. I always hate it when people talk about an EU reboot, but then again, maybe we'd at least get three or four books with enough nerve to be this much fun again if we did it.

 

MacGyver is made of awesome and win. To intimate otherwise would only prove that you are not.

 

Sarek: He has a mullet, and that's all I'll say on the matter.

On a more serious note, it's interesting to see the near uniform love for this novel (which is clearly something I understand). But both Charlie and Rogue bring up interesting points about how everything is new.

As indicated I think this is mostly a strength, although something of a weakness. As noted, it's very far removed from the galaxy we recognise, and I'm intrigued by Rogue's comments that it is, in some ways, the roughshod and raw nature of the book that give it "nerve".

It's very clearly a product of its times. Do you guys think perhaps we enjoy it more simply because it's different and so we judge it on a different standard and there's not much else to compare it with?

If the EU did (fates forfend!) reboot, I'm not sure that we would get novels like this. I imagine that from the outset we'd get a much tighter, PT-minded continuity, with a powerful focus on wider galactic events and the soap-operatic interactions of the galaxy's "first family".

One of the most popular books on the forums recently has been Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, and its author references Daley and this novel series as an influence. But even Mindor is, by the standard of these early novels of Han and Lando, very significant. Even the standalone backstory novels we get these days are seen as chances to fill in important gaps in history rather than to create new history, however insignificant in the scheme of things.

I'm not really sure that's a bad thing. SW's (comparatively) tight continuity is certainly as aspect of the franchise that appeals to many fans. And as I've already stated, I like tales of galactic importance. But I'm just wondering, since these seem so popular, do we get books like this anymore?

Perhaps Mindor in style, but in content? I'm not sure. The Tales of... series came close. I haven't read them, but perhaps the Coruscant Nights books are similar in scope and importance?

 

The whole sideline focus for me is a huge attraction. We're still getting things like this today -- Coruscant Nights for one -- but it's mostly in comics -- in things like the Clone Wars Adventures, or the new OT-era spinoff Jeremy's putting out, or Small Victories, or Dark Times. In the current atmosphere, it's the novels that are really pushing for everything to be part of the big picture, and while I don't think that necessarily comes with the novel medium and a mature EU, it was certainly much easier to do at that point.

 

I think there are authors contributing in this fashion. As mentioned Michael Reaves is definitly telling a less epic story in Coruscant Nights, filled with original characters.

The Republic Commando series, while srapped around the events between AOTC and ROTS are not really telling an epic story either. More the story of a family of original characters trying to survive the turmoil of that time.

Even the Bane novels kinda follow the road less travelled.

I don't think a reboot would get to focus on stories of this type as the Big Three's stories would be simply getting retold over again.(On a side note I'd hate a reboot, though I don't mind continuity tweeks here and there. )

 

To some extent, this is just a natural consequence of the fact that Expanded Universe was less detailed back then. The Han Solo novels and the Lando Calrissian novels were capable of taking far more risks because Lucas hadn't set down any real rules. Really, the first person to actually do any real detail about the Star Wars canon as a universe was probably West End Games and Bantam was smart enough to hand over some of those RPG books to the Expanded Universe's early authors.

Sadly, I think what works best about these novels is just not easily replicatable by other authors. Basically, the fact that this is just plain old good writing. The human element is strongly found throughout Han Solo at Star's End. We have fully developed three dimensional characters and a lot of genuine moral issues.

The death of Rekkon is extremely powerful because he's actually well-developed enough that we come to care for the man before he's killed. The violence of the novel has been fairly reserved up until this point as well. So, when Han Solo airlocks the traitorous Torm out the Millenium Falcon, its a fairly shocking moment of coldness that recalls Han Solo shooting first. The alien Trianni are alien but also very human in their family relationships. Plus, you have to feel for the little kid when you find out he's been tortured by a blaster on "slow burn" I don't know what that is but it sounds painful.

I think what's cool is that there's a lot of nods to Bond movies too. Uul-Rha-Shan is an "Odd Job" style character that exists to make the otherwise unimpressive Viceprix Hirken into a genuine threat to Han.

I think there's something to be said that really, the Star's End novels are less violent than many Expanded Universe novels but oddly the violence feels more SERIOUS as a result. It's not a cartoon or a video game where you see the heroes mow down hundreds of people with blasters or lots of Amphi Staves murdering billions. It's the kind of story where a few deaths make a serious difference.

 

When I first read this I really thought Rekkon might have been a Jedi. Then he died and I realized he wasn't, but he was painted as kinda mysterious, calm under pressure. His death was a complete surprise.

 

I love not just HSASE but its two sequels deeply -- and was very pleased to re-read them as an adult and discover that those feelings weren't just notalgia. Some of Han's best lines and his funniest and most poignant moments in the whole saga belong to Daley.

No insult whatsoever to Tim Zahn, to whom all SW fans owe a debt of gratitude, but it's very interesting to wonder about a parallel universe in which Del Rey didn't lose the SW license and Daley was the one who relaunched the EU....

 

Well, I think that the things that make the book so great are exactly two: 1. a very pulp centered love of the action sequence and 2. absolutely no self-consciousness at all.

Particularly that second, in reference to the above reply to my post, is significant. Yes, when the continuity really works, it's great, but how often does it really work? I can't help but think of Survivor's Quest which was so deeply self aware it almost achieved sentience.

It was a book written, entirely in reference to a brief backstory from another book and, in fact, it was entirely written to set up another book. Small wonder that it was that one that made me stop reading the EU as it came out; sometimes the EU has quite a large agenda. Teh Daley books had no agenda except creating a taut pulp adventure. How many EU books recently have had such a small agenda? None, probably; it's always about 'telling this story' or 'retconning this problem' or 'explaining how this happened' or something like that. Okay, I like that sometimes, but really, what about this for an agenda: 'having fun.'

 

I think people are a bit too continuity obsessed in their analysis of the book. What works in this book, actually, for me is the fact that the author bothers to do world building. Admitteldy, he didn't have resources of the previous EU to draw from but he created a new cast and he did it WELL.

If more authors had this sort of ambition, there'd be a lot better EU.