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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
As good as the first..., February 10, 2001
Picking up not too long after Han Solo at Stars' End, maybe a couple of months later, Han Solo's Revenge continues Brian Daley's chronicles of some of Han Solo's more daring early exploits. In this next volume of the Han Solo Adventures, the author continues to uphold the high standards set in the first book and gives us another rousing, fast-paced yarn set in the Star Wars Universe. Han, Chewie, and the Falcon are all completely in character throughout the book, and in fact this is one of the few Star Wars novels ever to actually use Chewie for something other than a set piece.Han and Chewie start this novel pretty much bankrupt, and so they take a shady job promising them 10,000 credits. Unfortunately, things turn sour when the job turns out to be slave running, which carries with it an automatic and summary execution if caught. Han manages to outwit the slavers and escape, but he figures he's still owed 10,000, and so he decides to head to his rendezvous and collect. But when the Corporate Sector Authority gets involved, things start getting more dangerous. While this book isn't quite as memorable as its immediate predecessor, it is in many ways a superior book. First of all, it has more of a plot rather than just a mission that the characters are undertaking. In addition, while there is not quite as much action in this installment as the previous one, there's a lot more dialogue and character development. There's a character in this book who is amusingly and completely unintimidated by Chewbacca, and my favorite droid duo, Bollux & Blue Max, returns as well. Moreover, we get to see Chewie sing, we get the first ever swoop race, almost twenty years before Shadows of the Empire came along with that novel idea. Chewie gets to go flying without benefit of a ship, Han gets to do a lot more seat-of-the-pants flying, and there are more, and more interesting, ancillary characters in this book than in Stars' End. In addition, in this book Gallandro, a gunman with possibly an even quicker draw than Solo, is introduced. There are pirate boardings, run-ins with various high-ranking individuals, great and innovative escape, you name it... Overall, this is another more than worthy, if somewhat short, addition to the Star Wars mythos. Highly Recommended.
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