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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
If, like Princess Leia, there aren't enough scoundrels in your life, then Timothy Zahn's Star War's heist novel 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 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
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 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
I enjoyed this quite a bit. Would recommend to fans of other Star Wars books.
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
This is my first tie-in novel since I was in high school. All it took was the genius of combining Star Wars with a heist movie.
--
Seriously though. Is there a more easily watchable movie than Ocean's Eleven (Clooney edition)? I can't imagine coming across that movie on cable and not stopping to watch however much is left (I have to imagine it though, since I don't have cable... though I do have the DVD, which has gone unwatched for a decade, but if someone said "hey, let's watch this one!" I so would).
Anyway. An Ocean's Eleven-style caper in the Star Wars universe? Even better, in the Star Wars universe but set in-between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, so it is free of the stink of the prequels and doesn't require me to keep track of ancient Sith lore (3,360 years BBY!) or the tumultuous history of Han and Leia's assorted offspring.
Mostly, it scratches that itch, but I was a little disappointed. Parts of it really work -- it has Han and Chewie and Lando and a madcap smuggling adventure -- but a lot of it really doesn't. Zahn creates the other eight of Solo's Eleven (some of them pulled from his previous Star Wars books, a few of which I have even read, but it was 20 years ago so I didn't remember until I looked them up on Wookiepedia (yes, of course that exists)), and they don't exactly pop off the page. It took me a few hundred pages to even keep them straight, never mind their rather contrived backstories (survivor of Alderaan, former Imperial, etc.).
The heist itself was disappointing too, if only because the setup is so confusing, relying as it does on extensive exposition about politics in the Empire as well as the activities of Black Sun, which is kind of like Star Wars' version of The Family and which I only remembered because I played a lot of [b:Shadows of the Empire|9549|Shadows of the Empire (Star Wars)|Steve Perry|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320513836s/9549.jpg|858558] on N64. So not only was I generally confused about who was who on Han's team, I also had only a tenuous grasp on who they were stealing 163 million credits from and why I cared.
And speaking of confusing, you know how you have no idea what is really going on for most of Ocean's Eleven, and then you see the final heist play out and everything is suddenly, satisfyingly clear? That doesn't really work out here. I'm not sure if it's because the genre works better on film or Zahn just isn't very good at this kind of stuff, but I slogged through all the slow parts waiting for the big score at the end, only to find it halfway over before I was really sure if it had started or not.
Still, I was mostly entertained. The book is too long and didn't live up to the premise, but it was nice to be transported (RED ALERT! NERD PROPERTIES COLLIDING!) back to a time when Star Wars books counted as "real novels" in my mind and I had read ALL OF THEM.
--
Seriously though. Is there a more easily watchable movie than Ocean's Eleven (Clooney edition)? I can't imagine coming across that movie on cable and not stopping to watch however much is left (I have to imagine it though, since I don't have cable... though I do have the DVD, which has gone unwatched for a decade, but if someone said "hey, let's watch this one!" I so would).
Anyway. An Ocean's Eleven-style caper in the Star Wars universe? Even better, in the Star Wars universe but set in-between Star Wars and Empire Strikes Back, so it is free of the stink of the prequels and doesn't require me to keep track of ancient Sith lore (3,360 years BBY!) or the tumultuous history of Han and Leia's assorted offspring.
Mostly, it scratches that itch, but I was a little disappointed. Parts of it really work -- it has Han and Chewie and Lando and a madcap smuggling adventure -- but a lot of it really doesn't. Zahn creates the other eight of Solo's Eleven (some of them pulled from his previous Star Wars books, a few of which I have even read, but it was 20 years ago so I didn't remember until I looked them up on Wookiepedia (yes, of course that exists)), and they don't exactly pop off the page. It took me a few hundred pages to even keep them straight, never mind their rather contrived backstories (survivor of Alderaan, former Imperial, etc.).
The heist itself was disappointing too, if only because the setup is so confusing, relying as it does on extensive exposition about politics in the Empire as well as the activities of Black Sun, which is kind of like Star Wars' version of The Family and which I only remembered because I played a lot of [b:Shadows of the Empire|9549|Shadows of the Empire (Star Wars)|Steve Perry|http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320513836s/9549.jpg|858558] on N64. So not only was I generally confused about who was who on Han's team, I also had only a tenuous grasp on who they were stealing 163 million credits from and why I cared.
And speaking of confusing, you know how you have no idea what is really going on for most of Ocean's Eleven, and then you see the final heist play out and everything is suddenly, satisfyingly clear? That doesn't really work out here. I'm not sure if it's because the genre works better on film or Zahn just isn't very good at this kind of stuff, but I slogged through all the slow parts waiting for the big score at the end, only to find it halfway over before I was really sure if it had started or not.
Still, I was mostly entertained. The book is too long and didn't live up to the premise, but it was nice to be transported (RED ALERT! NERD PROPERTIES COLLIDING!) back to a time when Star Wars books counted as "real novels" in my mind and I had read ALL OF THEM.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
It was just fun.
Think Ocean’s Eleven in the Star Wars universe.
Don’t forget to stay for the ending.
Loved it.
Think Ocean’s Eleven in the Star Wars universe.
Don’t forget to stay for the ending.
Loved it.
Another great Star Wars book by Timothy Zahn! Loved the the whole Star Wars/Ocean's 11 mash up. As much as I love the Skywalker-Solo clan, it was nice to get away from the twins, Jedi, and Rebels/New Republic v. Empire. It was refreshing to meet this interesting cast of characters. I loved Bink and Tavia. It was great learning more about Winter. Even though he was a villain, I liked Sheqoa, Villachor's chief of security. I was not expecting the Eanjer reveal.
Set between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, this heist tale shows just why Lando was not happy to see Han at Cloud City. A solid heist story set in the Star Wars universe, though with a weird twist at the end...
Is 200 pages of setup worth a 100 page reward? If these were any other characters besides Star Wars characters, I'd say probably not. But loving Timothy Zahn as I do, I can't say anything too bad about the book. It was definitely fun. And I love getting another look into the lives of our favorite Star Wars bad boys. But would I have read it if the main characters weren't Han, Chewie, and Lando? Probably not. Regardless, the end was very clever, very fun, and you couldn't put it down. But it took a while to get to that point. One more qualm: the huge twist at the end (at the VERY end...you'll understand if you've read) didn't seem to fit. Not at all. That twist was a little disappointing.
I enjoy a heist story, and that this was. Many of the principal characters didn't *quite* fit into those roles. If found I enjoyed it more by disregarding what I know of Han Solo, Lando Calrissian and many others from the expanded universe. Well, maybe not Lando - his character is a great face-man. Liked it, but didn't love it.
Great book. Lots of twists and turns and the ending was unexpected.
LOVED the included novella.
LOVED the included novella.