Hey guys! Yeah, you don't have to tell me. I know, I'm back. And that's because I ended up being further along in reading The Paradise Snare than I thought I was when I wrote my comic book review yesterday, so I ended up finishing the book before bed last night. Now I'm going to talk about it and I actually have alot to say about this book because this is what made me a Star Wars fan. So let's get right into it.
The Paradise Snare is actually the first Star Wars novel I ever got. My parents had the Thrawn Trilogy by Timothy Zahn and I think I had the 1996/1997 junior novelization of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope already, but this was the first Star Wars novel that made me a fan of Star Wars. I'd seen the original movie on VHS and watched them pretty regularly, but being a Star Wars fan wasn't in the very fabric of my being the way being a Star Trek fan was, especially by late 1997 and early 1998. But this? This novel did it for me. This novel made me a Star Wars fan.
The reason The Paradise Snare made me a Star Wars fan is because it kinda opened up the universe for me a little bit. As I came to discover as I read the earlier novels like Heir to the Empire, The Courtship of Princess Leia, and Shadows of the Empire, Star Wars was about these extraordinary characters in extreme circumstances. Now that's a pretty obvious observation if you just watch the movies, especially Return of the Jedi where Luke is over powered and facing the Emperor, who is even more over powered than Luke is. But if you watch A New Hope on it's own, especially at the beginning of the film before Luke has stepped into that larger world, he's a pretty relatable guy. He has his own dreams and wishes and basically reacts the way we would all react if we were forced to live on a backwater desert planet, on our parents's, or uncle's, farm with nothing to do.
But The Paradise Snare at it's core is about a young man who dreams about being a pilot and trying to make that dream a reality by getting away from his abusive guardian, falling in love, and learning to find his place in the universe. Plus it fills in some of the gaps about Han Solo's backstory that were never even mentioned in the movies or even in Brian Daley's early Han Solo books from the late 70s and early 80s. Those books were just fun, goofy adventure stories. The Han Solo Trilogy digs deeper into who Han Solo is and what he's about, so that we know why he's such a jerk in the first movie.
While it's not as legendary as Han's relationship with Chewbacca would become, I love the friendship that Han has with Muurgh, the Togorian, who looks like a giant anthropomorphic cat if you look at the picture of him on the book cover. It starts off with Muurgh just being Han's bodyguard on Ylesia, but then they genuinely become friends, much like how Oliver and Diggle became friends on Arrow. Which eventually leads into one of the easiest escape scenes in a Star Wars thing since Han, Luke, Leia, Chewie and the Droids escaped from the Death Star in A New Hope. Maybe even easier than that. Muurgh is like the prototype for Chewie in a way, though Han's Wookiee foster mother (only way I can describe that relationship), Dewlanna, also fills that role of the prototype Chewie.
While I think Bria Tharen is an interesting character, more on that in a moment, my problem is with her relationship with Han. Han basically forced himself into Bria's life. She was quite content in falling for the scam of the t'landa Til on Ylesia, believing it was an actual religion, when in fact it was not, but then Han wouldn't leave her alone, even though she asked him to, a few times. I realize this book was written in the 90s, by a woman who had been a Sci-Fi author since the late 70s and had even written some of the Star Trek novels published by Pocket Books, but this doesn't really sit well with me. Maybe because I'm more aware of things now than I was at 10 or 11 years old, when I got this book, or maybe it's because it just feels like bad storytelling to me. Especially since Bria leaving Han at the end of the book is what made him decide to not let anyone else get close to him, obvious lies because Chewie, Lando and others all become close friends of Han, even before he meets Luke and Obi-Wan in the Cantina. Really? Like you could take Bria out of the story entirely, or at the very least have her not become Han's girlfriend, and just have it so that Han being so solitary has to do with him having been mistreated (putting it mildly) by Garris Shrike, more than because a woman he's only known for a few months, maybe a year by the end of the book, leaves him because she realizes she has a serious addiction problem (thanks to being whammied every day for a year by the t'landa Til) that she needs to get her life back in order.
And that's why Bria is an interesting character. I've known people who have been in abusive relationships and have mental health issues and deal with alot of intense stuff like that, so it fascinates me to see that portrayed in a Star Wars novel. And so her relationship with Han feels so forced and doesn't work very well in terms of who Han is at this point, and who Bria is following their escape from Ylesia. It actually doesn't get better in the later books, because Bria is just kind of a background character who doesn't have any interaction with Han until the third/final book, Rebel Dawn. However, Bria as a solo character (I said it that way on purpose I promise) works so much better without those interactions with Han.
The book also kind of has a weak ending too. Not a whole lot happens, except for Han confronting Shrike (I've wanted to type Shrek this whole time), Bria and Han going to Corellia and then to Coruscant, the pre-Prequel era Coruscant, where Bria leaves and Han gets into the Imperial Academy. I do like the epilogue where Han leaves Coruscant to go to the Academy, which felt like a great way to end the book, but the last third of it, between Han, Bria, Muurgh, and Mrrov (Muurgh's girlfriend) escape from Ylesia and the epilogue that I just mentioned. Definitely the weakest ending for a book in this trilogy.
One interesting note is that, according to the book's page on Wookieepedia, the author, A.C. Crispin, was asked not to cover Han's time at the Imperial Academy or his first encounter with Chewie. I'll talk about that more when I review the second book, The Hutt Gambit because it explains why that book opens the way it does. I just thought it was something I should mention here since it does end with Han going to the Imperial Academy.
Overall, despite my problems with this book, it's still one of my favourite Star Wars novels. Mainly because it's the first one I ever got, through the Scholastic book order of all places. I still prefer this trilogy over Solo: A Star Wars Story, but I'll get into my reasons why in my review of Rebel Dawn. This book humanizes Han and gives him more dimension than the movies ever could, though The Force Awakens comes pretty close to doing a better job than the original three movies did.
Alright guys that's gonna be it for me for today. I'll be back on Monday for my look at Super Mario Bros. 2. I realize I've said that like three times already, but this time it's true. So until then have a great weekend and I will talk to you all later. Take care.
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