Written by Timothy Zahn
Cover Illustration by Paul Youll
SUMMARY:
Released by Del Rey Books in 2013, this 512-page paperback is set several weeks after Star Wars, Episode IV: A New Hope. With their hard-earned reward recently stolen by pirates, Han Solo & Chewbacca are laying low from the Rebellion, not to mention Jabba the Hutt’s well-publicized bounty. Desperate for a big score, their new gig is collecting an aggrieved client’s enormous stash of credits from a mobster’s impregnable vault
Solo & Chewbacca recruit a crew of eight other mercenaries: twin sisters Tavia & Bink Kitik (high-tech burglars aka ‘ghost thieves’); surly Dozer Creed (ship thief); Zerba Cher’dak (sleight-of-hand expert); super-efficient Rachele Ree (intel & acquisitions); Kell Tainer (explosives); Winter (surveillance & a perfect memory); and their agitated client, Eanjer Kunarazti, who is funding the job. Joining them is Lando Calrissian, who still sports lingering doubts re: the brash Corellian smuggler’s judgment from their past team-ups. Still, assuming all goes well, they’ll be equally splitting the take as if it’s a mega-millions lottery ticket.
Complicating their seemingly impossible heist are the nefarious Black Sun crime syndicate, Imperial intelligence, and who- knows-who-else with their own covert stakes in this ruthless game. As it’s revealed, another invaluable prize is sequestered in the same vault that others will gladly kill for. Worse yet for Solo’s Scoundrels is that somebody close may really be a double-agent with an ulterior motive that Han & Chewbacca will never see coming.
REVIEW:
Timothy Zahn’s obvious arithmetic is adding Star Wars and Ocean’s Eleven together. Hence, it’s no coincidence that Han Solo’s magic number is eleven ‘Scoundrels.’ Slowly building up this audacious heist, Zahn develops his cast with deliberate care, i.e. Solo is far more the cool Danny Ocean here than A New Hope’s impulsive hero-for-hire. The same applies to exploring Lando & Han’s wary friendship, as subtle hints towards The Empire Strikes Back are winked. For the most part, readers get a well-played Star Wars caper, complete with a jaw-dropping twist reminiscent of The Usual Suspects.
The flip-side is Zahn’s overindulgence for depth. For instance, there’s far too many sequences where Han’s cronies are holed up in their hotel suite updating various logistics. This unnecessary slog becomes increasingly tiresome, especially after the fifth or sixth time this scenario happens. Yet, for all the time Han’s crew spends in their suite, Zahn offers minimal insight re: the Corellian rogue’s savviness for devising such complex schemes and contingency plans.
Even Zahn has Han acknowledge that he’s a smuggler and not some world-class burglar, which is at least consistent with the reckless character George Lucas created. Hence, it’s difficult to reconcile Scoundrels’ ‘elite strategist’ take on Han with the improvised, not-so-bright bravado he displays in A New Hope and Return of the Jedi … that is, aside from an ultra-obvious homage to ‘who-shot-first?’ in a shady cantina early on.
Further bogging down the storyline’s pace are multiple criminal underworld sub-plots where the Empire is ironically construed as the galaxy’s ‘law-and-order.’ Hence, Scoundrels’ surprising density plays far more to hardcore fans familiar with Star Wars’ galactic mob rivalries (the Empire, the Black Sun syndicate, the Hutts, etc.) than to casual readers. Zahn, at least, inserts enough understandable heist lingo to help justify his plotting excesses. For instance, it’s a welcome help when grasping his descriptions of various items of alien technology.
In Scoundrels’ better moments, though, one can readily visualize this double-crossing and even triple-crossing storyline as a live-action series co-starring Harrison Ford, Billy Dee Williams, & Peter Mayhew. Zahn certainly knows how to make Han & Chewbacca’s gang of thieves come off as likably greedy and fun to ride along with. By this reckoning, for Han Solo fans, Scoundrels is an anything-goes, get-rich-quick scheme worthy of his legendary exploits.
ADDITIONAL FEATURES:
A standard Star Wars novel chronology is included. There’s a short list of characters, so readers will mostly know who’s who without a scorecard. Included as another solid read is Zahn’s 2012 sixty-seven page prequel novella, Loser Takes All, starring Lando Calrissian. During a high-stakes sabacc tournament, Lando partners with three other future Scoundrels (Tavia, Bink, & Zerba) on their own Mission: Impossible-like heist.
BRIAN’S ODD MOON RATING: 7 Stars
Note: Recommended is another fun Han Solo adventure: Empire and Rebellion – Honor Among Thieves, which follows after Scoundrels. Its plot is about as close as one gets to ‘Indiana Solo.’
