Note: While the below text represents a brief review of this specific Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear entry, a greater retrospective on the entire series, complete with images and footnotes, can be found here on my site, dendrobibliography.

The Hunger is a highlight for the Galaxy of Fear series, but a sad way to end the 12-novella YA series. There's not much closure, for one, but some acknowledgement that the stories of Tash, Zak, and Hoole were in safe hands, and would continue in readers' imaginations. It's also clear by this entry that John Whitman had evolved a lot as a writer since he wrote the first Galaxy of Fear novellas a year before. The narrative structure is tight, the story clever and creepy. Gaping plotholes and leaps of logic were staples of the earlier entries, and by this book are all-but-gone (except in the unavoidable context of the movies that came later).

By the Hunger, Tash, Zak, and Hoole are on the run from the Empire, who have finally put a bounty on their heads, even going so far as to personally send Boba Fett (previously seen in book two, City of the Dead) to collect them. Our heroes meet an unfriendly bounty hunter while exploring the spaceport of Nar Shaddaa, and, barely escaping with their lives, decide they must find an obscure corner of the galaxy to hide. With the help of DV-9 (Deevee from the first six books), they fall in with a team of smugglers and rebels escaping to Dagobah, the swamp planet known only for housing Yoda in the Empire Strikes Back.

Dagobah is a crushing environment. John Whitman paints the swamps as being overwhelmed by hunger. Every living thing there is starving for food, including the surviving children of a long-ago research party that got stranded on Dagobah decades before. Our heroes run into these friendly children early on, who resemble rotting corpses with how thin and emaciated they look. Despite appearances, the Children (as they're known) are supernaturally strong and able to care for themselves.

Boba Fett is, of course, hot on their trail, and the the heroes know it. They spend the novella trying to secure themselves safely on Dagobah, looking out for the threat of Fett and the wildlife while repairing their own ship. We also get an extended cameo from Yoda, who surprises Zak and Tash in his friendliness and guidance (particularly for Zak, who at this point we begin to understand has an inkling connection to the force of his own!).

The Hunger is another fine gross-out horror entry, with careful attention paid to advancing both Tash and Zak's growing depth as they deal with personal fears and jealousies. As the horror unfolds, we learn that the true enemy is not Boba Fett, but a desperate horde of ignorant cannibals. The Children themselves, who are so starved with hunger, and whose only positive memories of their parents are a final cannibalistic feast, are eager to feast on our heroes, even going so far as to think Tash and Zak should want to be eaten simply because the Children are capable of eating them. Those are some warped minds, to be sure.

Galaxy of Fear had its ups and downs, but I'm happy with it, only wishing it went on longer. Despite being a cash-in on the popularity of Goosebumps, I actually feel like John Whitman did more with the genre as an outsider than R.L. Stine did. His messages tended to deal with far more complex issues like the deaths of loved ones, or adolescent jealousies and hatred, or even the complexity of our memories and how we can sometimes build false memories to rely on -- all complex, adult themes to be dishing out to a middle- and elementary-school audience. As the twelfth and final entry, the Hunger was an excellent note to send Tash, Zak, and Hoole out on.

John Whitman's Star Wars: Galaxy of Fear (1997–1998):
#11 Clones | The End. ( )