Star Wars: The Han Solo Adventures is a Star Wars Legends novel trilogy written by Brian Daley and published by Del Rey from 1979 to 1980. The trilogy includes the stories Han Solo at Stars' End, Han Solo's Revenge, and Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, which tell of Han Solo's early adventures with his Wookiee partner, Chewbacca, in the Corporate Sector. The stories are set prior to the events of the film Star Wars: Episode IV A New Hope.
The three novels were collected in the single volume Star Wars: The Han Solo Adventures in 1992.
Plot Summary
Working in the Corporate Sector, taking odd and often dangerous jobs from the unsavory likes of loan sharks and gangsters, Han Solo and Chewbacca need to upgrade their beloved Millennium Falcon. Han strikes a deal with a group of outlaw techs run by Doc and Jessa: parts and labor in exchange for running a mission to a Corporate Sector Authority data center on Orron III. The mission is decidedly political – a scholar named Rekkon is investigating the disappearance of dissidents in the Corporate Sector. To help him slice into the Authority network, he is equipped with a unique droid duo: the antiquated labor droid, Bollux, conceals within him a chipper young computer probe, Blue Max.
Though the pragmatic and cash-focused Han tries to ignore altruistic endeavors, he cannot help getting involved when the Orron III mission fails, Chewbacca is taken captive by the Authority, and Rekkon is killed by a traitor. Desperate to find Chewie, Han continues Rekkon's work, finding the Authory's prison installation known as Stars' End. In the bleak facility, prisoners are kept in stasis booths for ease of control. Han infiltrates the prison, audaciously posing as an entertainment act, and in true Han Solo fashion blows up its power generator, launching the prison tower into orbit. He frees the prisoners – including Chewbacca – before Stars' End comes to a crashing demise.
Bad investments put Han and Chewie in the red. They take a no-questions-asked assignment on Lur, in the Corporate Sector, where they’re forced – at gunpoint – to pick up a cargo of slaves. Han turns the table on the slavers, freeing the captives. The slavers die in the breakout, and Han wants to collect the money owed him. He recovers clues from the dead slavers pointing him toward Bonadan. There he stumbles upon Fiolla of Lorrd's Corporate Sector Authority investigation into a slavery ring that may implicate highly placed Authority figures. They team up to chase down the slavers, a search that brings them to Ammuud. A young noble there, Mor Ewwen Glayyd, is honoring a code of silence to protect his late father's dealing with slavers. When Han steps in for the Mor to prevent him from entering a shooting duel with Gallandro, the best gunfighter in the galaxy, Glayyd is indebted. He reveals documents regarding his father’s dealings. The gunfight – and much of the investigation – was craftily engineered by Odumin, a Corporate Sector Territorial Administrator.
After a stint as a mechanic on Saheelindeel, and delivering educational materials to Rudrig, Han comes across his old friend Badure, who has fallen on hard times. Badure offers Han a stake in the fabled lost treasure of Xim the Despot on Dellalt, if they can find it. The quest involves braving rival treasure seekers, rough terrain, a bloodthirsty cult of Xim-worshipping Survivors, and a reawakened Pre-Republic era droid army. As the battle among the treasure hunters escalates, the gunslinger Gallandro arrives to settle his score with Han. Though Gallandro would have beaten Han at the draw, he accidentally sets off ancient booby traps in the treasure vaults and gets blasted to pieces. Han and his companions uncover the treasure, though it proves to be of little value since most of the rare materials it contains have been rendered obsolete by centuries of technological progress.
Continuity
Author Brian Daley set The Han Solo Adventures prior to the events of A New Hope, within an isolated patch of space, the Corporate Sector. Standing in for the Empire, stormtroopers and TIE fighters are, respectively, the Authority, Espos (security police), and IRD fighters. As one of the earliest works in the Expanded Universe, Daley’s trilogy was extremely influential in developing elements that would continue well beyond the scope of these three books. Vehicles such as Victory-class Star Destroyers, Z-95 headhunters, and swoop bikes; technology and innovations like vibroblades, transparisteel, and repulsorlifts; and cultural concepts including outlaw techs. Wookiee life debts, Corellian Bloodstripes, and the legends of Xim the Despot all owe their origin to Brian Daley.[3]
Han Solo at Stars' End was adapted by Archie Goodwin and Alfredo Alcala into a newspaper comic strip format in 1980. That version of the story differed from the novel – events have been truncated and action sequences restaged to better fit daily comic installments. It was reprinted by Dark Horse Comics in 1997. The 1979 Stars' End novel had a notable moment of prescience in its characterization of Han. In chapter 6, Han said to Rekkon the scholar: “I happen to like to shoot first, Rekkon. As opposed to shooting second” – an ironic statement given fan sentiment expressed about the 1997 Special Edition edit that had Han shoot second when confronted by Greedo.[3]
Sources
- The Jedi Master's Quizbook
- The Essential Reader's Companion
"Adventures in the Audiosphere" — Star Wars Insider 201
