Wednesday, May 29, 2024

Book Review: Star Wars: Journey to Star Wars: The Force Awakens Smuggler's Run: A Han Solo Adventure

 


Smuggler's Run is one of the young-adult canon novels published in 2015 before the release of The Force Awakens. As many know, there is a mess with the Star Wars novels regarding what is and is not canon material since Disney's takeover of Lucasfilm. Every novel that was put out before Disney acquired the rights to Lucasfilm is relegated to Legends/Expanded Universe non-canon material (aside from the novel Tarkin, which was grandfathered into the new canon storyline). Per the introduction to the novel A New Dawn, anything put out after the Disney acquisition, regardless of format (novel, TV series, movie, comic, video games, etc), is considered canon. However, the young adult and junior novels are canon material but are tangential and filler to the main "adult" novels.

This is a very short story set (mostly) after the events of Episode IV and the destruction of the first Death Star. Han and Chewie agree to go on a mission to extract another rebel from the planet Cyrkon. As expected, things do not go smoothly, with Han being tracked by bounty hunters and his ship being sought by the Empire. The prologue and epilogue are set sometime before The Force Awakens, with Han telling the story of the extraction in a cantina somewhere. It has one tie-in with The Force Awakens. At the very end of the book the name Ducain is mentioned. Ducain, if you remember the quick exchange between Rey and Han in the movie when Han and Chewie track down The Falcon, is the one who stole the ship from Han. There are no clues about or tie-ins with the movie besides that, just that one reference.

The hardcover version of the book is short, just under 200 pages. It tells a good story that reads quickly. Even though it is a young reader's novel, it is enjoyable enough for adults. While it is probably not a book that most people will read over and over again, anyone who is a fan of the characters will likely enjoy the book.

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