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jaredkwheeler 's review for:
Star Wars: The Mandalorian Armor
by K.W. Jeter
Star Wars Legends Project #296
Background: The Mandalorian Armor was written by [a:K. W. Jeter|21994774|K. W. Jeter|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and published in June of 1998. This is the first of the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, all written by Jeter, who is a well-known science-fiction author in his own right.
The Mandalorian Armor is set during the events of Return of the Jedi, 4 years after the battle of Yavin, but includes extensive flashbacks to events transpiring in the months after the Battle of Yavin. The main characters are Boba Fett, Dengar, Neelah, Bossk, and Zuckuss, with major appearances by Prince Xizor, Kuat of Kuat, and the spidery assembler Kud'ar Mub'at. The story takes place in many locations, but some of the biggest events are on Tatooine, Kuat, and Circumtore.
Summary: Searching the wreckage surrounding Jabba the Hutt's spectacular end, Dengar stumbles across the last thing he expected . . . the dying Boba Fett, who has managed to blow his way out of the Sarlacc's gut. As he nurses the feared bounty hunter back to health in hopes of a profitable partnership, Dengar is joined by Neelah, a dancing girl from Jabba's palace who has lost all memory of her life before except for one image: The famed T-visored helmet worn by the galaxy's most notorious bounty hunter. She knows he holds the key to recovering her identity, but first they'll need to survive a string of enemies from Fett's past, whose hatred dates back to a time when he sparked an all-out war among his fellow bounty hunters.
Review: This was the very first Star Wars book I ever read. A friend and fellow Star Wars fan encouraged me to buy it so we could both read it when I stumbled across it in a mall bookstore, several months after I'd seen the films in theaters for the first time. I went on to read many, many more Star Wars books, most of them better than this one, but I enjoyed revisiting it more than I expected I would. It requires a certain amount of EU knowledge going in to fully appreciate everything that's happening in this novel.
Not that it isn't without many, significant flaws. The biggest problems go right to the heart of the entire premise: First, there isn't really a sympathetic character to hang your hat on. Everyone is totally out for themselves, ready to scheme, conspire, and backstab anyone and everyone to get what they want. That could be a refreshing break from the norm of Star Wars novels, and I'm sure it was envisioned that way, but if characters aren't likable they at least have to be interesting, and that element is also almost entirely lacking. You'll quickly lose count of the number of times Boba Fett is described as saying something "with no emotion." He's as one-dimensional and enigmatic in this novel that is ostensibly all about him as he is on-screen. And he's surrounded by a whole legion of antagonists and secondary antagonists who seem to spend most of their time in sequestered evil lairs, cackling and rubbing their hands together and thinking about how skilled they are at being the smartest plotters in the galaxy. There's little or no attention paid here to the principle of "show, don't tell."
The second major problem is that the flashback/flash-forward element of the narrative is just plain clunky. It manages to break up what little momentum the novel can get going here and there without any evident purpose. I get that this is the first novel of a trilogy, so there's a lot of groundwork being laid here, but it's really really not evident where all of this is going or what these two wildly divergent narratives have to do with each other. A lot of readers will likely not be intrigued enough to bother picking up the next volume.
Still, the book isn't entirely without its small pleasures. There are some good action sequences, and a few of the mysteries have the potential (largely unrealized at this point) to be intriguing. It drags a bit in spots, but it's still a relatively fast read, easy to skim. I don't have a lot of clear memories about where the rest of this story goes, but I'm hoping that, armed now with a lot more knowledge of the lore, I'll have some appreciation of whatever comes next.
C
Background: The Mandalorian Armor was written by [a:K. W. Jeter|21994774|K. W. Jeter|https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] and published in June of 1998. This is the first of the Bounty Hunter Wars trilogy, all written by Jeter, who is a well-known science-fiction author in his own right.
The Mandalorian Armor is set during the events of Return of the Jedi, 4 years after the battle of Yavin, but includes extensive flashbacks to events transpiring in the months after the Battle of Yavin. The main characters are Boba Fett, Dengar, Neelah, Bossk, and Zuckuss, with major appearances by Prince Xizor, Kuat of Kuat, and the spidery assembler Kud'ar Mub'at. The story takes place in many locations, but some of the biggest events are on Tatooine, Kuat, and Circumtore.
Summary: Searching the wreckage surrounding Jabba the Hutt's spectacular end, Dengar stumbles across the last thing he expected . . . the dying Boba Fett, who has managed to blow his way out of the Sarlacc's gut. As he nurses the feared bounty hunter back to health in hopes of a profitable partnership, Dengar is joined by Neelah, a dancing girl from Jabba's palace who has lost all memory of her life before except for one image: The famed T-visored helmet worn by the galaxy's most notorious bounty hunter. She knows he holds the key to recovering her identity, but first they'll need to survive a string of enemies from Fett's past, whose hatred dates back to a time when he sparked an all-out war among his fellow bounty hunters.
Review: This was the very first Star Wars book I ever read. A friend and fellow Star Wars fan encouraged me to buy it so we could both read it when I stumbled across it in a mall bookstore, several months after I'd seen the films in theaters for the first time. I went on to read many, many more Star Wars books, most of them better than this one, but I enjoyed revisiting it more than I expected I would. It requires a certain amount of EU knowledge going in to fully appreciate everything that's happening in this novel.
Not that it isn't without many, significant flaws. The biggest problems go right to the heart of the entire premise: First, there isn't really a sympathetic character to hang your hat on. Everyone is totally out for themselves, ready to scheme, conspire, and backstab anyone and everyone to get what they want. That could be a refreshing break from the norm of Star Wars novels, and I'm sure it was envisioned that way, but if characters aren't likable they at least have to be interesting, and that element is also almost entirely lacking. You'll quickly lose count of the number of times Boba Fett is described as saying something "with no emotion." He's as one-dimensional and enigmatic in this novel that is ostensibly all about him as he is on-screen. And he's surrounded by a whole legion of antagonists and secondary antagonists who seem to spend most of their time in sequestered evil lairs, cackling and rubbing their hands together and thinking about how skilled they are at being the smartest plotters in the galaxy. There's little or no attention paid here to the principle of "show, don't tell."
The second major problem is that the flashback/flash-forward element of the narrative is just plain clunky. It manages to break up what little momentum the novel can get going here and there without any evident purpose. I get that this is the first novel of a trilogy, so there's a lot of groundwork being laid here, but it's really really not evident where all of this is going or what these two wildly divergent narratives have to do with each other. A lot of readers will likely not be intrigued enough to bother picking up the next volume.
Still, the book isn't entirely without its small pleasures. There are some good action sequences, and a few of the mysteries have the potential (largely unrealized at this point) to be intriguing. It drags a bit in spots, but it's still a relatively fast read, easy to skim. I don't have a lot of clear memories about where the rest of this story goes, but I'm hoping that, armed now with a lot more knowledge of the lore, I'll have some appreciation of whatever comes next.
C