Review: Star Wars: Scoundrels

Star Wars: Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

As far as Star Wars EU goes, this is one of the gems - but that is to be expected from Timothy Zahn, whose Heir to the Empire trilogy is often cited as the best Star Wars EU material ever written. I don't think I would go that far with this book, but it's certainly a fun ride.

The story is a grand heist a la Ocean's 11, with Han and Chewie assembling a team of rogues and scoundrels (hence the title) to steal credits - and later, other sensitive materials - out of an extremely well-protected vault. Because this is Star Wars and these are criminals, Black Sun and the Falleen are involved, and there are other cameos from Winter and Lando. It's a well-structured heist and it did a good job of unfolding the plan to us without ever saying it outright until the plan was happening, but I also feel like there was a lot of deliberate obfuscation in order to do that, and a lot of characters only existed so that this plan could happen successfully. I'm not even talking about the team - the character of Deja, the Imperial spy, only exists so that his connections can make sure that certain characters escape capture.

One of the biggest things that is often lacking in Star Wars is the worldbuilding. People tend to rely on the Force and the Skywalkers and the sheer immensity of the universe and don't bother to add much further. I thought Zahn's idea of elemental festivals was really cool (although, again, they seemed to exist mostly to make Han's plan feasible) and his descriptions were beautiful.

I cared absolutely zero about any of the characters, though. Winter was an interesting touch, but as much as her sadness about Alderaan and what she believes happened to Leia is played up, it never really connected. I liked Bink and Tavia and Rochelle as ideas but wasn't invested, though I'd be interested in seeing them fleshed out the future (though that's not gonna happpen now). Zerba, Kel, and Dozer were all bland at best and annoying at worst. Even Han, Chewie, and Lando were not particularly compelling, so all this book really had going for it was the heist story - which was serviceable, but not my thing. None of the characters go through any changes, and (spoiler alert) they don't even get the financial payoff they expected even though the heist goes exactly according to plan.

My main motivation for reading this - other than it being a Zahn story - is that there are rumors of a Han Solo/bounty hunter collaboration/heist movie coming out as one of the Star Wars: Anthology films, and I suspect that this might be the inspiration. I'd be interested in seeing a different draft of this filmed (I'm particularly antsy to see a Star Wars bounty hunter film where the gender divide is actually almost at parity like this one!!), though I'd be disappointed if they kept the same backdrop (though I doubt this will provide anything more than ideological inspiration). And hopefully, they don't keep the ending - though knowing Star Wars, they probably willE
Pretty big spoiler directly below.
And WHY IS THE CLIMAX OF THE BOOK AN INDIANA JONES JOKE?? HAN RUNNING FROM THE GIANT SPHERICAL SAFE WHILE WAVING A LIGHT WHIP IS RIDICULOUS AND HILARIOUS BUT LIKE THAT'S ACTUALLY ONE OF THE MOST PLOT-SIGNIFICANT EVENTS.

Spoiler alert. Very very significant spoiler follows. Do not read unless you want the whole book spoiled.

So the reveal at the absolute end of the story in the last several lines of the book cheapened a lot of it for me. I laughed out loud on the treadmill while listening to it. Inger was an annoying, suspicious, groveling character for the whole story and while I know Boba Fett is a great bounty hunter, there's very little in his character that suggests he would be such a good actor. An assassin, yes, but one that acts by brute force more than deception and intrigue. I like that his plan is actually quite elegant with a potentially huge payoff for him, but it seems incredibly overcomplicated to bring in so many excess people for two kills. Again, he's a killer, not a spy. It just doesn't feel realistic and is only there for shock value. If Inger was any other bounty hunter, I'd believe it and think the main twist (that Inger is not who he says he is) was actually pretty cool. As is, it feels silly and forced - but hey, Star Wars is supposed to be fun, I guess.

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