If, like Princess Leia, there aren’t enough scoundrels in your life, then Timothy Zahn’s heist novel Star Wars: Scoundrels might be for you.
I’m a sucker for Star Wars, but after gobbling up The Thrawn Trilogy as a teenager, I somehow lost track of Star Wars fiction. I don’t know if it was disappointment with the Prequel films or because I got distracted by other books, but somehow I didn’t read many other Star Wars novels. For a lot of years, I didn’t read anything in the Star Wars Universe.
Then, I discovered John Jackson Miller’s Kenobi, which I listened to an audio production of. The reading was fantastically produced, full of sound, music, voice actors, and sound effects, and I loved it. It didn’t hurt that the writing was good, the plot gripping, and the characters sympathetic. Never was life on Tatooine so colorful and alive, even in A New Hope. Obi Wan Kenobi was already one of my favorites of the many Star Wars characters (let’s be honest: the Prequels are as much about him as they are about Anakin’s fall to the Dark Side). After Miller’s novel, I was sold: Kenobi was a paragon of the Jedi, an archetypal hero.
I was still relishing the savor of Miller’s Kenobi when a friend recommended Timothy Zahn’s Star Wars: Scoundrels, noting how much he had enjoyed the audio version. I found a copy of the audio book, and I was not disappointed. Like Kenobi, the reading integrates occasional sound effects, music, and adept voice changes. Star Wars audio books, I am coming to realize, are full productions and worthy entertainment.
As a story, Scoundrels isn’t too shabby, either. In contrast to Kenobi–and largely, the Star Wars movies–it is a heist type plot instead of a hero’s journey. Initially, it was a rough shift for me. I’m a sucker for the hero’s journey, and putting the characters I already knew into a heist setting was a shift. Once I realized what I was dealing with, however, I began to enjoy Scoundrels.
The events of Scoundrels take place some time after A New Hope and before The Empire Strikes Back and provide the back story for Lando Calrissian’s chilly welcome when the Millennium Falcon lands on Cloud City after Han, Chewbacca, Leia and the droids escape from Hoth. Han and Lando already have a rocky relationship, but when an opportunity to steal a massive fortune from a corrupt member of the Dark Sun crime syndicate, the two erstwhile friends find themselves in cahoots, along with a bevy of colorful and shady characters, some heroes, some shady, and almost all hiding a secret.
Zahn’s Star Wars heist Scoundrels is enjoyable, well paced, and if his characters are less sympathetic than the white knights of the Rebellion, it’s only because this is a heist novel and almost everyone is working an angle to their own advantage. Still, heist novels are fun, and Zahn weaves the disparate plots and subplots with a deft hand, and each twist and surprise is a satisfying reveal.
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Star Wars: Scoundrels
Star Wars - Legends
Science Fiction
LucasBooks (Print), Random House Audio (Audio Book)
November 26, 2013
528
Han Solo should be basking in his moment of glory. After all, the cocky smuggler and captain of theMillennium Falcon just played a key role in the daring raid that destroyed the Death Star and landed the first serious blow to the Empire in its war against the Rebel Alliance. But after losing the reward his heroics earned him, Han’s got nothing to celebrate. Especially since he’s deep in debt to the ruthless crime lord Jabba the Hutt. There’s a bounty on Han’s head—and if he can’t cough up the credits, he’ll surely pay with his hide. The only thing that can save him is a king’s ransom. Or maybe a gangster’s fortune? That’s what a mysterious stranger is offering in exchange for Han’s less-than-legal help with a riskier-than-usual caper. The payoff will be more than enough for Han to settle up with Jabba—and ensure he never has to haggle with the Hutts again.
All he has to do is infiltrate the ultra-fortified stronghold of a Black Sun crime syndicate underboss and crack the galaxy’s most notoriously impregnable safe. It sounds like a job for miracle workers . . . or madmen. So Han assembles a gallery of rogues who are a little of both—including his indispensable sidekick Chewbacca and the cunning Lando Calrissian. If anyone can dodge, deceive, and defeat heavily armed thugs, killer droids, and Imperial agents alike—and pull off the heist of the century—it’s Solo’s scoundrels. But will their crime really pay, or will it cost them the ultimate price?
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