That first taste of space.
Creative Staff
Writer: Rae Carson
What They Say
Set before the events of Solo: A Star Wars Story! Han and Qi’ra don’t have a lot in common other than not having a lot. They’re street kids on the industrial planet Corellia, doing whatever it takes to get by, dreaming of something more. They each jump at a chance to prove themselves in the perilous world of Corellia’s criminal underbelly, only to discover they are on the same mission for the same unscrupulous boss. When the job goes disastrously wrong, Han and Qi’ra are on the run–from pirates, a droid crime syndicate, the Empire, and their boss–and will have to learn to trust each other if they are going to survive.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Released in conjunction with the Solo theatrical film, Star Wars: Most Wanted is a young adult book that comes from writer Rae Carson. I’ve had this book in my collection since late 2018 but I’ve long had a hard time with Han Solo stories. A lot of it comes down to the idea, for me, that once we start to know more of what shaped him that it removes the man of mystery element. I’m not against the stories being told, but they’re not high on my list and I’ve often found that writers have a hard time giving us what Harrison Ford is able to in the live-action side across the films. This novel, taking place not long before the events of the Solo film itself, has a little bit of help in that we associate a different actor with it a little but even then it’s hard to connect the two because the actors never felt like the sewer rats as described in the books here. Honestly, more often than not, it felt like these characters were barely past being tweens never mind just a bit of time from the start of the film.
The thing that the book is set to achieve is two-fold; one is to tell a good story and the other is to provide the connective tissue to the larger work. And again, I’m not against that. What we experience in this book is good in that it shows Han’s first time in space and how that changed him as a person – yet it only happens in the final pages. We get to see how Qi’ra becomes more intent on protecting herself at all costs and that there is never such a thing as safety and relaxation. Watching how her arc has gone up through the ROTJ period in the comics reinforces that well. We also get to see the two of them as rivals at first, tentative survivors second, and then the first blush look at there being something more between them because they’ve both found someone that they can rely on. There’s a key line someone says late in the book that what makes space great is finding the right person to spend traveling it with. These two have that connection here and you can imagine it going very differently if not for the events that unfold afterward. But at the same time, this is a late teenage first love and many of those are just doomed because people at that age tend to not have a lot of real-world experience and once exposed, discover so much more about themselves.
The story behind it all is solid enough in that while working for Lady Proxima and jockeying for position to be the Head that runs the gang for her, Han and Qi’ra are caught up in a job Prixma took on to bid for some secretive technology. It turns out to be something interesting in the big picture to exploit later but mostly that the pair end up with the data cube and have rival gangs looking for them because everything went badly with it. The gangs are certainly different – one a cutthroat group of regional space pirates and the other the dangerous droid gang, and both Han and Qi’ra find themselves unable to return to Proxima because they failed at their side of the deal and know that they’re likely to be killed. So the two end up on the run trying to figure things out, which brings in friends of Han’s such as the Rodian Tsuulo (which you can see being the reason he uses the name Solo as opposed to being alone later in the film) and others like Powlo and Tool. What we get is that the pair, and Tsuulo when he connects with them for the bulk of the book, have to learn and trust each other and their very different ways of operating. Their time with Proxima has them picking up their own strengths but also being highly individualistic.
It’s a standard structure and it helps to explore Corellia a bit, highlights the way each of these characters operates in a foundational way that will carry through for years to come, and some fun with how those within the Empire are trying to exploit it to their advantage. Taking place in 13 BBY, you can make some connections elsewhere but it does largely standalone in service of the film. But it never feels like it’s just slavishly trying to connect things but does it in a fairly natural way, especially once the group makes their way into space for a bit while dealing with the person behind the entire auction that went down badly and started this. It’s solid in that regard but it’s definitely aimed at the Young Adult audience as it’s fairly basic and leans into more action than I enjoyed. Or rather, more chase sequences that I didn’t care for because speeder bike stuff in novels just aren’t all that thrilling to read no matter how gifted the writer.
In Summary:
It took me close to six or seven months to read the book because I just wasn’t drawn to reading a Han Solo story, completist that I am. I ended up reading a few other books in between because this had such a hard time holding my interest. But as this summer offered up a few more opportunities to read, I ended up barreling through the back half pretty quickly with my limited reading time and enjoyed it fairly well. It’s just such an area that I’m not that interested in and that made it difficult to really connect with. Coming at all of this after reading more stories with Qi’ra in the period just before ROTJ is interesting as well when you connect it to everything else. I think she’s more the main character here than Han is and that’s for the best, and makes her the one you want to follow going forward because of the unpredictability of how it all goes and just how desperate and grand it all becomes with her plans.
Content Grade: B-
Age Rating: 7+
Released By: Disney Lucasfilm Press
Release Date: May 25th, 2018
MSRP: $10.99
