A Different Galaxy Far Far Away

This volume includes the three novels written about Lando Calrissian in 1983 (the same year as the film “Return of the Jedi”). It covers how Lando first acquired the starship Millennium Falcon and his three adventures with a droid named Vuffi Raa, involving a serious grudge from a sorcerer named Rokur Gepta.

It’s an entertaining read, but this has to be the strangest Star Wars book (or books) ever written. There’s an Empire, but much of the time it is referred to as the Civility. Instead of the Imperial Starfleet there’s the Navy, with ships with names like “Courteous” and “Reluctant” instead of “Relentless” or “Devastator”, the usual kind of name for Imperial starships.

Moreover, someone has apparently handed a lot of power over to the sorcerer, but nowhere is there an Emperor, a Darth Vader, stormtroopers, Sith, Jedi, or the Force. But all these things were mainstays of Star Wars in 1983.

And Vuffi Raa is referred to as a “robot” never as a “droid”, the Star Wars terminology for such beings.

Basically someone took a completely different science fiction galaxy and inserted Lando and the Falcon into it. The corresponding trilogy covering the adventures of the young Han Solo, published in 1997 and 1998, certainly describe Han’s encounters with Lando over many years (including how Han won the Falcon from Lando) against a much more plausible backdrop of Empire and nascent Rebellion.

One really wonders what Lucasfilms were thinking when they approved the publication of these books?