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horizon_brave 's review for:
Last Shot: A Han and Lando Novel
by Daniel José Older
**As per all of my reviews, I like to preface by saying that I listened to this book in audiobook format. This does indeed slightly skew my rating. I have found that audiobooks, give me a better "relationship" with the characters if done well, but also kills the book for me if narrated poorly. Also due to the nature of listening to the text, names and places may be spelled incorrectly here as I often do not have the physical volume in front of me.
Also, I have written this review in a "rolling updates" style. In that I basically chronicle my reading as I progress. This may make for a jarring and spoilery review so be warned.**
So I've been hearing about this one for a while. I usually have my ear close to the ground in terms of Star Wars books and comics and try to keep up with them. This one, Last Shot, I did hear about, but I blew it off as just a YA novel and would be a trivial adventure with Young Han and young Lando. While that would indeed be a fun read in it's own right, it wasn't terribly high on my list to take in. And this is someone who really enjoyed the movie Solo, and someone who really enjoys the non force non lightsabers side of Star Wars. My last preface is that I think that the movie The Last Jedi, is one such that falls woefully short and lacking when it comes to providing solid backstory into two key relationships. Han and Leia…and the parental upbringing of Ben Skywalker with Han and Leia as parents.
So from what I kept hearing this book would touch on both of those topics. As this was something that I felt was a huge miss in the movies, I actually felt disappointed first that these key topics are portioned off to a book instead of playing out on screen. Anyway that being par for the course, I finally started it, and I can tell that this is going to be a split book for me. Right out of the gate we have a 'killswitch' red button story here that is ultimately a device that is causing droids to go all "Matrix" and are able to be controlled and adopt a desire to kill. We see a protocol droid belonging to Lando succumb to this and he makes attempt on his life.
While I can tell that this story line (unless it throws me for one hell of a curve ball) is going to be the "B side" for me. Plots like this, I get it, are very fun, serialized, and innocent, they come off as just a bit too much. Of course I always try to put aside that grouchy, old man voice and just enjoy it and have fun and toss out this notion that it must all be realistic and connecting. What I do however see myself really loving is the Han and Leia moments and Lando for that matter. Right from the start we get a very cleverly written scene of Lando being woken up by his droid who was intending to kill him in his sleep… Lando stumbles from the bed room only in a towel. There's a scene and then moments later a few Twi'lek then stumbles from the room also in a towel… This is later brought up by Leia and Han when questioning Lando, leading to an akward scene that's perfectly written, as Lando in that cool demeanor basically says "Yea I was totally getting some". And I'm not saying I want sex and mature and explicit content in my star wars, far from it. But I want moments of characters….not of big plots and super weapons and plans to destroy galaxies etc…
We also get or first glimspe and in text reasoning for the crack between Han and Ben… Han is shown to be someone who ran first and looked back later. Even in A New Hope, Han ran off with the money at first leaving Luke to go on his "suicide mission". So it's clearly being set up that raising a child, scares him. And it seems as though Leia who is still very much in the thick of the Post Empire wrap up, is leaving Han to do a lot of the parenting. We even have a literally painful scene of Han stepping on Ben's space lego bricks…I love it. So yea this side of the story is going to keep me into this.
The book jumps around a lot, and I'll admit it doesn't work with great finesse as it's dealing with the same exact characters just in two different time periods. And it further doesn't help that both stories revolve around the same plot. Both are going under cover and searching for something. So it's a bit of a jumble. But…I will say this, and this probably leans more into the narration of Marc Thompson, but damn, can this guy voice act. He's voicing a pretty funny Toydarian character that Han and Lando must get some information from. And by jove it's like listening to the actor who voiced Watto. So yea it's definitely a boon to the audio book listeners and it really adds a bunch.
Opposite this though, the other narrator…literally sounds like he's reading from a post card. It's actually… not horrible, but it's so scripted sounding. He has a style to his reading, but it's very very stiff.
I'm actually surprised a bit how 'mature' this book is and some of the stuff that is mentioned…Lando getting a girl out of a dress is one such…Now speaking of which, I love Lando, but I think the author here may be leaning a bit too much into the womanizing..What should be a funny, and charming character trait is turning to becoming a bit too heavy handed and annoying. Not the point where it's ruining anything yet, but I think they can lay off the gas on it a bit.
Anyway the main antagonist as it were, a medical student it seems, is actually a pretty unique take on a villain. We haven't really seen a 'scholarly villain'. We meet him 15 years in the past so we don't exactly know what he's like present day. Han and Lando have left Leia to her Senatorial and government building practices. I'll say this, I know they are trying to set up Han 'going back to his routes' and this does make sense, but in this specific context, I'm not seeing why Han is even involved in this…I suppose literally just to help Lando.
Anyway they gather a bunch of other characters and the main slicer seems to be a cliché hacker kid, who sounds like he's voiced by what I can only describe as a Ted from Bill and Ted's…
The boo has a very authentic vibe. Not sure what I even mean, but all of the characters seem precisely as they would be written ( again with Lando being a bit over written…) The auxiliary characters, which include a slicer Ewok, seem okay enough, if a bit forced into the story. I like that we got some Maz actually, which surprised me, as I never had a fascination with Maz, but it's good to see the connective tissue..
I do however feel there's a lot of fight/action scenes for little purpose..
Reading on, I must credit here, the author really has a way of making interesting characters..The Gungan supplier who is fed up with people stereotyping them and using their dialect in mockery. Hearing Han try to start talking like "Mesa so sorry.." and then have the gungan in a much more refined voice, throw it back at Han and totally tell him off is classic..
The story actually has a pretty gruesome concept…Han and Lando are visiting Chewie to track down whoever was after Lando…and find that Wookie children are being captured and chopped up and their body parts
Okay! It's official, I believe this book has one of the best supporting characters in star wars novels… The Gungan who has this cynical and deadpanned demeanor is a real fun addition. His apathy towards others and his slightly sarcastic comments are perfect. There's a great line from him..one of the best, he gets swept up with Han and Chewie and the ewok and trapped by this hypnotizing creature.
Han asks Aro N’Cookaala (the Gungan) about how the hypnotism works…and he just stares back at Han and tells him "I'm a freaking middle manager on a Substation" He pretty much says what most people should say in movies during these scenes. And what's better, I love it when Han first met him, He complains about having Naboo undergoing this big housing explosion and now he can't afford to buy an apartment…I had to stop mid run..and just laugh. It's stuff like this, that I love. Not to get off on a tangent, but I hear it from many that Star Wars doesn't have the force or light sabers and it doesn't feel like star wars etc… Well, moments like this to me, silly, but surprisingly world building moments are really great. So Naboo is being gentrified and the housing market is seeing a boon, post Empire.
So we eventually lose our very colorful cast of characters and the story settles on Han, Lando, and Sassha with the Ewok and Slicer kid as support.. You know if the story didn't jump around so much, and we got a more straight forward narrative of the antagonist..I think this would have been one hell of a big bad… I love the background of the fact that our main villain is a medical student.. And him becoming so obsesed with mechanics and biomechanical union is really different..and actually kinda freaky. The body horror in this book is pretty 'extreme' for a star wars book. Generally in Star Wars, our villains are people who just want to rule the galaxy…and I'm pretty sure that this is the ultimate goal of Fyzen Gor as well…but his obsession and madness actually give him a far greater level of depth than the run of the mill bad guy in star Wars.
So I finished this..and I gotta ask..did this book actually put me in a worse position than before? I was hoping for, (and yes I use that nasty word 'wanted') a book that was going to ease the transition of what we were left with in Han and Leia's relationship at the end of RotJ, to where we see them in TFA where they're broken up, defeated and down on life and they pretty much have been defeated by Snoke. Unfortunately…the book gives us a foundation as to why they could have split…but actually reverses that idea at the end, with Leia giving Han this inspirational speech about just trying your best and always being there. Now to me this feels even worse because Leia was acknowledging this fear and Han acknowledged his deeper need to run off…and he faced it, admitted to it..but yet obviously we still get it in the movie. I gotta ask, and this really falls on JJ, was splitting Han and Leia up really needed? Again, yea I know, it's realistic. We got it… Game of Thrones this is not. It seems like such a tall task..Splitting up Han and Leia in a way that is pretty much making both of them look like dead beat parents, and having been pretty much manipulated by this new rip off villain "Snoke"..(who I always…always hated in almost every way). Now let me stop and say these are all negatives against the movie, and in no way a result of the book. The book did it's job…I felt like it could have answered some more questions and left us in a more realistic spot…the happy ending here doesn't really lend well to where we see them. Anyway I'll stop there, there are some really good things about this book, including Lando. I feel like they went a bit too far with some of the stuff and his 'stereotype' but by the end, him taking on the Phalanx Redux Transmitter and pretty much having to succumb and sacrifice (to his knowledge) himself is quite a step for him. Of course he doesn't end up biting it, and we have a thought provoking scene of him being rescued by two very L3- reminiscent droids. And then the end is oddly 'poetic' in that L3 (in the past) found about about this Phalanx device and was secretly working on a way to stop it her whole life. It's really interesting to see that a Droid would think that because Lando is so wrapped up in himself, that she would want to take this pretty vital burden on herself and internalize it. L3's work ended up being the 'anti virus' for the droid kill switch. Which again I say that this whole story of a secrete droid protocol to kill all organics is too out there for me personally, but I will admit it was written in a way where it wasn't too goofy, but it was very…simple. Not a lot of outside factors, no political fall out from this, or steps taken after to remedy the matter…you think Han or Lando would want to buy some new appliance droids.. The story is good, if basic, and I'll admit I wish we got more from Han and Leia and Ben together, but the fun overall serial nature of the book is a fun read. The side characters really helped this one as well for me. The slicer kid was a bit annoying, but generally that stereotypical young hacker type will always be.. I feel like these characters we could see more of, and I LOVED seeing Sinjir and Condor picking up from Wendig's Aftermath series. While I've been loving the current SW books it seems like each book tasks the author with just shoveling new characters onto our laps with no returning characters. While yes I enjoy new characters, but there's such a high turn around that it's getting hard to learn to care for many of them. So liked the book, liked the story, liked the idea, but some things were missed…and I think it may have missed a big opportunity to put some things in order..
Also, I have written this review in a "rolling updates" style. In that I basically chronicle my reading as I progress. This may make for a jarring and spoilery review so be warned.**
So I've been hearing about this one for a while. I usually have my ear close to the ground in terms of Star Wars books and comics and try to keep up with them. This one, Last Shot, I did hear about, but I blew it off as just a YA novel and would be a trivial adventure with Young Han and young Lando. While that would indeed be a fun read in it's own right, it wasn't terribly high on my list to take in. And this is someone who really enjoyed the movie Solo, and someone who really enjoys the non force non lightsabers side of Star Wars. My last preface is that I think that the movie The Last Jedi, is one such that falls woefully short and lacking when it comes to providing solid backstory into two key relationships. Han and Leia…and the parental upbringing of Ben Skywalker with Han and Leia as parents.
So from what I kept hearing this book would touch on both of those topics. As this was something that I felt was a huge miss in the movies, I actually felt disappointed first that these key topics are portioned off to a book instead of playing out on screen. Anyway that being par for the course, I finally started it, and I can tell that this is going to be a split book for me. Right out of the gate we have a 'killswitch' red button story here that is ultimately a device that is causing droids to go all "Matrix" and are able to be controlled and adopt a desire to kill. We see a protocol droid belonging to Lando succumb to this and he makes attempt on his life.
While I can tell that this story line (unless it throws me for one hell of a curve ball) is going to be the "B side" for me. Plots like this, I get it, are very fun, serialized, and innocent, they come off as just a bit too much. Of course I always try to put aside that grouchy, old man voice and just enjoy it and have fun and toss out this notion that it must all be realistic and connecting. What I do however see myself really loving is the Han and Leia moments and Lando for that matter. Right from the start we get a very cleverly written scene of Lando being woken up by his droid who was intending to kill him in his sleep… Lando stumbles from the bed room only in a towel. There's a scene and then moments later a few Twi'lek then stumbles from the room also in a towel… This is later brought up by Leia and Han when questioning Lando, leading to an akward scene that's perfectly written, as Lando in that cool demeanor basically says "Yea I was totally getting some". And I'm not saying I want sex and mature and explicit content in my star wars, far from it. But I want moments of characters….not of big plots and super weapons and plans to destroy galaxies etc…
We also get or first glimspe and in text reasoning for the crack between Han and Ben… Han is shown to be someone who ran first and looked back later. Even in A New Hope, Han ran off with the money at first leaving Luke to go on his "suicide mission". So it's clearly being set up that raising a child, scares him. And it seems as though Leia who is still very much in the thick of the Post Empire wrap up, is leaving Han to do a lot of the parenting. We even have a literally painful scene of Han stepping on Ben's space lego bricks…I love it. So yea this side of the story is going to keep me into this.
The book jumps around a lot, and I'll admit it doesn't work with great finesse as it's dealing with the same exact characters just in two different time periods. And it further doesn't help that both stories revolve around the same plot. Both are going under cover and searching for something. So it's a bit of a jumble. But…I will say this, and this probably leans more into the narration of Marc Thompson, but damn, can this guy voice act. He's voicing a pretty funny Toydarian character that Han and Lando must get some information from. And by jove it's like listening to the actor who voiced Watto. So yea it's definitely a boon to the audio book listeners and it really adds a bunch.
Opposite this though, the other narrator…literally sounds like he's reading from a post card. It's actually… not horrible, but it's so scripted sounding. He has a style to his reading, but it's very very stiff.
I'm actually surprised a bit how 'mature' this book is and some of the stuff that is mentioned…Lando getting a girl out of a dress is one such…Now speaking of which, I love Lando, but I think the author here may be leaning a bit too much into the womanizing..What should be a funny, and charming character trait is turning to becoming a bit too heavy handed and annoying. Not the point where it's ruining anything yet, but I think they can lay off the gas on it a bit.
Anyway the main antagonist as it were, a medical student it seems, is actually a pretty unique take on a villain. We haven't really seen a 'scholarly villain'. We meet him 15 years in the past so we don't exactly know what he's like present day. Han and Lando have left Leia to her Senatorial and government building practices. I'll say this, I know they are trying to set up Han 'going back to his routes' and this does make sense, but in this specific context, I'm not seeing why Han is even involved in this…I suppose literally just to help Lando.
Anyway they gather a bunch of other characters and the main slicer seems to be a cliché hacker kid, who sounds like he's voiced by what I can only describe as a Ted from Bill and Ted's…
The boo has a very authentic vibe. Not sure what I even mean, but all of the characters seem precisely as they would be written ( again with Lando being a bit over written…) The auxiliary characters, which include a slicer Ewok, seem okay enough, if a bit forced into the story. I like that we got some Maz actually, which surprised me, as I never had a fascination with Maz, but it's good to see the connective tissue..
I do however feel there's a lot of fight/action scenes for little purpose..
Reading on, I must credit here, the author really has a way of making interesting characters..The Gungan supplier who is fed up with people stereotyping them and using their dialect in mockery. Hearing Han try to start talking like "Mesa so sorry.." and then have the gungan in a much more refined voice, throw it back at Han and totally tell him off is classic..
The story actually has a pretty gruesome concept…Han and Lando are visiting Chewie to track down whoever was after Lando…and find that Wookie children are being captured and chopped up and their body parts
Okay! It's official, I believe this book has one of the best supporting characters in star wars novels… The Gungan who has this cynical and deadpanned demeanor is a real fun addition. His apathy towards others and his slightly sarcastic comments are perfect. There's a great line from him..one of the best, he gets swept up with Han and Chewie and the ewok and trapped by this hypnotizing creature.
Han asks Aro N’Cookaala (the Gungan) about how the hypnotism works…and he just stares back at Han and tells him "I'm a freaking middle manager on a Substation" He pretty much says what most people should say in movies during these scenes. And what's better, I love it when Han first met him, He complains about having Naboo undergoing this big housing explosion and now he can't afford to buy an apartment…I had to stop mid run..and just laugh. It's stuff like this, that I love. Not to get off on a tangent, but I hear it from many that Star Wars doesn't have the force or light sabers and it doesn't feel like star wars etc… Well, moments like this to me, silly, but surprisingly world building moments are really great. So Naboo is being gentrified and the housing market is seeing a boon, post Empire.
So we eventually lose our very colorful cast of characters and the story settles on Han, Lando, and Sassha with the Ewok and Slicer kid as support.. You know if the story didn't jump around so much, and we got a more straight forward narrative of the antagonist..I think this would have been one hell of a big bad… I love the background of the fact that our main villain is a medical student.. And him becoming so obsesed with mechanics and biomechanical union is really different..and actually kinda freaky. The body horror in this book is pretty 'extreme' for a star wars book. Generally in Star Wars, our villains are people who just want to rule the galaxy…and I'm pretty sure that this is the ultimate goal of Fyzen Gor as well…but his obsession and madness actually give him a far greater level of depth than the run of the mill bad guy in star Wars.
So I finished this..and I gotta ask..did this book actually put me in a worse position than before? I was hoping for, (and yes I use that nasty word 'wanted') a book that was going to ease the transition of what we were left with in Han and Leia's relationship at the end of RotJ, to where we see them in TFA where they're broken up, defeated and down on life and they pretty much have been defeated by Snoke. Unfortunately…the book gives us a foundation as to why they could have split…but actually reverses that idea at the end, with Leia giving Han this inspirational speech about just trying your best and always being there. Now to me this feels even worse because Leia was acknowledging this fear and Han acknowledged his deeper need to run off…and he faced it, admitted to it..but yet obviously we still get it in the movie. I gotta ask, and this really falls on JJ, was splitting Han and Leia up really needed? Again, yea I know, it's realistic. We got it… Game of Thrones this is not. It seems like such a tall task..Splitting up Han and Leia in a way that is pretty much making both of them look like dead beat parents, and having been pretty much manipulated by this new rip off villain "Snoke"..(who I always…always hated in almost every way). Now let me stop and say these are all negatives against the movie, and in no way a result of the book. The book did it's job…I felt like it could have answered some more questions and left us in a more realistic spot…the happy ending here doesn't really lend well to where we see them. Anyway I'll stop there, there are some really good things about this book, including Lando. I feel like they went a bit too far with some of the stuff and his 'stereotype' but by the end, him taking on the Phalanx Redux Transmitter and pretty much having to succumb and sacrifice (to his knowledge) himself is quite a step for him. Of course he doesn't end up biting it, and we have a thought provoking scene of him being rescued by two very L3- reminiscent droids. And then the end is oddly 'poetic' in that L3 (in the past) found about about this Phalanx device and was secretly working on a way to stop it her whole life. It's really interesting to see that a Droid would think that because Lando is so wrapped up in himself, that she would want to take this pretty vital burden on herself and internalize it. L3's work ended up being the 'anti virus' for the droid kill switch. Which again I say that this whole story of a secrete droid protocol to kill all organics is too out there for me personally, but I will admit it was written in a way where it wasn't too goofy, but it was very…simple. Not a lot of outside factors, no political fall out from this, or steps taken after to remedy the matter…you think Han or Lando would want to buy some new appliance droids.. The story is good, if basic, and I'll admit I wish we got more from Han and Leia and Ben together, but the fun overall serial nature of the book is a fun read. The side characters really helped this one as well for me. The slicer kid was a bit annoying, but generally that stereotypical young hacker type will always be.. I feel like these characters we could see more of, and I LOVED seeing Sinjir and Condor picking up from Wendig's Aftermath series. While I've been loving the current SW books it seems like each book tasks the author with just shoveling new characters onto our laps with no returning characters. While yes I enjoy new characters, but there's such a high turn around that it's getting hard to learn to care for many of them. So liked the book, liked the story, liked the idea, but some things were missed…and I think it may have missed a big opportunity to put some things in order..