3/5 Rancors - Originally published as an e-book coinciding with the release of the novel Tatooine Ghost, Troy Denning's A Forest Apart is a short story following Chewbacca, his wife Mallatobuck, and his son Lumpy on a adventure into the bowels of Coruscant. Malla and Lumpy are visiting Chewie at his Coruscant apartment when a break-in at the next-door Solo place turns out to have more serious ramifications. The Wookiees follow the burglars and end up unearthing an Imperial plot set in place by an old tool of the villainous Ysanne Isard.
There's a lot of action in a short space but not much time for meaningful character development. Lumpy is a pre-teen striving to find his place in the world, and Chewbacca's perpetual absence in his life may have left a gaping hole as far as having a father figure to look up to. There's not enough pages to explore this theme with much depth, and in the end the issue is dropped, since on a practical level Lumpy can't live with his father chasing all over the galaxy anyway. The theme of the impact a Wookiee Life Debt has on the Wookiee holding it and on his/her family is an interesting one that could be explored in more detail with a longer story. Unlike many novels which handle Chewie's communications by having him grunt and then having a nearby character paraphrase what he said, Denning makes the wise choice of letting the Wookiees speak as normal characters and simply puts brackets to indicate they are actually using their native tongue. It's always enjoyable seeing Chewbacca in action, and even though this story doesn't really add anything significant to the larger saga, it's an entertaining diversion.
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