4/5 Rancors

It's time in the Rancors Love to Read program to leave the prequels behind and delve into the stories centered around the original trilogy of films. The journey starts with Volume One of the Han Solo Trilogy, titled The Paradise Snare and written by A. C. Crispin. It's interesting to read a book set during the time immediately (Edit from comments: well, 10 years before ) before A New Hope, as largely this period has been left clean and will be tackled in several upcoming projects, including the live-action TV series from Lucasfilm and the Dark Horse comic series Dark Times.

Since 1977, Han Solo has been a favorite character of millions of fans worldwide. He's easy to understand and relate to when we first encounter him in the Mos Eisley cantina, and his development through the films is one of the most interesting plot threads in the saga. Crispin definitely took a gamble in accepting the assignment to try and flesh out this character with a detailed three-book backstory. I'm pleased to see how well that gamble paid off.

Crispin perfectly captures Han's attitude and dialogue; her younger version walks like Han and talks like Han as we know him from the films. We join up with Han in his late teens as he seeks to escape his life upon the opportunistic vessel The Trader's Luck. Crispin does a great job of working Han's backstory into the tale via flashbacks and various hints dropped in contemporary conversations. As the book progresses, we learn many things about what forged Han into the hardened rogue we know and love, such as where his loner attitude stems from, why he lives a life on the wrong side of the law but refuses to condone slavery, how he accumulated his comprehensive piloting skills, and who influenced his fondness for Wookiees.

Crispin writes in a very descriptive style and shows a knack for interjecting subtle humor into dialogue. The book is slower paced than many Star Wars novels, taking its time to establish characters both familiar and new (mostly new), and kicking off storylines to take us through the next two books. Crispin's primary new location, the drug-producing planet Ylesia, is evocatively written and she spends the time to flesh it out and make it feel like a real place rather than a thin backdrop for action sequences.

There are several interesting new characters introduced in the book. The two most important are Muuurgh, a huge feline humanoid assigned to keep an eye on Han while he works for the spice lords on Ylesia, and Bria Tharen, a beautiful young spiritual seeker who plays a large role in forging Han's every-man-for-himself ethos. I loved Muuurgh's grammar instruction from Han and his role as a sort of proto-Chewbacca. Bria is a key part of Han's story and their relationship veers in some unexpected directions as the book progresses.

It was fun to revisit Coruscant after spending such significant amounts of time there reading all the prequel novels. Alderaan's inclusion was another nice touch and it inadvertently pairs up well with the time we spent there in Dark Lord: The Rise of Darth Vader, the novel that chronologically comes right before this one (Edit: as noted in the comments, the Coruscant Nights trilogy is now between these two books - thanks!). The introduction of Thracken Sal-Solo is a creepy foreshadowing of the man who will cause the Solo family so many annoyances and frustrations in the years to come.

The Paradise Snare is a promising start to the Han Solo Trilogy. While the story does not present the epic scope of some of the prequel stories I've read recently, it is a very well thought out and smart story that brings an already vivid character to even brighter life.