In finding a cover image, I found out that this novel will be reissued in November 2025 as one of the “Essential Legends” series. This is, of course, Disney’s way to cash in on their scuttling of the entire Expanded Universe ficton when they decided that only movies were canon at that time. Of course, they have sold plenty of books in the “new canon” since then!
That is obviously a sore spot with me! I had this book on my radar for a very long time but never hunted it down. I did so and finally read it this week. Having grown to love Martha Wells’ Murderbot series, I wanted to see if I liked any of her other prose.
This is a decent Star Wars novel. It’s not one of the best in the EU, but it tells an interesting story. There was some effort in the staging of the plot so that some characters are going through roughly parallel situations at the same time. I thought Wells was most interesting in showing the growing attraction of Han & Leia. I feel for writers in the SW or Trek universes as they can only take the characters so far, or choose to write them at a certain point so that they can only grow a certain amount.
This story was a part of a “duology” when first published (the second book is not by Wells) but I feel no need to seek that one out.
