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A review by neilrcoulter
Solo: A Star Wars Story by Mur Lafferty
3.0
I really liked the movie Solo, and I didn't expect to at all. It's a lot of fun, and brings back more of the sense of adventure that Star Wars shouldn't ever leave too far behind. So I was eager to read the novelization, which promises (as all good movie novelizations should) extra scenes that weren't in the film.
There aren't many of those extra scenes, but most of them are very good (with the exception of Lando contemplating his capes, and cleaning his shower after Chewbacca uses it; that humor goes much too broad for even a relatively silly Star Wars story). Particularly helpful is a flashback–memory Qi'ra has, which fills in some of the missing years between her separation from Han and her appearance on Dryden's yacht. We also see more of what happened to Han between leaving Corellia and deserting on Mimban.
Author Mur Lafferty still leaves a lot of space for future stories, which I suppose is a Disney requirement (even though, sadly, the odds of there being another Solo movie are . . . well, you know—never tell me those). The most obvious and strangest remaining gap is what happened to Han's parents. This is lightly mentioned a couple of times in the book, but it seems like an important detail that should be told here somewhere.
By far the best added scene is the epilogue—a joy for anyone whose favorite Star Wars film is Rogue One. That scene bumped my rating of this book from two stars to three.
Why only two stars? It's all because of Lafferty's writing style. The voice and perspective switch haphazardly from one character to another, even within a chapter. It gave the whole book a patched-together feel that didn't help the story. A tighter, more focused narrative approach would have brought out the strengths of this story—and it really is a pretty good story.
The tone of the book feels more like a YA style, not an official movie adaptation. It's just a little too casual and flippant. Also, Lafferty uses awkward phrasing that is distracting. A sentence like this just doesn't roll off the tongue very smoothly:
It's too bad that the story didn't translate very well to this format, but the novel doesn't make me like the movie any less—in fact, it shows me that the story in the movie is quite good. If Lafferty continues writing Star Wars, I think she would be a better fit for the younger-reader/YA level.
There aren't many of those extra scenes, but most of them are very good (with the exception of Lando contemplating his capes, and cleaning his shower after Chewbacca uses it; that humor goes much too broad for even a relatively silly Star Wars story). Particularly helpful is a flashback–memory Qi'ra has, which fills in some of the missing years between her separation from Han and her appearance on Dryden's yacht. We also see more of what happened to Han between leaving Corellia and deserting on Mimban.
Author Mur Lafferty still leaves a lot of space for future stories, which I suppose is a Disney requirement (even though, sadly, the odds of there being another Solo movie are . . . well, you know—never tell me those). The most obvious and strangest remaining gap is what happened to Han's parents. This is lightly mentioned a couple of times in the book, but it seems like an important detail that should be told here somewhere.
By far the best added scene is the epilogue—a joy for anyone whose favorite Star Wars film is Rogue One. That scene bumped my rating of this book from two stars to three.
Why only two stars? It's all because of Lafferty's writing style. The voice and perspective switch haphazardly from one character to another, even within a chapter. It gave the whole book a patched-together feel that didn't help the story. A tighter, more focused narrative approach would have brought out the strengths of this story—and it really is a pretty good story.
The tone of the book feels more like a YA style, not an official movie adaptation. It's just a little too casual and flippant. Also, Lafferty uses awkward phrasing that is distracting. A sentence like this just doesn't roll off the tongue very smoothly:
[S]he and Han had always lived for the moment, but now, maybe, she could actually consider that she and Han might have a tomorrow. (31–32)And author or editor should (somehow) have caught this one long before publication:
[H]e'd been holding on to an illogical hope that somehow she had somehow used her grappling gun to get away before the bridge blew. (111)Another annoyance in this book is the usage of our-world words for things that feel like they should get their own SW-world names instead. This has been happening for a while with drinks. Star Wars has long had "caf" instead of coffee—which is fine—but now the galaxy has just about every kind of alcoholic drink, using the same names we use here. This novel brings in more alcoholic drink names from our world, but it also mentions at one point that Han's face is "illuminated by a strip of emergency LEDs on the console" of the Falcon (222). LEDs in Star Wars?? That feels wrong.
It's too bad that the story didn't translate very well to this format, but the novel doesn't make me like the movie any less—in fact, it shows me that the story in the movie is quite good. If Lafferty continues writing Star Wars, I think she would be a better fit for the younger-reader/YA level.