Han Solo at Stars' End (Classic Star Wars)
by Brian Daley
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Book Summary Information
Author: Brian DaleyEdition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1980-12-12
ISBN: 0345296648
Number of pages: 183
Publisher: Del Rey
Book Reviews of Han Solo at Stars' End (Classic Star Wars)
Book Review: In the real George Lucas spirit
Summary: 5 Stars
Han Solo, the most famous Corellian of all time, is here found at some unspecified time before he met Luke Skywalker and Princess Leia (Wookieepedia's chronology places the book two years before Star Wars Episode IV - A New Hope (1977 & 2004 Versions, 2-Disc Widescreen Edition). And the late Brian Daley (theretofore known only as a fantasist, having published The Doomfarers of Coramonde and The Starfollowers of Coramonde in 1977 and '79) brings him to life with slam-bang style in a story that could just as well have been created for the big screen. The first line--Han's ("it's a warship all right. Damn!")--grabs you by the throat, and the momentum scarcely lets up for a moment from then on. Han and Chewbacca, broke and in debt as they will be on Tatooine some time hence, are picking up a semi-dishonest credit or two in the Corporate Sector Authority, "one wisp off one branch at the end of one arm of the galaxy" where the CSA "had been chartered (presumably by the Empire, though that's not specified) to exploit...the uncountable riches" of tens of thousands of solar systems. A gunrunning gig loses the Millennium Falcon her sensor dish, and then the Authority's Security Police get much too interested in her clandestine modifications. Now Han needs a Waiver that will let him slip by them, and he knows just where to go for one: the outlaw-techs bossed by the veteran known as Doc. But when he tracks them down, he finds that Doc has vanished, and his daughter Jessa is willing to do the repairs he needs and provide the Waiver--*if* Han will go to the Authority Data Center on Orron III and pick up some other people who are searching for "lost ones." Han doesn't like the idea, but he finds he doesn't have much choice, and so begins a wild voyage that involves him with a murderous traitor, Security Police, and a paranoid Authority Vice-President who's become convinced of the existence of a far-ranging "conspiracy against the Authority and against me personally," and climaxes with 50-odd pages of fast-moving action in (or should that be on?) an Authority station at the very end of the galaxy which Solo, by overloading the powerplant and cutting out the overhead deflector shield, has blown into sub-orbit!
This is the Han Solo with whom half the fandom fell in love (the other half being the "Luke-aholics," as we called them back in the day)--sharp-tongued and clever, keen-witted, devoted to his freedom, his ship, and his partner, sometimes crazy-brave, utterly apolitical ("We're not the Jedi Knights, or Freedom's Sons"), quick-tempered and determined to get every bit of money that's owed him ("Take the occasion when Big Bunji was careless enough to forget to pay you, and you two strafed his pressure dome"), given to wild improvisational plans that somehow almost always work; Daley even hints, more than once, that he's an unconscious Force-user ("reflexes that were more like precognition," "the instincts that had given him a reputation for telepathy"). There are tantalizing suggestions of a more legitimate past--he apparently learned to fly at an Academy, though what one isn't specified, and was cashiered in disgrace after he tried to "do the right thing," leaving him angry and bitter. Yet when his back is to the wall he always listens to the better angels of his nature, even if self-mockingly ("Got a flight helmet for me? Something sporty, in my size...with a hole in it to match the one in my head"), and he can inspire deep devotion in those who work with him ("My mate, Atuarre, said not to bother coming back without you, and...my cub, Pakka, would have come if I had not"). There's plenty of great technical throwaway (Daley later went on to write seven original hard-sf novels) and a splendid dogfight that matches the one over the DeathStar (one wonders how the author, who served in the Army, got so knowledgeable about how such things work). There's a character who has more than a hint of the Jedi about him, a pair of mismatched but comradely droids, and a felinoid mother and son who team up with the smugglers in a bid to find their missing husband and father. The only real flaw is that Daley writes several nonhuman characters as speaking a language his readers can understand, while Chewbacca's dialogue is always revealed through Han's responses to it. If you're a Hanatic, as I was, you must absolutely read this book and its sequels.
Summary of Han Solo at Stars' End (Classic Star Wars)
Searching the galaxy for a rogue shipbuilder to repair the Millenium Falcon, Han Solo and Chewbacca battle fierce enemies and travel to the desolate asteroid known as Stars' End, a planetary prison. Reissue."Literature & Fiction Books
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