F/SF

Actually a lot better than I expected after reading the Lando Calrissian adventures, but I wouldn't go as far as to say it was really good or anything. Han Solo wasn't aggressively out of character, but also not always in character. Not really.

The plot was muuuch better than in the LCAs though, it was straight-forward and easy to follow without having weird drug-induced dream like sequences. The closest we got to weird was the "pretend to be a circus"-part, but I'm down with any kind of plot that gives me Han Solo in a skin-tight black body-suit, so there's that.

It felt a bit rushed by the end though, and I don't really get the point of having Han "get the girl" because it came out of the fucking blue and felt off, but whatever. I didn't expect it to have great literary merit. ( )

I read this less because I'm a Star Wars fan (I'm not at all) than because I just needed a hit of nostalgia and wanted to take a trip back to the sort of book I read when I was young (I read one of the other Daley books when I was 12.) This novel was written when there was only one film in existence, so there isn't a lot of lore to drag the story down or limit the author. It really can be read as just a science fiction adventure, unconnected to anything else. There's also none of that Jedi stuff, just a single passing reference, so it's more science fiction and not science fantasy like the films, or more recent spin-offs (I imagine). The only drawback is that you know nothing really terrible is going to happen to the two leads. Brian Daley was a solid writer and it's a shame he left us so soon.

P.S. Nude catgirls are a SF/F trope that never gets old. ( )

When a book is under 200 pages, there really isn't a whole lot to say without giving away most of the plot fairly quickly. Suffice it to say that Han Solo at Stars' End, while not about to win any prizes or anything, was a really fun book to read. Brian Daley throws his reader directly into the action and except for a brief pause now and then it's a frenetic pace from one harrowing situation to the next with our hero Han Solo and his trusty companion Chewbacca the Wookie.

This is a great side-story from the old days of the Star Wars galaxy before the gaps were all filled in by episodes I-III, heck before the Empire Struck Back or there was a Return of a Jedi, the Clone Wars were just an event from the past that were referred to from time to time, but not really understood by the fan/reader/viewer. That's part of what made this story so fun. It took me back to a time when Star Wars was just Star Wars, not Episode IV: A New Hope. Man, I loved that stuff back in the day and this story took me back to the adventure and romance of that far, far away Star Wars galaxy a long time ago.

If you grew up with the Star Wars franchise and loved it as I did, do yourself a favor and pick this up. You won't have any great literary epiphany, but you'll have a rollicking good time with characters and a world that you know and love. ( )

One of the first Star Wars novels ever! This was only about Han and his adventures and not the Jedi, but still a Star Wars novel. I'm always surprised this doesn't get more credit. I know this is now non-canon, but it still a great book. ( )