Scan barcode
twilliamson's review against another edition
adventurous
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Tales of the Bounty Hunters is the first anthology of stories that doesn't feel like it's all just trying to rehash the same exact scene from dozens of different angles. Of course, there are moments in this anthology in which every one of the characters ends up trying to chase down Han Solo, but it's less about that particular instance than it is about trying to flesh out more of the world of the franchise, populating it with more characters and interesting backstories that fit into the worldbuilding.
And it's mostly really good, with some extraordinary standouts. Kevin J. Anderson gives a bananas take on IG-88, Dave Wolverton handles the emotional beat of Dengar pretty well, and M. Shayne Bell gives a phenomenal account of Zuckuss and 4-Lom. But Kathy Tyers' take on Bossk felt a little long in the tooth, and Daniel Keys Moran's characterization of Boba Fett feels incredibly off for the character as established even for 1996.
But each of the novelettes making up this collection work pretty well in spite of some obvious differences in canon. While Moran's take on Boba Fett will never be sufficient for me in terms of the character, I think this is a worthy look at some of the most unique characters in the Star Wars universe. It may not be required EU reading and certainly conflicts with later canon events, it's a great exploration of mid-90s world-building for Star Wars.
And it's mostly really good, with some extraordinary standouts. Kevin J. Anderson gives a bananas take on IG-88, Dave Wolverton handles the emotional beat of Dengar pretty well, and M. Shayne Bell gives a phenomenal account of Zuckuss and 4-Lom. But Kathy Tyers' take on Bossk felt a little long in the tooth, and Daniel Keys Moran's characterization of Boba Fett feels incredibly off for the character as established even for 1996.
But each of the novelettes making up this collection work pretty well in spite of some obvious differences in canon. While Moran's take on Boba Fett will never be sufficient for me in terms of the character, I think this is a worthy look at some of the most unique characters in the Star Wars universe. It may not be required EU reading and certainly conflicts with later canon events, it's a great exploration of mid-90s world-building for Star Wars.
brian9teen's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
3.75
sharki1998's review against another edition
2.0
A very hit-and-miss anthology. The only real standout is the Tale of Dengar. It goes to some unexpected places and has some real heart and emotion in it. The Zuckuss and 4-LOM story isn't bad either. The other three aren't particularly noteworthy with the Boba Fett story only being memorable for how bad it is.
rainbowrocky's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence, Death, and War
Moderate: Chronic illness, Slavery, Gore, Torture, Gun violence, and Injury/Injury detail
Minor: Colonisation, Classism, Kidnapping, Alcohol, Misogyny, Murder, Rape, Fatphobia, Genocide, and Medical content
kb_208's review against another edition
4.0
There are some rather interesting stories here. I think my favorite is Dengar's story. He's barely shown in the movie, but has a rich past. The oddest was definitely IG-88's. Little did we know that he had installed his AI into the Death Star's central computer right before it blew up over Endor. What a trip. Boba Fett's is great, too. Not a bad collection.
jaredkwheeler's review against another edition
2.0
Star Wars Legends Project #279
Background: Tales of the Bounty Hunters was edited by [a:Kevin J. Anderson|4845|Kevin J. Anderson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1215310030p2/4845.jpg] and published in December of 1996. It is an anthology of 5 novellas featuring the bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader to pursue the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back. Three are written by authors who also wrote at least one Star Wars novel of their own, while the other two at least contributed to the other "Tales" collections. All of them feature the events on board the Star Destroyer during the movie, but aside from that they tell much broader stories. Boba Fett's tale in particular extends back over a decade through flashbacks and then continues forward until decades later.
Review: As with any anthology, the quality of the stories and the storytelling varies, though there's a bit less range than the other collections because there are fewer stories. Here's a quick look at each one:
Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88 by Kevin J. Anderson
The thing I do appreciate about Anderson's multitude of Star Wars stories is that he always writes with an obvious knowledge of established lore and a clear goal of building on it. What I appreciate less is that the ideas he brings are often really, really dumb and derivative. He saddled the old EU with a lot of unnecessarily stupid baggage. This doesn't quite sink to that level by virtue of being so inconsequential, but it's still just absurd. The basic concept is that IG-88 is not 1 droid, but 4 . . . a team of unstoppable super-assassins who achieve sentience and immediately murder their creators and escape out into the galaxy. Soon, their thoughts turn to galactic domination by means of . . . Well, I don't want to summarize the whole thing.
The point is, the concept is not good (and ultimately tries to rewrite our understanding of the climax of Return of the Jedi in a way that largely undermines it, which I particularly hate). Beyond that, though, the larger idea doesn't fit the narrative of IG-88 as a bounty hunter pursuing Han Solo, and Anderson does all sorts of silly contortions to pretend that it does, but none of it ever makes sense. Just utter tripe.
Payback: The Tale of Dengar by Dave Wolverton
The overall plot of this story is actually reasonably compelling, but the character of Dengar is pretty much bland and uninteresting for most of it. It feels like a mistake to give Dengar a personal grudge against Han Solo; one of those classic bits of EU silliness that make the galaxy feel incredibly tiny, like it's just the same 20-30 people coincidentally bumping into each other over and over again. But that element aside, and ignoring the fact that I don't find straightforward revenge stories all that compelling, this is . . . fine. It was the one of the bunch that ended too soon, just when I thought things were getting kind of interesting.
The Prize Pelt: The Tale of Bossk by Kathy Tyers
I'll chalk it up to Anderson's failure as an editor that yet another one of the bounty hunters who are on the spot when the Empire calls has a personal history and grudge against Han Solo and Chewbacca. This is just such an obvious and uninteresting element to include in your story, and in this case it could have been left out entirely without impacting anything that happens. This is the first one in the collection to doesn't weirdly engineer events to parallel what's happening in the movie (both IG-88 and Dengar track Han to Bespin and then continue on to Tatooine), and I appreciate that. I also kind of like that Bossk isn't the protagonist of the story and is portrayed so unsympathetically. This one was also okay, I guess.
Of Possible Futures: The Tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM by M. Shayne Bell
This story was easily my favorite of the collection, though that isn't saying much, and also oddly the one I remembered nothing about from the first time I read it many years ago. Zuckuss and 4-LOM are the characters that seem the most underused out of the bounty hunters from the movie, and I enjoyed what Bell did with them. This story was the only one where the outcome didn't feel predictable and inevitable (and, yeah, note the title). The story made me care what was going to happen to its main characters, made me feel tension about how things would work out for them, and kept me guessing. None of the other stories really accomplished that, and most didn't even try.
The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett by Daniel Keys Moran
I actually talked quite a bit in a recent review about what makes a good Boba Fett story and the various successful and unsuccessful approaches to him as a character. This falls squarely into the category of trying to establish some very definitive canon around both Fett's history and his personality, and it also falls prey to . . . not being very compelling. Fett is a complete ass in this tale, a mindlessly rigid rule-follower whose moral code is confined purely to the letter of whatever law happens to be in effect at that particular moment, and totally incapable of critical thought about ethics or morality beyond that. It's interesting that this was the definitive backstory for Boba Fett when it was written, and I'm not going to sit here and say that I think the current official backstory is all that great, either . . . but I'm not all that sad to see this overwritten.
This isn't even a story so much as a series of vignettes covering about 35 years of time, including all of the times Fett had appeared on-screen to that point. The best segment by far is the depiction of an aging Fett going after one last score (which also happens to tie in with Moran's story from Mos Eisley Cantina). Part of me also appreciated the whole finale and its set-up, the depiction of this decades-old rivalry between two opponents who aren't even sure anymore why it's so important that one of them kills the other. I . . . question the canonicity of it, and it doesn't really fit within the larger framework of the EU to leave it unresolved, but artistically, the way it ends is absolutely the right choice.
The final third or so of this story is a great piece of standalone storytelling. It's kind of like Logan in that it's not totally clear how or whether it fits in with the rest of the franchise, and you're not sure this is the ending you'd want to the story of these beloved characters, but it's undeniably very good. So . . . obviously I feel a bit ambivalent about this story overall, but apart from the epic z-grade camp of the IG-88 story, the conclusion of the Boba Fett story is easily the most memorable element of what is ultimately a mostly dull and forgettable anthology.
C-
Background: Tales of the Bounty Hunters was edited by [a:Kevin J. Anderson|4845|Kevin J. Anderson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1215310030p2/4845.jpg] and published in December of 1996. It is an anthology of 5 novellas featuring the bounty hunters hired by Darth Vader to pursue the Millennium Falcon in The Empire Strikes Back. Three are written by authors who also wrote at least one Star Wars novel of their own, while the other two at least contributed to the other "Tales" collections. All of them feature the events on board the Star Destroyer during the movie, but aside from that they tell much broader stories. Boba Fett's tale in particular extends back over a decade through flashbacks and then continues forward until decades later.
Review: As with any anthology, the quality of the stories and the storytelling varies, though there's a bit less range than the other collections because there are fewer stories. Here's a quick look at each one:
Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88 by Kevin J. Anderson
The thing I do appreciate about Anderson's multitude of Star Wars stories is that he always writes with an obvious knowledge of established lore and a clear goal of building on it. What I appreciate less is that the ideas he brings are often really, really dumb and derivative. He saddled the old EU with a lot of unnecessarily stupid baggage. This doesn't quite sink to that level by virtue of being so inconsequential, but it's still just absurd. The basic concept is that IG-88 is not 1 droid, but 4 . . . a team of unstoppable super-assassins who achieve sentience and immediately murder their creators and escape out into the galaxy. Soon, their thoughts turn to galactic domination by means of . . . Well, I don't want to summarize the whole thing.
The point is, the concept is not good (and ultimately tries to rewrite our understanding of the climax of Return of the Jedi in a way that largely undermines it, which I particularly hate). Beyond that, though, the larger idea doesn't fit the narrative of IG-88 as a bounty hunter pursuing Han Solo, and Anderson does all sorts of silly contortions to pretend that it does, but none of it ever makes sense. Just utter tripe.
Payback: The Tale of Dengar by Dave Wolverton
The overall plot of this story is actually reasonably compelling, but the character of Dengar is pretty much bland and uninteresting for most of it. It feels like a mistake to give Dengar a personal grudge against Han Solo; one of those classic bits of EU silliness that make the galaxy feel incredibly tiny, like it's just the same 20-30 people coincidentally bumping into each other over and over again. But that element aside, and ignoring the fact that I don't find straightforward revenge stories all that compelling, this is . . . fine. It was the one of the bunch that ended too soon, just when I thought things were getting kind of interesting.
The Prize Pelt: The Tale of Bossk by Kathy Tyers
I'll chalk it up to Anderson's failure as an editor that yet another one of the bounty hunters who are on the spot when the Empire calls has a personal history and grudge against Han Solo and Chewbacca. This is just such an obvious and uninteresting element to include in your story, and in this case it could have been left out entirely without impacting anything that happens. This is the first one in the collection to doesn't weirdly engineer events to parallel what's happening in the movie (both IG-88 and Dengar track Han to Bespin and then continue on to Tatooine), and I appreciate that. I also kind of like that Bossk isn't the protagonist of the story and is portrayed so unsympathetically. This one was also okay, I guess.
Of Possible Futures: The Tale of Zuckuss and 4-LOM by M. Shayne Bell
This story was easily my favorite of the collection, though that isn't saying much, and also oddly the one I remembered nothing about from the first time I read it many years ago. Zuckuss and 4-LOM are the characters that seem the most underused out of the bounty hunters from the movie, and I enjoyed what Bell did with them. This story was the only one where the outcome didn't feel predictable and inevitable (and, yeah, note the title). The story made me care what was going to happen to its main characters, made me feel tension about how things would work out for them, and kept me guessing. None of the other stories really accomplished that, and most didn't even try.
The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett by Daniel Keys Moran
I actually talked quite a bit in a recent review about what makes a good Boba Fett story and the various successful and unsuccessful approaches to him as a character. This falls squarely into the category of trying to establish some very definitive canon around both Fett's history and his personality, and it also falls prey to . . . not being very compelling. Fett is a complete ass in this tale, a mindlessly rigid rule-follower whose moral code is confined purely to the letter of whatever law happens to be in effect at that particular moment, and totally incapable of critical thought about ethics or morality beyond that. It's interesting that this was the definitive backstory for Boba Fett when it was written, and I'm not going to sit here and say that I think the current official backstory is all that great, either . . . but I'm not all that sad to see this overwritten.
This isn't even a story so much as a series of vignettes covering about 35 years of time, including all of the times Fett had appeared on-screen to that point. The best segment by far is the depiction of an aging Fett going after one last score (which also happens to tie in with Moran's story from Mos Eisley Cantina). Part of me also appreciated the whole finale and its set-up, the depiction of this decades-old rivalry between two opponents who aren't even sure anymore why it's so important that one of them kills the other. I . . . question the canonicity of it, and it doesn't really fit within the larger framework of the EU to leave it unresolved, but artistically, the way it ends is absolutely the right choice.
The final third or so of this story is a great piece of standalone storytelling. It's kind of like Logan in that it's not totally clear how or whether it fits in with the rest of the franchise, and you're not sure this is the ending you'd want to the story of these beloved characters, but it's undeniably very good. So . . . obviously I feel a bit ambivalent about this story overall, but apart from the epic z-grade camp of the IG-88 story, the conclusion of the Boba Fett story is easily the most memorable element of what is ultimately a mostly dull and forgettable anthology.
C-
philrobichaud's review against another edition
3.0
This book has been on my "to-read" list for a long time now, after all of the EU stories were relegated to "Legends" I knew I still wanted to read it. Because for me, the scene in The Empire Strikes Back where we see the bounty hunters always left me wondering - who are these guys.
Now, this book is a series of short stories about the bounty hunters featured in Empire, some are better than others. Many of the backstories would still make sense, even with the revelations from the Prequels and the new movies coming out now. All except for the one about Boba Fett. His story feels like it was supposed to be the "main" one in this collection - but honestly it was probably the one I found fell flat for me. The characterization of him as this "holier than thou" type just doesn't seem to align with his portrayal as a ruthless and feared bounty hunter.
However, I would recommend this book to any diehard Star Wars fan - the backstories for Dengar, Bossk, 4-Lom and Zuckus, and IG-88 more than make up for it.
Now, this book is a series of short stories about the bounty hunters featured in Empire, some are better than others. Many of the backstories would still make sense, even with the revelations from the Prequels and the new movies coming out now. All except for the one about Boba Fett. His story feels like it was supposed to be the "main" one in this collection - but honestly it was probably the one I found fell flat for me. The characterization of him as this "holier than thou" type just doesn't seem to align with his portrayal as a ruthless and feared bounty hunter.
However, I would recommend this book to any diehard Star Wars fan - the backstories for Dengar, Bossk, 4-Lom and Zuckus, and IG-88 more than make up for it.
camsullivan's review against another edition
4.0
Even though it was retconned even before legends, the Boba Fett story remains one of my favorites.
antidetail's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0
kandicez's review against another edition
5.0
I have loved Star Wars since my dad stood in a 2 hour line with my brother and I so we could get the seats we wanted in 1977. I love these short story collections which don;t revovlve around the main characters, and give you a broader scope of that galaxy far, far away.