2/5 Rancors - Roger MacBride Allen's Ambush at Corellia is the first volume of the Corellian Trilogy and was published in the heyday of the Bantam Spectra Star Wars license in the 1990s. Set fourteen years after Return of the Jedi, this story sets up a conflict in the Corellian system, which comprises five planets and three distinct sentient species. Han Solo is a native Corellian and a trade conference brings him and his family back home after many years away. Overlooking an early warning of danger brewing in the Corellian system, Han and Chief of State Princess Leia, along with Chewbacca and their three children, all travel together to attend the summit. Events start building towards a crisis and by the book's resolution, full-out war threatens the entire system.
Despite the action implied by the plot summary, I found this book a slow read. At its core, it felt like an elongated setup for the next two books, one that could have been condensed into a few chapters. It's mildly interesting learning more about Corellia, and the system itself is one of the more intriguing of the galaxy far, far away. Its mix of three species plus various outside influences from the Empire and New Republic creates a potent stew of simmering tension. This material is good background and perhaps will pay off in the next two volumes, but taken on its own there simply wasn't that much to this story.
The Solo family is at the center of the novel, especially with the revelation of the identity of the Human League's Hidden Leader at the climax. Leia continues to be a sympathetic and inspiring figure as she deals with balancing work and family life. We explore some of Han's emotions as he revisits his past on the Corellian trip, but this exploration doesn't illuminate anything significantly new about his character. The three children are frequently present but don't get the limelight as often as they did in The Crystal Star. One oddity in the portrayal of the children is Anakin behaves more like a toddler than a seven-year-old, both in speech and in actions (at least, based on my own 2.5 year-old daughter, who talks quite a bit like Anakin in this book).
The "B" plot follows Lando, Luke, R2-D2, and C-3PO as they embark on a quest to find Lando a rich wife. This is as silly as it sounds. I can understand that Luke might need a break from carrying the weight of the galaxy on his shoulders, but a Jedi Master wasting time on a trip like this is a lot to swallow. Lando is a good character but surely Mr. Allen could have found something more meaningful for him to pursue: this plot would have been better left "off-screen," as it were.
Ambush at Corellia is not a difficult read or particularly long. It simply felt slow because of the dragged-out storyline. The stage is set in the climax for the rest of the trilogy to accelerate significantly, so it will be interesting to see what follows.
Star Wars: The Visual Dictionary by David West Reynolds, pages 60-61
The Visual Dictionary is a useful guide to Star Wars characters and creatures in the original trilogy. Of course, it includes information about rancors as well as an excellent photo. Here is what we learn.
Standing five meters tall, this fearsome carnivore possesses an armored skin and colossal strength. Jabba keeps this beast in a pit beneath one of his palace courts, feeding it a live diet of unfortunate victims and watching its attacks for amusement. Jabba keeps the origin of his bizarre, freakish pet a mystery, though there are little-known legends of rancor-like monsters on the remote planet of Dathomir.
We are also shown a picture of the rancor’s handler.
The animal handler Malakill became an outlaw when some of his circus beasts escaped during a show and killed much of the audience. Jabba then hired him as keeper of the murderous rancor, which Malakill has grown fond of.
I am still looking in the Star Wars lexicon for an actual reference to the reading habits of rancors. It must be in there somewhere.
3/5 Rancors - Kristine Kathryn Rusch's The New Rebellion is a standalone tale set thirteen years after the events of Return of the Jedi. Our familiar heroes from the Original Trilogy are all present and accounted for. Princess Leia Organa continues in her role from prior books as the New Republic's Chief of State, and while she may not have had much time to further her Jedi training, she has developed her political skills considerably while maintaining her sense of loyalty and caring that made her such a beloved leader of the Rebellion. Luke Skywalker continues to oversee his Academy on Yavin IV as he searches for a sense of purpose and mission for the Jedi. Han Solo is happily married to Leia and the three Solo children keep him, C-3PO, and Chewbacca hopping, as children are wont to do.
The New Rebellion deals with what happens when a splinter resistance faction becomes the government and must start granting a voice to all citizens under its rule, including its former enemies. Various ex-Imperials have started to gain power in the New Republic Senate, and Leia struggles with accepting their presence and not judging them by their checkered pasts. A mass bombing in the Senate early in the book does not make Leia's life any easier, especially when she must sift through the aftermath to determine responsibility and a course of action. This is fertile ground to explore as Ms. Rusch gets into Leia's psyche and examines the balance between career and family concerns.From the bombing the story branches into three primary plots: the first, Leia's efforts to lead the government through the crisis; the second, Luke's journey to track down Kueller, a malicious Force User linked to the terrorist plot; and lastly, Han and later Lando's adventures at Smuggler's Run, a group of asteroids housing numerous sentients on the wrong side of the law. Some Star Wars novels have a tendency to introduce storylines without much balance or connection to the main storyline (see Lando's adventures in the Black Fleet Crisis trilogy), but Ms. Rusch adeptly juggles the three and brings them all together quite satisfactorily in the end.I particularly enjoyed Han's travails at Smuggler's Run and Lando's attempt to aid him. The asteroids house distinctly varied environments, including Skip 5, which contains caverns full of sand and Jawas, and Skip 6, crime lord Nandreeson's swampy lair. Amphibious Nandreeson forces Lando to tread in fetid, murky water to keep himself from drowning as punishment for a past difference between the two. It's quite an evocative sequence: I could almost feel my own arms getting tired as Lando struggled to hang on to life. Han's barnstorming rescue of Lando is reminiscent of the lack of planning and spirit of adventure in his escapades on the Death Star in A New Hope.Kueller, once known as Dolph, is a failed Jedi candidate from Luke's past. He is accompanied in his villainous schemes by Brakiss, another of Luke's ex-associates. Kueller wears a skull-mask and is seemingly rather akin to Skeletor from Masters of the Universe in appearance. Kueller was a flat antagonist for me. There's not enough feeling generated from the Luke/Kueller/Brakiss back-story to emotionally invest me in the personal outcome of their struggle. I felt empathy as Kueller wantonly destroyed sentients with his bombs hidden in droids, but the final conflict mostly engaged me via the rarity of seeing Luke and Leia fight together and the unexpected role in the battle of the Thernbee (an animal native to Kueller's planet Alamania). Brakiss and Kueller were both ciphers to me, and while their plot was well-realized, they weren't especially memorable as individuals.The New Rebellion is a solidly entertaining Star Wars tale with a strong vibe of the Original Trilogy. My primary reservation about it is the lack of connection I felt to the new characters and to the actual significance of Kueller's plot. The bombs housed in droids is an innovative concept and kudos to Ms. Rusch for developing a story involving both sides of the Force without explicitly relying on the Sith as a plot device.
Dee Bradley Baker – the voice of the Geonosian Queen Karina in The Clone Wars: Legacy of Terror.
I just read an interview with Mr. Baker on starwars.com. He is the voice of many creatures and clone troopers in The Clone Wars. I could not resist the Rancor quote from his interview. I would also suggest being on the lookout for Rancor noises in the produce section of your local grocery story. This could be the start of something big.
When you're in the grocery store, are you ever tempted to make Rancor noises when you're in line?
Actually, when I'm in the produce section of my grocery store, there's a guy who works there who's a showoff like I am and he'll start making animal sounds, so I'll make animal sounds back. And we'll do that back and forth while I'm shopping for groceries. But in most cases, I give my voice a rest.
3/5 Rancors - Let me just say right off the top that I am not normally a fan of horror books. I realize that the genre is popular now, but zombies and the undead hold no particular appeal for me. However, Death Troopers is a Star Wars book, so I decided to give it a try. I was not familiar with Joe Schreiber as this is the first of his books I have read.
The basic plot of Death Troopers is fairly straightforward. The Imperial prison barge Purge is packed with 500 prisoners being transported to an isolated penal colony. In the first stages of the book we have the normal kind of prison story with prisoners fighting prisoners, guards exercising their power, a warden of questionable character, etc. We are introduced to most of the main characters. Then everything changes. The barge's thrusters fail and the barge comes to a halt in the vicinity of what appears to be a deserted Star Destroyer. A boarding party is sent on to the Star Destroyer to see if any engine parts can be found. The Star Destroyer is dark and spooky, and things quickly go amiss. Only part of the boarding party makes it alive back to the Purge, and they unknowingly bring a horrible disease back with them that quickly attacks the barge's population. Death comes for almost all. Then the dead begin to rise and come after the six survivors, including two surprise characters not listed in the Dramatis Personae in the front of the book.
The primary characters are just superficially developed in the book. We only get to know a little bit about them. The book is almost nonstop action, but it never seemed to be particularly scary. Gross in places, yes. Lots of blood and gore. Lots of shambling undead and lots of disgusting scenes, but not really terrifying. One of the contributing factors to this is that the two surprise characters are icons in Star Wars lore, and you know that they are not going to die.
Mr. Schreiber's writing is acceptable. The story moves along quickly through short chapters, and I did find that I wanted to see what happened next at the end of each chapter. I suspect that the book is doing well enough so that more tales of this Star Wars genre will be published. They are just never going to be my favorites.
One last aside - I would like to have seen how Darth Vader or a Master Jedi would have dealt with the situation on the barge and the Star Destroyer. That could be interesting.
Despite the action implied by the plot summary, I found this book a slow read. At its core, it felt like an elongated setup for the next two books, one that could have been condensed into a few chapters. It's mildly interesting learning more about Corellia, and the system itself is one of the more intriguing of the galaxy far, far away. Its mix of three species plus various outside influences from the Empire and New Republic creates a potent stew of simmering tension. This material is good background and perhaps will pay off in the next two volumes, but taken on its own there simply wasn't that much to this story. 
