Han Solo at Stars' End

Title:	Han Solo at Stars' End
Creator:	Brian Daly
Date(s):	1979
Medium:	print
Fandom:	Star Wars
Language:	English
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Han Solo at Stars' End is the second Star Wars tie-in novel. It is by Brian Daley.

Fan Comments

1979

Han Solo at Star's End is subtitled "From the Adventures of Luke Skywalker, but it's actually about Has and Chewbacca, apparently before they set Luke (there's so mention of the Alliance, and very little about the Empire).

The subtitle is probably used as as indication that the book has Lucas' imprimatur, and the copyright is held by the Star Wars corporation. However, since it's neither by Lucas nor based on a movie, I personally still consider it as apocryphal rather than a canonical source, is the same class with Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the Marvel Comics continuation, and any fanfic, however good (and some of it is very good).

[snipped, about plot]

The characterizations of Han and Chewie are good and believable, though I can't swallow the author's explanations of Han's cynicism and amorality. He has Han drummed out of the military on trumped up charges when he did something he knew was right (also lost his girlfriend) years ago — is fact the striped pants are what's left of his uniform (but what about the obvious civilians types with different-colored stripes who appear is a couple of shots is Mos Eisley). Personally, I think Han is the way he is by nature and upbringing on Corellia. The military bit is too romantic and sentimental, and an ancient cliche to boot. Other than this, Daly has done a good job with both characters, though I'd like to have sees more of Chewie, And he did a damn sight better with both than Foster did with Leia!

The writing is on the level of fairly good fanfic — easy reading but some clumsy constructions and occasional overwriting (plus the military bit — I'm sure fan writers would be a bit more original!)

[snipped, comments about the cover art]

Summary of my opinion: a good read for us fanatics who'll grab anything we can get our hands on concerning our addition, though a mite expensive in hardback. P.S. I think the title is ridiculous -- it sounds like a Little Golden Book!

Ordinarily. . . as a reader of up to 25 assorted books and the Force only knows how many zines and comics in a month. . . I'm extremely suspicious of any book of which it is claimed that "you can't put it down. " Yet I started reading Han Solo at Stars' End at 8:30 on a Friday night, and. . .tired though I was after a week of^ork^ and unseasonably hot weather. . . it was a real wrench to leave it at the halfway point.

The first line in the text. . .Han's ("It's a warship all right. Damn!"). . .grabs you by the throat, and the excitement scarcely lets up throughout the book. We are given, for basic conditions, something called "the Corporate Sector Authority, (which) had been chartered to exploit. . . some called it plunder. . . the uncountable riches here." (Here being "one wisp off one branch at the end of one arm of the galaxy, but that wisp contained tens of thousands of star systems, and not one native, intelligent species was to be found anywhere. " In this entire sector, "the Authority was owner, employer, landlord, government, and military"; comparisons with the British East India and Hudson's Bay Companies. . .the true powers in lands nominally controlled by the British Imperium. . .immediately leap to mind.) Han Solo and Chewbacca, with their usual scorn for Authority of any kind, are running guns to one of the CSA's planets. Returning to one of the better developed starports in Authority space to off some old debts (shades of Jabba the Hut!), they're nearly arrested by the Authority's private police, whose suspicions have been aroused by the most immediately visible of the Millennium Falcon's clandestine "special modifications." Getting off-world by the skin of their teeth, they make contact with an organization of so-called "outlaw techs", who'll repair or improve any ship that can't risk patronizing legitimate yards. . .for a price, of course. But Jessa, nominal head of the group, is the daughter of an old friend of Han's. . .a friend who has mysteriously vanished. . . and, in an effort to learn his fate, she's made contact with a small band of people who have likewise lost loved ones. Her price for an improved sensor package for the Falcon, and a Waiver that will get Han past any overly zealous Authority cops, is that he go to these people, deliver a computer-probe droid she's built for them, and then take them where they want to go. The deal (which Han, naturally, argues vociferously against) involves him and his partner with an oddly assorted quartet of seekers, a murderous traitor, a definitely paranoid Authority executive, assorted Authority police and hired guns, and, in the end, leads to Chewbacca's capture and a desperate three-person-two droid penetration of the CSA installation at Stars End. Along the way there's a hair-raising threading-the-needle flight through a narrow slot of a mountain pass, a struggle with an Authority lighter's tractor beam, a brawl in a high-class drink/dance palace, a smaU dogfight between outlaw-tech and Authority snubfighters, a fight-and-flight in and from an Authority Data Center, a confrontation with a murderer, and, at last, some 35 pages of closely-packed action and peril, culminating in a running battle through the corridors and stairwells ^ tower which Han, by overloading its power plant and cutting out the overhead deflector shield, has blown into sub-orbit!

Brian Daley, known heretofore as the author of the 1977 fantasy The Doomfarers of Coramonde and its 1979 sequel. The Starfollowers of Coramonde, has shown himself In this book to be a competent writer of "the harder stuff" as well. There is plenty of technical throwaway in the operations and improvements of the Falcon, in the descriptions of various places, worlds, and nonhumans. But, what matters even more, he has captured the George Lucas Universe. Comparison with the characterizations of Splinter of the Mind's Eye are automatically invited, and Stars' End comes off the winner by a long lightyear. Here is the Han Solo we know and love; a fast thinker, supremely self-confident, an accomplished forger and pickpocket as well as smuggler, pilot, and gunfighter, a devil with the women, uncomfortable with authority of whatever type, sometimes short-tempered and frequently sharp-tongued (especially when ship or partner is threatened), technical whiz enough to give orders to a computer probe, wryly humorous, an imaginative practical joker, scornful of the chances of "righteous thoughts and clean hands," cold-blooded when he has to be (though a hater of torture), flip when he wants to be, and subtle when it suits him. This is the Han who's interested in no one's problems but his own, trusts no one but himself, de feats his enemies by doing the unexpected, berates himself for taking a job he knows is likely to get him into trouble but takes it anyway (and gets the trouble, as expected), pilots with "razor-edge reflexes and instinctive skills that had seen him through scrapes all across the galaxy," and always gets his own back, one way or another

[snipped]

Daley's Solo is no less well-drawn for the intriguing hints of his past inserted in the stream of the story, until the reader iwonders whether this is the "official" George Lucas view of the Solo background or simply Daley's own. This Han can flight-lead awing of snubfighters, can reason out the identity of a murderer and then think up a way to make him betray himself to his fellows, can think up a completely developed plan in a split second (using the tiniest amount of data). . . and then, improvising as necessary, make it work. This Han, we realize as early as page seven, has a background none of us may have suspected: ". . .dressed in. . . dark uniform trousers with red piping. . .Han had cast aside his uniform tunic, stripped of its rank and insignia, years ago. " He's "flown everything from a jetpack to a capital ship," has "lived, eaten, and slept high-speed flying. . .trained under men who thought of little else, " and seems, even, to have once seen military service. . .only to leave it in disgrace thanks to a commanding officer's perjury and a belief that he himself " 'was doing the moral thing.' " Here, too, is the Chewbacca we fell in love with: intelligent, loyal, innately conservative; "a good first mate, but a soft touch, " always quick to sympathize with the underdog; short-tempered sometimes, ever prepared to use his size and appear ance to intimidate people if it's to his own or his partner's advantage, a great one to have at your side in a barroom brawl, and a very bad being to let get mad at you. And here are the wry humor and flashing, thundering action Swe expect from any Star Wars writing, captured with what is obviously a conscious and determined effort to do justice to George Lucas's original precepts. It is true, of course, that there is only one mention each of the Empire and of the Jedi Knights, as well as of some organization called "Freedom's Sons", and none at all. . . even obliquely. . . of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, or the Rebel Alliance; we are, in fact, left somewhat in the dark as to when all this is happening. It is equally true that there are definite analogs to the original film. There's Jessa, as competent and sharp-tongued as Leia Organa and equally ready to exchange insults with Han Solo. . .as well as equally perceptive of his depths and motives. There's the outlaw-tech base she runs, which, with its snubfighters and command bunker, could almost be Rebel. There are a pair of droids, one large, one small, as mutually devoted to each other as the droids of the film. . . though it must be admitted that the former is far braver and more competent than Threepio and the latter lacks the ability to move about independently and does not require a translator. Then there s Rekkon, the head of the small band of searchers whom Han must transport to their destination. Rekkon is black, and apparently not past middle age, yet his similarities to Kenobi are definite: even Han notes that he "radiated a different aura" from that of ordinary people,

[snipped]

Yet, all in all, this is a far better written, more believable, and more true-to-the-original book than Splinter of the Mind's Eye could ever hope to be. The cast acts in character, and the action itself builds with a logical inevitability toward the climax.

Perhaps a large share of this superiority lies in the fact that Delay has chosen to totally ignore such metaphysical subtleties as the Force (a difficult thing to write about at the best of things), concentrating rather on the man who thinks the Force is "all a lotta simple tricks 'n' nonsense", who depends on his brain, his reflexes, his gun, and his ship to get him out of scrapes, . . and has made it work. One could well suspect him of being. . .like the writer of this review. . . a member of the exalted company of Han-atics. He has definitely captured the thought-, speech-, and action-pat terns of our smuggler with a keen insight, even expanded upon them. And therein is the great strength of the story he has told.

Spend nine dollars and three hours with Han Solo at Stars' End. I sincerely think you'll be glad of it.

1980

This issue [of Galactic Flight] is for Brian Daley, author, fellow New Jerseyan, and almost certainly part-Corellian, in recognition and appreciation of his skillful and perceptive (and thoroughly enjoyable) delineation of Han Solo (to say nothing of Chewbacca) in Han Solo at Stars' End and Han Solo's Revenge: may the Force always be with him.