If you’re interested in this book, first you must read The Paradise Snare or risk having no idea where most of this stuff comes from.

That said, we encounter Han, dishonorably discharged from the Imperial Navy and with Chewie, drunk in a bar. That old heart of gold tripped him up again, just when he had a sweet deal going following his dream of being in the Imperial Navy, being all he could be. He got in the way of a superior officer executing his duty, which involved executing Chewie for some minor offence, ain’t slavery grand? So he’s off and running on the wrong side of the law, with a Wookie companion he doesn’t want. While he hasn’t done anything that he hasn’t already been punished for, this is a totalitarian regime and the dishonorable discharge might as well be a conviction so Han heads to Nar Shadda (Smuggler’s Moon) where he begins his smuggler career in earnest.

We get a much better view of Hutt society here and it’s not pretty (but it resembles the mob in extraordinary ways.) We hear what the first love of Han’s life has been doing (wow, she’s an idealist in the Rebellion, who’da thunk it?) Han also meets the second love of his life and she dumps him. (I know, I was shocked too. But she had her reasons.) And we meet Boba Fett and Lando. It’s good to have friends.

The writing is still good. The characters all sound like they’re supposed to and react in the ways they should. The plot is tight and fast paced. There is a climactic battle at the end which is very reminiscent of the climactic battle in Jedi, but what are you gong to do, reinvent the wheel?

One of the real highlights for me was Mako Spince. Mako is an old friend of Han’s (they were in the Imperial Academy on Carida until Mako got kicked out for blowing up Carida’s moon. Yes, blowing up Carida’s moon.) Mako fits flawlessly into the story to the point where I can feel his lack in the main trilogy. I never understood the cult of Wedge until I found Mako and wondered why no one has written a spin off about him. I was so enchanted that I didn’t even quibble with the fact that if Mako had blown up Carida’s moon it would have eventually caused Carida’s geophysical structure to destabilize causing it to, at the least, become uninhabitable and, at the most, to become an oddly placed asteroid field. Am I getting too technical here? Maybe, but that’s what I do best.

The foreshadowing is still a little much. I mean, Bria in the Rebellion? Lando saving Han from Boba Fett? Han leading the climactic and pivotal battle against the Empire? I realize that people don’t change their stripes and it’s likely that, given the situation (if Han Solo were a real person, I’m getting geekier than even I’m comfortable with) he probably would have done just what he did. And yea, I’ve been attracted to the same type of guy since I was, gulp, 6, but is he just fated to go for tough, idealistic, b!tchy, Rebel leading, dark haired women or something?

The other thing that bothered me is endemic to the trilogy. First we start out with a subsistence farm boy and a pilot accompanied by a large communicative dog and a hermit who go off to save the universe, also known as the Princess. The hermit has special powers, this is the stuff fantasy is made of and is ok. The fact that the farm boy has special powers is also ok. We’re still looking at a bunch of common folks saving the universe. Then we get the idea from Jedi that Luke and Leia are twins making him related by adoption to royalty and no longer common. Then in Phantom Menace we discover that Luke and Leia’s mother was a Queen, they aren’t common folks at all. But it’s ok because Han is still the common man saving the universe. Oops, wait, in The Hutt Gambit we find out that Han was the Valedictorian of his class at the Academy. He’s not common at all, he’s super smart. (And then you find out in The Courtship of Princess Leia that he’s heir to the throne of Corellia so he’s also royal.) Why couldn’t we just have one common, pretty clever guy saving the galaxy? Why did everyone have to be gifted with blue blood, special powers, and great huge brains? If the world needed saving the very last people I would turn to would be the House of Windsor. I’m sure they’re very nice people, but I have the sneaking suspicion that my truck driving brother would be more handy when the Millennium Falcon needed fixing and the only thing handy was duck tape. However, despite the length of this rant, it didn’t bother me enough to spoil the book for me. (However, it gave me lots of problems in The Courtship of Princess Leia.)

It’s fun, it’s worth reading. I should probably be more impressed with this than I am. I’m a tough audience I guess. It’s at least $6 (plus tax) well spent.


Recommended: Yes