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Star Wars Disney Canon Novel
Star Wars: Last Shot
Even the fastest ship in the galaxy can’t outrun the past. . . .
THEN:
It’s one of the galaxy’s most dangerous secrets: a mysterious transmitter with unknown power and a reward for its discovery that most could only dream of claiming. But those who fly the Millennium Falconthroughout its infamous history aren’t your average scoundrels. Not once, but twice, the crew of the Falcon tries to claim the elusive prize—first, Lando Calrissian and the droid L3-37 at the dawn of an ambitious career, and later, a young and hungry Han Solo with the help of his copilot, Chewbacca. But the device’s creator, the volatile criminal Fyzen Gor, isn’t interested in sharing. And Gor knows how to hold a grudge. . . .
NOW:
It’s been ten years since the rebel hero Han Solo last encountered Fyzen Gor. After mounting a successful rebellion against the Empire and starting a family with an Alderaanian princess, Han hasn’t given much thought to the mad inventor. But when Lando turns up at Han’s doorstep in the middle of the night, it’s Fyzen’s assassins that he’s running from. And without Han’s help, Lando—and all life on Cloud City—will be annihilated.
With the assistance of a young hotshot pilot, an Ewok slicer prodigy, the woman who might be the love of Lando’s life, and Han’s best and furriest friend, the two most notorious scoundrels in the New Republic are working together once more. They’ll have to journey across the stars—and into the past—before Gor uses the device’s power to reshape the galaxy.
432 pages, Paperback
First published April 17, 2018
572 people are currently reading
5543 people want to read
About the author
Daniel José Older
182 books1,964 followersDaniel José Older is the New York Times bestselling author of the Young Adult series the Shadowshaper Cypher (Scholastic), the Bone Street Rumba urban fantasy series (Penguin), and the upcoming Middle Grade sci-fi adventure Flood City (Scholastic). He won the International Latino Book Award and has been nominated for the Kirkus Prize, the Mythopoeic Award, the Locus Award, the Andre Norton Award, and yes, the World Fantasy Award. Shadowshaper was named one of Esquire’s 80 Books Every Person Should Read. You can find his thoughts on writing, read dispatches from his decade-long career as an NYC paramedic and hear his music at http://danieljoseolder.net/, on youtube and @djolder on twitter.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 857 reviews
February 23, 2025
I did really want to like this book, and especially as Han Solo’s demise in the movies. I was hoping this would be a last shot at glory for Han showing how valuable he is to to Star Wars universe. I was ok with him sharing the spotlight with Lando. However, for me, Lando stole and relegated Han to a supporting cast member and a not very good one at that. I was actually more interested in a couple of the other characters in the book.
I have to admit I am not a big fan of the three time period format of the book, so this might have also drowned my enjoyment of the book, but I have to say there was more I did not like about the book then I did. I found the story very slow and the action scenes I found more confusing than exciting.
It is a shame as I think this story is the greatest threat to the Star Wars universe in a long time. I think this threat level should have been given a lot more credence.
I would not recommend this book to anyone but Lando fans who want to see how he fits into the new Disney era. For me, Han comes across as a second-rate, washed-up smuggler who ended up on the right side of victory. It's definitely not Han’s finest adventure.
I have to admit I am not a big fan of the three time period format of the book, so this might have also drowned my enjoyment of the book, but I have to say there was more I did not like about the book then I did. I found the story very slow and the action scenes I found more confusing than exciting.
It is a shame as I think this story is the greatest threat to the Star Wars universe in a long time. I think this threat level should have been given a lot more credence.
I would not recommend this book to anyone but Lando fans who want to see how he fits into the new Disney era. For me, Han comes across as a second-rate, washed-up smuggler who ended up on the right side of victory. It's definitely not Han’s finest adventure.
April 26, 2018
3.5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum https://bibliosanctum.com/2018/04/26/...
As the time draws nearer for the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story to hit theaters, in true Star Wars merchandising fashion, there’s a media tie-in novel available just in time to prime you for the movie experience. Star Wars: Last Shot is something of a “then and now” story, with the focus on our two favorite scoundrels in the galaxy, Han Solo and Lando Calrissian.
Using the movies as a timeline, this book takes place approximately three years after Return of the Jedi, which means for Han, he’s now married to Leia and the couple has just welcomed little Ben to the family. Despite having lived a life of danger and excitement, however, nothing could have prepared him for the rigors of fatherhood. He’s struggling and not adjusting well at all, and he’s paralyzed with fear by the idea he’s doing everything wrong. Meanwhile, Lando is on Cloud City having his own little “growing up” moment when he finds himself contemplating the idea of settling down with a longtime friend for whom he has been developing deeper feelings. But before this thought can be explored further, the relative peace is shattered by an assassination attempt on his life—by his own trusted protocol droid, no less.
The incident brings Lando fuming to the Solos’ doorstep, demanding explanations for events that happened ten years ago when Han last ran afoul of Fyzen Gor, a mad scientist-like villain who invented a droid-controlling device called a Phylanx Redux Transmitter. Desperately seeking something to take his mind off his situation at home, Han doesn’t need much convincing to pack his things and run off on another adventure with his old friend. The mission: to find the transmitter before Fyzen can use the technology to bend the galaxy to his will. Told with frequent flashbacks to the past, Last Shot chronicles three different eras in our characters’ lives, taking us to a time before the events of Solo (with Lando), as well as the period that occurs between the movie and A New Hope (with Han), before bringing all the threads together in the present storyline.
Even if you’re not a big fan of Star Wars, the words “a Han and Lando story” should make you perk up, and for good reason. Just the mention of these two promises a fun and adventurous experience, which this book delivers. The sections that take place in the past are especially entertaining; here we see our characters as younger and more cocksure men, so full of swagger and confidence. The dialogue is snappy and upbeat, even a little silly in some places, highlighting the “good old days” feel of these flashbacks.
But then there are also the heavier moments scattered throughout the novel. The differences between the present Han and Lando and their younger selves are quite stark, for one, when you consider how the intervening years have affected them both. Han’s struggle with fatherhood is especially heartbreaking, in light of how things turned out with him and Leia and their son, and I can’t help but think what we’re seeing here is a brief glimpse of that rift starting to form as Han’s first instinct is to run away in response to his fear of failure. This version of Han—who loves his family but is nonetheless overwhelmed by the crushing responsibility of being a husband and father—is parsecs away from the young starry-eyed Han with his idealistic notions of romance, as seen in his flirtatious pursuit of Sana. The effect is similar with Lando, whose transition from smooth-talking charmer to someone who thinks he may have finally found “the one” to settle down with is truly quite surprising, even speaking as a reader who has seen the character go through many evolutions going back to the old expanded universe days.
Personally, this aspect of juxtaposing the past and present versions of Han and Lando—showing the different people they’ve become while still staying true to the core of their characters—was my favorite aspect of the novel. I also liked how the story’s conflict raises a lot of interesting issues, many of which have philosophical value or ethical implications, such as the role of droids in the Star Wars universe. By any reasonable definition, droids are people—they have distinct personalities, can form memories, and possess a sense of self-awareness and volition—but they’re not always treated as such, or at least the portrayal of the relationship between droid and organic has not always been consistent. Perhaps, the themes and events in Last Shot will finally set the record straight, as a part of the story focuses on the plight of L3-37, a navigator droid who dreams of rights and freedom for her kind.
But then, there are the things I didn’t like so much about the book. First off, I’m not the biggest fan of flashbacks, and the way this story was structured reminded me exactly why. The constant jumping around can get confusing, not to mention it played havoc with the pacing. As much as I enjoy Daniel José Older’s writing, I also confess I was a bit skeptical when I found out he was working on this book. I’m a fan of the author’s urban fantasy because his style is very well suited to the genre, but I worried that it would not be a good fit for a Star Wars novel. Indeed, in some places, I felt that the prose was far too modern and “real world”, which seriously messed with the immersion. Coming across certain contemporary sayings or slang in the dialogue was extremely cringe-y, and occasionally, the downright goofiness of the writing style would also kill the mood and remove a lot of the gravity from the book’s serious themes.
As such, I would probably put Last Shot in the middle of the scale: nowhere close to the level of my favorite Star Wars reads, but it’s also far from poor. Without a doubt, it’s one of the more entertaining books to come out of the new canon lately, compared to examples like Catalyst (the super dry Rogue One prequel) or Phasma (which didn’t really live up to my expectations). But let’s face it—with Han and Lando at the helm, it’s impossible to have a boring book. The thrilling action and adventure make this one an approachable read for everyone, whether you’re into the Star Wars universe or not, but I for one am now pumped for Solo.
Audiobook Comments: I enjoyed the audiobook of Last Shot, which is narrated by Marc Thompson, January Lavoy, and Daniel José Older. With respect to the author though, he probably should have sat this one out. Not only was it somewhat distracting to have multiple narrators, Marc Thompson is a god when it comes to Star Wars audiobook narration, and to be honest, Older reading the sections featuring young Han just could not compare. His voice felt wrong for the character, and he also made everyone sound the same. At least the case could be made for January LaVoy (another veteran Star Wars audiobook narrator) reading the parts featuring young Lando since those sections heavily feature the POV of L3-37, but the decision to bring on a third person for the Han flashback chapters just didn’t really make sense to me. Other than that though, this was a decent listen.
As the time draws nearer for the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story to hit theaters, in true Star Wars merchandising fashion, there’s a media tie-in novel available just in time to prime you for the movie experience. Star Wars: Last Shot is something of a “then and now” story, with the focus on our two favorite scoundrels in the galaxy, Han Solo and Lando Calrissian.
Using the movies as a timeline, this book takes place approximately three years after Return of the Jedi, which means for Han, he’s now married to Leia and the couple has just welcomed little Ben to the family. Despite having lived a life of danger and excitement, however, nothing could have prepared him for the rigors of fatherhood. He’s struggling and not adjusting well at all, and he’s paralyzed with fear by the idea he’s doing everything wrong. Meanwhile, Lando is on Cloud City having his own little “growing up” moment when he finds himself contemplating the idea of settling down with a longtime friend for whom he has been developing deeper feelings. But before this thought can be explored further, the relative peace is shattered by an assassination attempt on his life—by his own trusted protocol droid, no less.
The incident brings Lando fuming to the Solos’ doorstep, demanding explanations for events that happened ten years ago when Han last ran afoul of Fyzen Gor, a mad scientist-like villain who invented a droid-controlling device called a Phylanx Redux Transmitter. Desperately seeking something to take his mind off his situation at home, Han doesn’t need much convincing to pack his things and run off on another adventure with his old friend. The mission: to find the transmitter before Fyzen can use the technology to bend the galaxy to his will. Told with frequent flashbacks to the past, Last Shot chronicles three different eras in our characters’ lives, taking us to a time before the events of Solo (with Lando), as well as the period that occurs between the movie and A New Hope (with Han), before bringing all the threads together in the present storyline.
Even if you’re not a big fan of Star Wars, the words “a Han and Lando story” should make you perk up, and for good reason. Just the mention of these two promises a fun and adventurous experience, which this book delivers. The sections that take place in the past are especially entertaining; here we see our characters as younger and more cocksure men, so full of swagger and confidence. The dialogue is snappy and upbeat, even a little silly in some places, highlighting the “good old days” feel of these flashbacks.
But then there are also the heavier moments scattered throughout the novel. The differences between the present Han and Lando and their younger selves are quite stark, for one, when you consider how the intervening years have affected them both. Han’s struggle with fatherhood is especially heartbreaking, in light of how things turned out with him and Leia and their son, and I can’t help but think what we’re seeing here is a brief glimpse of that rift starting to form as Han’s first instinct is to run away in response to his fear of failure. This version of Han—who loves his family but is nonetheless overwhelmed by the crushing responsibility of being a husband and father—is parsecs away from the young starry-eyed Han with his idealistic notions of romance, as seen in his flirtatious pursuit of Sana. The effect is similar with Lando, whose transition from smooth-talking charmer to someone who thinks he may have finally found “the one” to settle down with is truly quite surprising, even speaking as a reader who has seen the character go through many evolutions going back to the old expanded universe days.
Personally, this aspect of juxtaposing the past and present versions of Han and Lando—showing the different people they’ve become while still staying true to the core of their characters—was my favorite aspect of the novel. I also liked how the story’s conflict raises a lot of interesting issues, many of which have philosophical value or ethical implications, such as the role of droids in the Star Wars universe. By any reasonable definition, droids are people—they have distinct personalities, can form memories, and possess a sense of self-awareness and volition—but they’re not always treated as such, or at least the portrayal of the relationship between droid and organic has not always been consistent. Perhaps, the themes and events in Last Shot will finally set the record straight, as a part of the story focuses on the plight of L3-37, a navigator droid who dreams of rights and freedom for her kind.
But then, there are the things I didn’t like so much about the book. First off, I’m not the biggest fan of flashbacks, and the way this story was structured reminded me exactly why. The constant jumping around can get confusing, not to mention it played havoc with the pacing. As much as I enjoy Daniel José Older’s writing, I also confess I was a bit skeptical when I found out he was working on this book. I’m a fan of the author’s urban fantasy because his style is very well suited to the genre, but I worried that it would not be a good fit for a Star Wars novel. Indeed, in some places, I felt that the prose was far too modern and “real world”, which seriously messed with the immersion. Coming across certain contemporary sayings or slang in the dialogue was extremely cringe-y, and occasionally, the downright goofiness of the writing style would also kill the mood and remove a lot of the gravity from the book’s serious themes.
As such, I would probably put Last Shot in the middle of the scale: nowhere close to the level of my favorite Star Wars reads, but it’s also far from poor. Without a doubt, it’s one of the more entertaining books to come out of the new canon lately, compared to examples like Catalyst (the super dry Rogue One prequel) or Phasma (which didn’t really live up to my expectations). But let’s face it—with Han and Lando at the helm, it’s impossible to have a boring book. The thrilling action and adventure make this one an approachable read for everyone, whether you’re into the Star Wars universe or not, but I for one am now pumped for Solo.
Audiobook Comments: I enjoyed the audiobook of Last Shot, which is narrated by Marc Thompson, January Lavoy, and Daniel José Older. With respect to the author though, he probably should have sat this one out. Not only was it somewhat distracting to have multiple narrators, Marc Thompson is a god when it comes to Star Wars audiobook narration, and to be honest, Older reading the sections featuring young Han just could not compare. His voice felt wrong for the character, and he also made everyone sound the same. At least the case could be made for January LaVoy (another veteran Star Wars audiobook narrator) reading the parts featuring young Lando since those sections heavily feature the POV of L3-37, but the decision to bring on a third person for the Han flashback chapters just didn’t really make sense to me. Other than that though, this was a decent listen.
June 4, 2018
After watching Solo: A Star Wars Story, I was pumped to read Last Shot. Lando and Han have such great screen chemistry in the original trilogy, and with this story being set around two years after Return of the Jedi I was hoping for the prose to capture some of that scoundrel and swagger and I wasn't let down.
The interactions between the two key cogs in this story play out just like the new Solo film. The author does a great job at transposing them from the screen to the printed page. One thing that didn't quite make the transition so smoothly is the man-of-few-words persona of Han. He's not a guy who talks about his feelings, and that was apparent early on in Last Shot, even with son Ben, yet the need to express his struggles with conveying his feelings to his family in Ben and Leia became repetitive and unnecessary, particularly in the later stages of the book.
The story itself if split between three timelines; present day (2 years post Return of the Jedi), 10 years prior, and 15 years prior. For the most part, this was an unnecessary distraction which only served to introduce the story's big bad in Fyzen Gor and highlight the fact that both Han and Lando had previously stolen a droid-controlling device - the Phylanx Redux, the same device which is at the center of the present day story.
The plot it pretty simple; Fyzen Gor, a super smart hybrid organic-droid character wants to use the Phylanx Redux to control the droids of the universe to overthrown their organic oppressors. It's up to Han and Lando to stop him.
Fyzen Gor is a great character and perhaps the best thing about this book aside from the colorful characterisation of Lando Calrissian. Han just didn't read right and the bit players across the galaxy didn't do all that much to contribute to the story in any meaningful way.
My rating: 3/5 stars, Last Shot is worth the price alone to read of Fyzen Gor, while comic book buffs will get a kick out of seeing Sana. Hard core Star Wars fans will want to pick this up, casual reads can take it or leave it.
The interactions between the two key cogs in this story play out just like the new Solo film. The author does a great job at transposing them from the screen to the printed page. One thing that didn't quite make the transition so smoothly is the man-of-few-words persona of Han. He's not a guy who talks about his feelings, and that was apparent early on in Last Shot, even with son Ben, yet the need to express his struggles with conveying his feelings to his family in Ben and Leia became repetitive and unnecessary, particularly in the later stages of the book.
The story itself if split between three timelines; present day (2 years post Return of the Jedi), 10 years prior, and 15 years prior. For the most part, this was an unnecessary distraction which only served to introduce the story's big bad in Fyzen Gor and highlight the fact that both Han and Lando had previously stolen a droid-controlling device - the Phylanx Redux, the same device which is at the center of the present day story.
The plot it pretty simple; Fyzen Gor, a super smart hybrid organic-droid character wants to use the Phylanx Redux to control the droids of the universe to overthrown their organic oppressors. It's up to Han and Lando to stop him.
Fyzen Gor is a great character and perhaps the best thing about this book aside from the colorful characterisation of Lando Calrissian. Han just didn't read right and the bit players across the galaxy didn't do all that much to contribute to the story in any meaningful way.
My rating: 3/5 stars, Last Shot is worth the price alone to read of Fyzen Gor, while comic book buffs will get a kick out of seeing Sana. Hard core Star Wars fans will want to pick this up, casual reads can take it or leave it.
May 4, 2024
And my new favourite star wars character is - Taka Jamoreesa!!!
April 30, 2018
Since Disney bought Lucasfilm, there has been an onslaught of "new" canon media. And, to be honest, it's all been really hit or miss.
Unfortunately, Last Shot is mostly miss.
Don't get me wrong, the writing isn't terrible or anything, but it isn't terribly interesting either. The problem is, like most prequel-type stories, the stakes aren't really all that compelling. For example, I can tell you that Han Solo makes it out of this book relatively unscathed. The reason I feel confident writing that in this review without hiding it behind Spoilers tags is because, well, of course he does! If you've seen The Force Awakens you already know that.
For me, the new canon, prequel, filling-in-the-gaps type stuff that has worked - ROGUE ONE, REBELS, A NEW DAWN, THRAWN - all work because those characters don't (currently) exist outside of their respective stories. For instance, I can watch REBELS and think, "Hera isn't in the movies. Is she going to make it out of this situation alive?" This is what, in my opinion, made the old EU more interesting. Don't get me wrong, I haven't read all that much of the Legends stuff, but since it didn't have to fit in with anything in particular, it was pretty much free to do whatever it wanted. There were real consequences. People could be irrevocably changed. Hell, Chewie is killed by a moon falling on him in one of those books!
By contrast, when Han complains about stepping on 2-year-old Kylo Ren's space-lego in the first chapter, we automatically know that nothing of any real consequence is going to happen. Even in the much (and, in my mind, unjustly) maligned Prequel Trilogy, there is still a sense of tension. Yes, we know Anakin Skywalker turns bad, but how does he become bad is the question. What did that look like?
So, while I don't think it's impossible to write a good - even great - filler novel (KENOBI, for one, is pretty amazing), I do think the cards are stacked against the writer. And, I'm sorry to say, this was a bum hand.
(For transparency purposes, I did not actually finish this novel. So, please don't tell me I missed out by not finishing it. I read 3/4's. That was plenty of time to get roped in.)
Unfortunately, Last Shot is mostly miss.
Don't get me wrong, the writing isn't terrible or anything, but it isn't terribly interesting either. The problem is, like most prequel-type stories, the stakes aren't really all that compelling. For example, I can tell you that Han Solo makes it out of this book relatively unscathed. The reason I feel confident writing that in this review without hiding it behind Spoilers tags is because, well, of course he does! If you've seen The Force Awakens you already know that.
For me, the new canon, prequel, filling-in-the-gaps type stuff that has worked - ROGUE ONE, REBELS, A NEW DAWN, THRAWN - all work because those characters don't (currently) exist outside of their respective stories. For instance, I can watch REBELS and think, "Hera isn't in the movies. Is she going to make it out of this situation alive?" This is what, in my opinion, made the old EU more interesting. Don't get me wrong, I haven't read all that much of the Legends stuff, but since it didn't have to fit in with anything in particular, it was pretty much free to do whatever it wanted. There were real consequences. People could be irrevocably changed. Hell, Chewie is killed by a moon falling on him in one of those books!
By contrast, when Han complains about stepping on 2-year-old Kylo Ren's space-lego in the first chapter, we automatically know that nothing of any real consequence is going to happen. Even in the much (and, in my mind, unjustly) maligned Prequel Trilogy, there is still a sense of tension. Yes, we know Anakin Skywalker turns bad, but how does he become bad is the question. What did that look like?
So, while I don't think it's impossible to write a good - even great - filler novel (KENOBI, for one, is pretty amazing), I do think the cards are stacked against the writer. And, I'm sorry to say, this was a bum hand.
(For transparency purposes, I did not actually finish this novel. So, please don't tell me I missed out by not finishing it. I read 3/4's. That was plenty of time to get roped in.)
May 4, 2023
3.5 stars rounded up
Discussion Video/Vlog: https://youtu.be/oeN_QS8ooyQ
Not my favorite of the Star Wars books I've read, but certainly enjoyable. Last Shot is a buddy adventure where Han Solo and Lando have to take care of some trouble from the past. Han is a new dad struggling with his role and identity as a husband and father when he never expected to be either (Ben is a toddler). Lando might be for real falling in love for the first time. And the fate of the galaxy is at stake. Because of course. It's fun and has interesting character development, though the pacing isn't always the best and it feels longer than it needs to be.
What's wild to me is some of these reviews being pissed off because the characters use adult language and there are a couple of queer characters just existing in the world. Including a non-binary pilot named Taka who is an absolute riot and I love them. It's funny to me this idea that having a queer character is okay, but ONLY if their sexuality is directly related the plot. Because if that's the case, then we should definitely complain about characters being depicted as heterosexual when it's not directly related to the plot. I mean, why do we need to know Han finds a female character attractive? Is it central to what's happening? If not, it's clearly just pushing a straight agenda, right? (hello double standards)
Anyway, while this may not be the strongest book in the new Star Wars cannon, it's still a good time.
Discussion Video/Vlog: https://youtu.be/oeN_QS8ooyQ
Not my favorite of the Star Wars books I've read, but certainly enjoyable. Last Shot is a buddy adventure where Han Solo and Lando have to take care of some trouble from the past. Han is a new dad struggling with his role and identity as a husband and father when he never expected to be either (Ben is a toddler). Lando might be for real falling in love for the first time. And the fate of the galaxy is at stake. Because of course. It's fun and has interesting character development, though the pacing isn't always the best and it feels longer than it needs to be.
What's wild to me is some of these reviews being pissed off because the characters use adult language and there are a couple of queer characters just existing in the world. Including a non-binary pilot named Taka who is an absolute riot and I love them. It's funny to me this idea that having a queer character is okay, but ONLY if their sexuality is directly related the plot. Because if that's the case, then we should definitely complain about characters being depicted as heterosexual when it's not directly related to the plot. I mean, why do we need to know Han finds a female character attractive? Is it central to what's happening? If not, it's clearly just pushing a straight agenda, right? (hello double standards)
Anyway, while this may not be the strongest book in the new Star Wars cannon, it's still a good time.
January 10, 2020
3.5 Stars for Last Shot: A Han and Lando novel. A Star Wars Disney canon novel (audiobook) By Daniel José Older read by Marc Thompson, Daniel José Older and January LaVoy. Disney went all out with this production. The voices for the characters was great. All the sound effects were fun. It’s always nice to see what your favorite characters are up to.
The writing seemed to let me down. Much of the writing seemed really juvenile. This is my first “Disney”Star Wars book. I hope this is not a trend. Good writing should be able to work for a wide audience. Disney, remember much of that original audience that watched the film in theater in 1977 is in there 50’s. This is not just for the kids. I’m going to reread Splinter of the Mind’s Eye next. I found my very yellowed copy from 1978. Alan Dean Foster is one of my favorite authors.
The writing seemed to let me down. Much of the writing seemed really juvenile. This is my first “Disney”Star Wars book. I hope this is not a trend. Good writing should be able to work for a wide audience. Disney, remember much of that original audience that watched the film in theater in 1977 is in there 50’s. This is not just for the kids. I’m going to reread Splinter of the Mind’s Eye next. I found my very yellowed copy from 1978. Alan Dean Foster is one of my favorite authors.
April 29, 2018
Good start, then the book just falls apart. The backstories are dull and (I did the Audible version) having the author do some of the narrating was awful. He had poor narration skills and was overly-smug of his own lackluster work. Marc Thompson and January LaVoy should have been left to the narration, alone. They are always engaging and exciting.
Do we really need to sexualize every female character?
Just a really boring story that goes somewhere...if you want to call nowhere, “somewhere.”
I’m not a huge fan of the new canon (especially the new trilogy) and Disney’s moves to change the old material to “Legends,” but the books by Claudia Gray are actually great.
Please have her and Timothy Zahn write more and get Daniel José Older out of the SW universe because he is awful
Do we really need to sexualize every female character?
Just a really boring story that goes somewhere...if you want to call nowhere, “somewhere.”
I’m not a huge fan of the new canon (especially the new trilogy) and Disney’s moves to change the old material to “Legends,” but the books by Claudia Gray are actually great.
Please have her and Timothy Zahn write more and get Daniel José Older out of the SW universe because he is awful
June 4, 2018
I'll stick with The Hutt Gambit for pre-ep IV Han and Lando, and The Last Command for Han struggling with fatherhood, thanks.
April 25, 2018
This could have been a good book. There was a lot going for Han and Lando in Last Shot and potential really was there. 2 old scoundrels, trying to figure out the semi-retired life post-rebellion era, and then suddenly thrust into recruitment once more against a threat that could being everything they loved and fought for to its end. It sounds like an exciting plot and it almost got there, until far too many stupid sub plots, characters and very obvious ramrodding of PC bullshit was jammed down the readers throats.
I guess I’ll begin by saying that there were some redeeming elements. The story itself is actually not all that bad. In a vacuum, pulled out from the majority of the idiotic moments, Last Shot’s main story line is fun and exciting. It never really slows down, and, like I said in my intro, there’s some moments of interesting character building between Han and Lando. There might also be some very small Easter eggs that will further the plot of the new Solo film which comes out later this year...
That being said, finding those positive attributes was the literary equivalent of pulling teeth since The Last Shot’s negatives far outweigh its positives.
First and foremost, Older’s modern take on language and vernacular of Star Wars characters was downright heretical. Sure, he writes ok and his style isn’t bad (at least it’s better than the insanely overrated Timothy Zahn), but good god, did every single moment of dialogue have to have some modern slang or saying. Star Wars takes place in a galaxy “far far away”, a galaxy, I might add, that is full of uncountable species and languages. Having every single character use contemporary jargon like “cool” and “butt” and “ass” was a slap in the face to fans. It’s a dumbing down of language and an attempt to get new readers into the franchise. Bring in new fans all you want, but cmon, stopping to the level of using current lingo in these books is just lazy and an obvious cash grab or attempt for Older to seem “down” with these readers. It reminds me of Chuck Wendig’s disastrous Aftermath series in which he used even worse slang like “kudos”.
I might have been able to see past that and just shrug off those choices as part of this new, uninspired wave of authors, but then the absolutely ridiculous choices of characters and their species made Last Shot even worse. I’ll try to list all I can remember: a gungan security guard, an Ewok hacker/splicer (I’m not joking), a bunch of creatures that absorb blaster fire, an Ughanaut that literally does nothing all book except sleep and be written in for (poorly executed) comic relief, a midget gangster thing that speaks in this horribly described and even more annoyingly written phonetic language, a Rodian who is somehow integral as a senator or some such crap of the New Republic, a bunch of droids (one named L337...seriously) that rebel against their makers, a badly conceived villain that hates organics, and a bunch of other ones that I chose to write off and forget about. No Star Wars novel is complete without a few weird species or imperfect descriptions, but it’s been a long time since I’ve read a story so full of shitty characters as Last Shot.
Finally, the nail in the coffin for me was the blatant and clearly devised PC crap that was sandwiched into this story. This is the 5th or 6th new Star Wars canon that just had to mention a minor character being gay. I get that ones sexual preference is sometimes the impetus for moral choices and actions and it worked in Paul Kemp’s Lords of the Sith but when a character who is mentioned exactly once and then it’s made incredibly clear this character is gay, it’s clear as a bell that there’s some kind of pandering to the homosexual agenda, just for the sake of it. I’ve read plenty of novels that feature gay or bi characters and it’s totally fine since, like I said, there sexuality and their lifestyle are huge reasons for the plot, but here it’s just totally pointless. Also pointless is the character of Taka, a “non binary” spy/pilot/whateverthehell. Again, why? Why do we even need this in a freaking Star Wars book! I’m all for diversity and non human main characters in a series that deals with those exact same thing, but in a story that should be revolving around epic space battles and the force and good vs. evil, having a person who can’t chose their gender in the midst of all this becomes incredibly distracting, confusing and, in all honesty, annoying as hell. I don’t need to try and sort out the meaning when the story says “Taka smiled and then they laughed”.
And here we are, 15 or 16 books into the new canon and I gotta wonder what good old Uncle George must be thinking. For the most part (Claudia Gray and Christie Golden being the exception), the new Star Wars novels have been a lesson in frustration and anger. I’m not saying every single Legends novel is great (Rogue Planet and Fatal Alliance are 2 that come to mind that definitely earned 1 star reviews in my book), but at least they didn’t feel so lazy and so uninspired. And they clearly didn’t try to keep pandering to the politically correct audience. I’m seriously wondering if Last Shot may be the last straw for me. I’m tired of disappointment and wasting my hard earned cash on Disney’s destruction of such a once great franchise.
I guess I’ll begin by saying that there were some redeeming elements. The story itself is actually not all that bad. In a vacuum, pulled out from the majority of the idiotic moments, Last Shot’s main story line is fun and exciting. It never really slows down, and, like I said in my intro, there’s some moments of interesting character building between Han and Lando. There might also be some very small Easter eggs that will further the plot of the new Solo film which comes out later this year...
That being said, finding those positive attributes was the literary equivalent of pulling teeth since The Last Shot’s negatives far outweigh its positives.
First and foremost, Older’s modern take on language and vernacular of Star Wars characters was downright heretical. Sure, he writes ok and his style isn’t bad (at least it’s better than the insanely overrated Timothy Zahn), but good god, did every single moment of dialogue have to have some modern slang or saying. Star Wars takes place in a galaxy “far far away”, a galaxy, I might add, that is full of uncountable species and languages. Having every single character use contemporary jargon like “cool” and “butt” and “ass” was a slap in the face to fans. It’s a dumbing down of language and an attempt to get new readers into the franchise. Bring in new fans all you want, but cmon, stopping to the level of using current lingo in these books is just lazy and an obvious cash grab or attempt for Older to seem “down” with these readers. It reminds me of Chuck Wendig’s disastrous Aftermath series in which he used even worse slang like “kudos”.
I might have been able to see past that and just shrug off those choices as part of this new, uninspired wave of authors, but then the absolutely ridiculous choices of characters and their species made Last Shot even worse. I’ll try to list all I can remember: a gungan security guard, an Ewok hacker/splicer (I’m not joking), a bunch of creatures that absorb blaster fire, an Ughanaut that literally does nothing all book except sleep and be written in for (poorly executed) comic relief, a midget gangster thing that speaks in this horribly described and even more annoyingly written phonetic language, a Rodian who is somehow integral as a senator or some such crap of the New Republic, a bunch of droids (one named L337...seriously) that rebel against their makers, a badly conceived villain that hates organics, and a bunch of other ones that I chose to write off and forget about. No Star Wars novel is complete without a few weird species or imperfect descriptions, but it’s been a long time since I’ve read a story so full of shitty characters as Last Shot.
Finally, the nail in the coffin for me was the blatant and clearly devised PC crap that was sandwiched into this story. This is the 5th or 6th new Star Wars canon that just had to mention a minor character being gay. I get that ones sexual preference is sometimes the impetus for moral choices and actions and it worked in Paul Kemp’s Lords of the Sith but when a character who is mentioned exactly once and then it’s made incredibly clear this character is gay, it’s clear as a bell that there’s some kind of pandering to the homosexual agenda, just for the sake of it. I’ve read plenty of novels that feature gay or bi characters and it’s totally fine since, like I said, there sexuality and their lifestyle are huge reasons for the plot, but here it’s just totally pointless. Also pointless is the character of Taka, a “non binary” spy/pilot/whateverthehell. Again, why? Why do we even need this in a freaking Star Wars book! I’m all for diversity and non human main characters in a series that deals with those exact same thing, but in a story that should be revolving around epic space battles and the force and good vs. evil, having a person who can’t chose their gender in the midst of all this becomes incredibly distracting, confusing and, in all honesty, annoying as hell. I don’t need to try and sort out the meaning when the story says “Taka smiled and then they laughed”.
And here we are, 15 or 16 books into the new canon and I gotta wonder what good old Uncle George must be thinking. For the most part (Claudia Gray and Christie Golden being the exception), the new Star Wars novels have been a lesson in frustration and anger. I’m not saying every single Legends novel is great (Rogue Planet and Fatal Alliance are 2 that come to mind that definitely earned 1 star reviews in my book), but at least they didn’t feel so lazy and so uninspired. And they clearly didn’t try to keep pandering to the politically correct audience. I’m seriously wondering if Last Shot may be the last straw for me. I’m tired of disappointment and wasting my hard earned cash on Disney’s destruction of such a once great franchise.
April 27, 2018
Set in the month's following Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, Daniel José Older explores the rise of a singular threat in a post-Imperial galaxy. In the book's opening moments, Lando Calrissian is attacked in his home on Cloud City by a mysterious hooded figure demanding the Phylanx Redux Transmitter, a mouthful of a galaxy-changing MacGuffin if ever there was one. While Lando doesn't possess this transmitter, he learns that its last known whereabouts were aboard the Millennium Falcon, leading him straight to his ol' buddy Han. Soon enough, the two scoundrels have assembled a new team to help them as they rocket across the galaxy in search of this mysterious device and a rouge evil scientist, Fyzen Gor, who Han encountered ten years previously.
The big draw behind Star Wars: Last Shot, of course, is Han and Lando themselves. Older does a remarkable job bringing Lando to life here, capturing the sleek, cool style of Billy Dee Williams, with a particular eye towards the character's penchant for fashion. Knowing that the clothes make the man, Lando's always been the best-dressed smuggler in the galaxy, and Older pays particular attention to that, as well, describing the man's careful deliberation when it comes to selecting his clothing for events and encounters, as well as a closet full of stylish and colorful capes.
Lando, of course, is off-set by his partner in crime, and Han is as rumpled and grumpy as ever as he tries to cope with fatherhood. With the Imperial Empire run off to the Outer Rim, Han is struggling with his place in life and the oftentimes stationary requirements of being a husband and father. He wants to roam free among the stars, and instead finds himself dealing with a screaming two-year-old whose sleep has been interrupted by noisome droids and urgent late-night calls for Leia. Of course, once free of familial commitments, Han longs to return. As a father of a two-year-old myself, I could sympathize with Han and his emotional and psychological state pretty well here, particularly as he attempts to soothe his distraught son and steps on a bunch of Lucasfilm's Lego-equivalent blocks.
While Older gives us plenty of insight into Han and Lando, and injects a handful of new diverse characters into the Star Wars universe (an Ewok hacker, an agender pilot [as with Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, you can expect lots and lots and lots of pearl-clutching from the anti-diversity, cultural homogeneity-only crowd for this book, too!], a Twi'lek love interest for Lando), he's also sure to pack in plenty of action that help wrinkle the plot and stymie the search for the transmitter. There's also some intriguing looks at the results of Gor's Frankensteinian experiments and the cult that has formed around them. The story itself is unraveled across three time-lines, with the events of the present-day story informed by Lando's and Han's individual, and unwitting, encounters with Fyzen Gor and Phylanx Redux Transmitter in the previous decades.
For the audio edition, Random House has brought in three narrators to tackle the various story threads. Marc Thompson handles the bulk of the novel, with Older narrating Han's story from ten years ago, and January LaVoy reading Lando's segments set twenty years prior. While Last Story probably didn't need three narrators to get the job done, the various performances help shake things up a bit. Thompson, a Star Wars audiobook staple, does a fantastic job as expected. His performances are consistently excellent, and Last Shot is no exception. His performance of Lando is exceptional, and he does a solidly gruff Han Solo, too. If I have any quibble at all, it's in his performance as Taka Jamoreesa, a twenty-something hotshot pilot, who Thompson reads with an annoyingly Jack Black-esque inflection. LaVoy taps into Lando's vocal mannerisms with a cool, entertaining reading. Older does a solid job, although his presentation is not as professionally refined as his co-narrators. Rounding it all out is the usual high-level production quality of a Star Wars audiobook, with the narration enhanced with sound effects, music, and voice digitization for droid characters. All in all, Last Shot makes for an easy, captivating listen that's a heck of a lot of fun.
Readers looking for a solid bit of entertainment fueled by two of the most popular characters in Star Wars should find a lot to enjoy in Last Shot. I'm always game for more Han and Lando adventures, though, so I'm hoping Older is able to return to this galaxy far, far away for at least one more outing. It'd be a shame if this were his last and only shot with these characters.
The big draw behind Star Wars: Last Shot, of course, is Han and Lando themselves. Older does a remarkable job bringing Lando to life here, capturing the sleek, cool style of Billy Dee Williams, with a particular eye towards the character's penchant for fashion. Knowing that the clothes make the man, Lando's always been the best-dressed smuggler in the galaxy, and Older pays particular attention to that, as well, describing the man's careful deliberation when it comes to selecting his clothing for events and encounters, as well as a closet full of stylish and colorful capes.
Lando, of course, is off-set by his partner in crime, and Han is as rumpled and grumpy as ever as he tries to cope with fatherhood. With the Imperial Empire run off to the Outer Rim, Han is struggling with his place in life and the oftentimes stationary requirements of being a husband and father. He wants to roam free among the stars, and instead finds himself dealing with a screaming two-year-old whose sleep has been interrupted by noisome droids and urgent late-night calls for Leia. Of course, once free of familial commitments, Han longs to return. As a father of a two-year-old myself, I could sympathize with Han and his emotional and psychological state pretty well here, particularly as he attempts to soothe his distraught son and steps on a bunch of Lucasfilm's Lego-equivalent blocks.
While Older gives us plenty of insight into Han and Lando, and injects a handful of new diverse characters into the Star Wars universe (an Ewok hacker, an agender pilot [as with Wendig's Aftermath trilogy, you can expect lots and lots and lots of pearl-clutching from the anti-diversity, cultural homogeneity-only crowd for this book, too!], a Twi'lek love interest for Lando), he's also sure to pack in plenty of action that help wrinkle the plot and stymie the search for the transmitter. There's also some intriguing looks at the results of Gor's Frankensteinian experiments and the cult that has formed around them. The story itself is unraveled across three time-lines, with the events of the present-day story informed by Lando's and Han's individual, and unwitting, encounters with Fyzen Gor and Phylanx Redux Transmitter in the previous decades.
For the audio edition, Random House has brought in three narrators to tackle the various story threads. Marc Thompson handles the bulk of the novel, with Older narrating Han's story from ten years ago, and January LaVoy reading Lando's segments set twenty years prior. While Last Story probably didn't need three narrators to get the job done, the various performances help shake things up a bit. Thompson, a Star Wars audiobook staple, does a fantastic job as expected. His performances are consistently excellent, and Last Shot is no exception. His performance of Lando is exceptional, and he does a solidly gruff Han Solo, too. If I have any quibble at all, it's in his performance as Taka Jamoreesa, a twenty-something hotshot pilot, who Thompson reads with an annoyingly Jack Black-esque inflection. LaVoy taps into Lando's vocal mannerisms with a cool, entertaining reading. Older does a solid job, although his presentation is not as professionally refined as his co-narrators. Rounding it all out is the usual high-level production quality of a Star Wars audiobook, with the narration enhanced with sound effects, music, and voice digitization for droid characters. All in all, Last Shot makes for an easy, captivating listen that's a heck of a lot of fun.
Readers looking for a solid bit of entertainment fueled by two of the most popular characters in Star Wars should find a lot to enjoy in Last Shot. I'm always game for more Han and Lando adventures, though, so I'm hoping Older is able to return to this galaxy far, far away for at least one more outing. It'd be a shame if this were his last and only shot with these characters.
July 16, 2018
"Leia gave him the look that meant she was waiting for him to say more. Bur what else was there to say? Besides everything, of course. They'd only been apart for a couple of days and he'd already felt the absence of having someone to talk about all the little nonsenses of his day with. No, not just someone, her. Leia, who knew when to push him and when to let him be. Leia, who understood his silences as clearly as his words. Leia, who still fell asleep holding him tight sometimes, like if she let go she’d float away."
This was such a fun read with little sprinkles of deep emotion. The characterization of Han, Lando and Leia were so on point that I immediately started reading their lines in their voices. There was so much more Han/Leia then I expected, which was all GLORIOUS. Their relationship has grown so much in those few years after ROTJ and they are just so wonderful... as you can see from the quote I included at the top of this review.
Lando was also so fleshed out and I really enjoyed seeing him in the past with L3 (my heart!) and in the "present" with Kaasha (my heart!!). Sana Starros is always a bright spot in my life so her inclusion in LAST SHOT was such a great surprise!
The supporting characters were lovable and diverse (a nonbinary main supporting character is always a plus!!) and I loved how Chewie got dragged into the mess and the Wookies' connection to the mystery.
The villain in LAST SHOT was one of the weaker points for me, to be honest. I didn't have a good handle on why he was doing what he was doing. But all of the dialogue between the characters was so fun that I could look over a lot of the confusing motives when it came to the villain and some of the fight scenes that were hard to follow. I also had a hard time in the middle keeping up with all of the switches in timelines, but the last and first 1/4 of the novel had pretty smooth transitions so it wasn't a huge issue in the end.
I really, really enjoyed how this novel centered on Han's struggles adjusting to fatherhood. I'm sure that any new father can relate to his feeling inadequate, but it's so strong with Han because he doesn't feel he deserves to be a father or a husband, really. He grew up mostly without a father and didn't have a lot of strong father figures in his life. But Leia and Lando help him realize that he is trying his best and all new parents face these issues. It's heartwarming and soul crushing when you know what's to come....
On that note. Baby Ben Solo is everything to me. This is all. “The boy had seemed to light up the whole world when he'd first arrived: this simple, impossible sliver of hope amid so much death and destruction.”
One of the most FUN additions to the SW canon - pairs nicely with the joy of SOLO.
4 stars!
May 27, 2018
This came out just in time for the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, which centers around the galaxy's favorite smuggler Han Solo. And I am telling you, I was ready. And while the film ended up being a positive surprise, this novel somehow left me with an odd feeling.
The book takes place after The Return of the Jedi, which means we meet Han Solo as a struggling father and husband. Unsurprisingly, he does not really know how to take care of his son Ben despite trying his best and is still adjusting to his new role.
That idea that he would struggle with living an ordinary life with responsibilities is believable, yet I kept wondering whether I really wanted that kind of demystification of his character. I enjoyed seeing him as we met him in the original film trilogy: this ruthless bad boy with the inevitable good heart.
Meanwhile, Lando has his own problems. Up in Cloud City he not only suspects having developed deeper feelings for his Twi'lek friend Kaasha, but has also some issues to solve when one of his protocol droids suddenly tries to attack him. What follows is an action adventure in which Solo and Lando have to find the transmitter causing this mess and fight off its creator, a villainous Pau'an that goes by the name Fyzen Gor.
We do a lot of jumping back and forth in time. The novel is basically set at three different times, so while we follow the present story line we get equally as much from flashback sequences in which we see Han and Lando being their younger selves. I appreciated the experimental stylistic approach, yet it didn't always work for me personally, as there were so many newly introduced characters that it was occasionally difficult to keep up with who was from a past story line and who was relevant in the present.
Speaking of the characters though - I immensely enjoyed the diversity: we meet droids, Twi'leks, Gungans, Ewoks and Wookies. And it this sort of mix that makes the Star Wars feel so alive and fun and weird. Some of the characters are non-binary, others speak languages that we just simply can't understand (even though I really wish it wasn't just non-sense) and even the races amongst themselves are prejudiced (ah look, just like in the real world...). There is a scene in which Lando meets a Gungan and is instantly called out for making a rather racist remark. Yes!
Having all that said, the dialogue sometimes didn't feel like it belonged in the universe. I just can't picture a Star Wars character calling someone else buddy and there were a few interactions and even inner monologues that just made me raise an eyebrow. Occasionally, the characters we are familiar with didn't feel accurately portrayed, but overdrawn and more like caricatures of themselves.
All in all, this was a neat little novel that served well as an addition to the Solo film. It picks up on some of the novels tidbits nicely (for example the hints at Lando being pansexual, the appearance of the droid L3), but somehow felt too un-Star-Wars and confusing at times to really make a lasting impact.
The book takes place after The Return of the Jedi, which means we meet Han Solo as a struggling father and husband. Unsurprisingly, he does not really know how to take care of his son Ben despite trying his best and is still adjusting to his new role.
That idea that he would struggle with living an ordinary life with responsibilities is believable, yet I kept wondering whether I really wanted that kind of demystification of his character. I enjoyed seeing him as we met him in the original film trilogy: this ruthless bad boy with the inevitable good heart.
Meanwhile, Lando has his own problems. Up in Cloud City he not only suspects having developed deeper feelings for his Twi'lek friend Kaasha, but has also some issues to solve when one of his protocol droids suddenly tries to attack him. What follows is an action adventure in which Solo and Lando have to find the transmitter causing this mess and fight off its creator, a villainous Pau'an that goes by the name Fyzen Gor.
We do a lot of jumping back and forth in time. The novel is basically set at three different times, so while we follow the present story line we get equally as much from flashback sequences in which we see Han and Lando being their younger selves. I appreciated the experimental stylistic approach, yet it didn't always work for me personally, as there were so many newly introduced characters that it was occasionally difficult to keep up with who was from a past story line and who was relevant in the present.
Speaking of the characters though - I immensely enjoyed the diversity: we meet droids, Twi'leks, Gungans, Ewoks and Wookies. And it this sort of mix that makes the Star Wars feel so alive and fun and weird. Some of the characters are non-binary, others speak languages that we just simply can't understand (even though I really wish it wasn't just non-sense) and even the races amongst themselves are prejudiced (ah look, just like in the real world...). There is a scene in which Lando meets a Gungan and is instantly called out for making a rather racist remark. Yes!
Having all that said, the dialogue sometimes didn't feel like it belonged in the universe. I just can't picture a Star Wars character calling someone else buddy and there were a few interactions and even inner monologues that just made me raise an eyebrow. Occasionally, the characters we are familiar with didn't feel accurately portrayed, but overdrawn and more like caricatures of themselves.
All in all, this was a neat little novel that served well as an addition to the Solo film. It picks up on some of the novels tidbits nicely (for example the hints at Lando being pansexual, the appearance of the droid L3), but somehow felt too un-Star-Wars and confusing at times to really make a lasting impact.
May 6, 2019
4 stars
This was pretty good but had some minor things that kept it from 5 stars
The world building was brilliant. It's what really defines the Star Wars universe from me that there's just so much diversity and it just jumps off the page.
The vividness and the creatures we meet are just fantastic.
No one does world building like Star Wars.
The characters are good and it focuses on Han and Lando of course.
They have developed and matured( sort of) and it really works in terms of what they hope for their future.
Chewie is there (RIP to Peter Mayhew the original Chewbacca who sadly passed away on April 30) of course as are some other very familiar faces.
The plot is a little convoluted and the pacing too slow for much of it. It certainly improves near the end and there's some excellent easter eggs for those who are familiar with the Star Wars universe.
Overall a good foray into the lives of Han and Lando and an interesting addition to Star Wars canon.
This was pretty good but had some minor things that kept it from 5 stars
The world building was brilliant. It's what really defines the Star Wars universe from me that there's just so much diversity and it just jumps off the page.
The vividness and the creatures we meet are just fantastic.
No one does world building like Star Wars.
The characters are good and it focuses on Han and Lando of course.
They have developed and matured( sort of) and it really works in terms of what they hope for their future.
Chewie is there (RIP to Peter Mayhew the original Chewbacca who sadly passed away on April 30) of course as are some other very familiar faces.
The plot is a little convoluted and the pacing too slow for much of it. It certainly improves near the end and there's some excellent easter eggs for those who are familiar with the Star Wars universe.
Overall a good foray into the lives of Han and Lando and an interesting addition to Star Wars canon.
April 24, 2018
I just siiigh I WANT to like this new Han stuff but this was just... so bad.
Like I don't want to bash someone who goes out and actually is able to write a book but this was seriously awful. From characterization to plot to style.
If this was Han and Lando and Leia I couldn't tell. The plot was often unnessacary and forced, I could have pulled out so many useless pages--what is with describing them getting dressed so much--and been left with maybe 30. This probably would have been better as a short story.
The style was corny, overthetop, and the idea of flashbacks did not work out for me. It was choppy and pointless to drag them out so long. It felt like a means to fluff up the page count.
I'm so hesitant to read the next one.
Like I don't want to bash someone who goes out and actually is able to write a book but this was seriously awful. From characterization to plot to style.
If this was Han and Lando and Leia I couldn't tell. The plot was often unnessacary and forced, I could have pulled out so many useless pages--what is with describing them getting dressed so much--and been left with maybe 30. This probably would have been better as a short story.
The style was corny, overthetop, and the idea of flashbacks did not work out for me. It was choppy and pointless to drag them out so long. It felt like a means to fluff up the page count.
I'm so hesitant to read the next one.
November 1, 2018
As much as I love Disney, I think it's become even more apparent that they've ruined Star Wars. After the poor reception that The Last Jedi and Solo got, they may have pushed this once-beloved franchise past the point of no return.
This book is even further evidence of that: badly written, confusing storylines, sexual references, and the most profanities I've seen in an Expanded Universe book since the much-maligned The Crystal Star.
If you're a longtime fan of the pre-Mouse version of Lucas' space opera, do yourself a favor and go read some of the novels that have since been relegated to Legends status. They're almost always vastly superior to this dreck.
This book is even further evidence of that: badly written, confusing storylines, sexual references, and the most profanities I've seen in an Expanded Universe book since the much-maligned The Crystal Star.
If you're a longtime fan of the pre-Mouse version of Lucas' space opera, do yourself a favor and go read some of the novels that have since been relegated to Legends status. They're almost always vastly superior to this dreck.
May 28, 2018
In terms of sheer mediocrity, this is definitely not the worst Star Wars book I've read, or even in the Disney canon. But it still made me think "is there really nobody who can look at a final product like this and say 'this just isn't good enough'?" It's an incredibly dumb premise – a surgeon goes mad and creates a cult that worships droids by creating fusions of droid bodies and organic limbs, and then tries to reprogram all droids to kill everyone – but in an insipid boilerplate way that is very familiar for bottom tier Star Wars content. It could have been a dumb fun story, at least at some level, but instead it stretches that story out through an incredibly ambitious structure that weaves between like six point of view characters and three different eras. Each section is extremely short and does a poor job establishing setting, context, motivation, key events, and even the simple choreography of its interminable action sequences. The result is a finely chopped mush that coasts limply through a long list of irrelevant story beats without ever producing a single moment of drama.
Aside from being one of the dumbest plots in Star Wars in a while (which is definitely saying something), it seems clear that this plot was to give L3 something meaningful to play off against. But even overlooking the fact that the story is so incompetently put together that the reveal of L3's squad of droid crusaders is more confusing than cool, that all just seems like a huge afterthought to the story. There are two clear character arcs, even if they don't seem to inform anything that actually happens in the story: Hn struggles to be a father and a husband, and Lando struggles to commit to a romantic partner. L3 appears in like three scenes total; the supplemental story that should be making up for her untimely demise in the movie just treats her exactly the same way. Not to mention the fact that, as an arc for her, this plot offers little to work with. Gor isn’t even a radical in pursuit of the same goals; he’s a madman trying to impose an even more extreme version of the thing she’s already fighting against.
I was a bit trepidatious about this book because Older's entry in From a Certain Point of View is one of those that tries really, really hard to be funny and is not funny at all. I didn't hold that against him too much because no stories in the book are good, but some of the authors in it have done good, less tongue-in-cheek, work elsewhere. Unfortunately, Last Shot has some of that same sense of humor. There is a Gungan side character who does nothing in the story except be well spoken and deliver a rant about stereotypes. There is an Ewok slicer who, again, adds nothing to the story as a character and seems to exist only as a punchline. Han and Lando rarely sound at all authentic to their characters, L3 pretty explicitly talks and acts out of character for all of the few scenes she's in, and Chewbacca's Shyriiwook is for some reason paraphrased into acerbic banter. And I don't really feel like getting into how none of this seems to tie into Solo at all, or how the jumping around chronologically serves to essentially erase the dramatic differences in character and the state of the universe across the timeline, or how its noncommittal incorporation of storylines from other recent books and comics somehow makes the scope of the new canon feel even smaller than it actually is.
Aside from being one of the dumbest plots in Star Wars in a while (which is definitely saying something), it seems clear that this plot was to give L3 something meaningful to play off against. But even overlooking the fact that the story is so incompetently put together that the reveal of L3's squad of droid crusaders is more confusing than cool, that all just seems like a huge afterthought to the story. There are two clear character arcs, even if they don't seem to inform anything that actually happens in the story: Hn struggles to be a father and a husband, and Lando struggles to commit to a romantic partner. L3 appears in like three scenes total; the supplemental story that should be making up for her untimely demise in the movie just treats her exactly the same way. Not to mention the fact that, as an arc for her, this plot offers little to work with. Gor isn’t even a radical in pursuit of the same goals; he’s a madman trying to impose an even more extreme version of the thing she’s already fighting against.
I was a bit trepidatious about this book because Older's entry in From a Certain Point of View is one of those that tries really, really hard to be funny and is not funny at all. I didn't hold that against him too much because no stories in the book are good, but some of the authors in it have done good, less tongue-in-cheek, work elsewhere. Unfortunately, Last Shot has some of that same sense of humor. There is a Gungan side character who does nothing in the story except be well spoken and deliver a rant about stereotypes. There is an Ewok slicer who, again, adds nothing to the story as a character and seems to exist only as a punchline. Han and Lando rarely sound at all authentic to their characters, L3 pretty explicitly talks and acts out of character for all of the few scenes she's in, and Chewbacca's Shyriiwook is for some reason paraphrased into acerbic banter. And I don't really feel like getting into how none of this seems to tie into Solo at all, or how the jumping around chronologically serves to essentially erase the dramatic differences in character and the state of the universe across the timeline, or how its noncommittal incorporation of storylines from other recent books and comics somehow makes the scope of the new canon feel even smaller than it actually is.
April 29, 2018
Woof. Thoroughly disappointed with this one. The writing style ruined it for me (not the "swear words" or the characters or the quibbles with Legends carryover)... bouncing back and forth between different eras and storylines and points-of-view made it impossible to get into or really understand the plot at all. It only worked when Older stuck with one era for more than a chapter or two at a time, and that felt rare. I'm fine with flashbacks and multiple storylines/points-of-view, but too many, too often and it turned into a confusing mash of nonsense.
And that's nothing to say of the plot itself... which was weak for a Lando/Han novel set up as the "one to read" before Solo.
This borders on a one-star review for me, but I did enjoy reading Han and Lando in action again on some level. Bringing them into the TFA/TLJ world of Leia and Mon Mothma was fun for the brief moments it felt like it was happening, though I would've preferred a real prequel book to Solo. Maybe it'll earn the 2-3 star rating after I see that movie next month. I'm doubtful.
And that's nothing to say of the plot itself... which was weak for a Lando/Han novel set up as the "one to read" before Solo.
This borders on a one-star review for me, but I did enjoy reading Han and Lando in action again on some level. Bringing them into the TFA/TLJ world of Leia and Mon Mothma was fun for the brief moments it felt like it was happening, though I would've preferred a real prequel book to Solo. Maybe it'll earn the 2-3 star rating after I see that movie next month. I'm doubtful.
August 2, 2018
Far back in the mists of time, when I was but a fledgling Star Wars fan, Palitoy ran a competition wherein, in order to win a shedload of action figures, the contestant was presented with a cliffhanger page from a specially commissioned Star Wars comic and had free rein to continue the story in any way they saw fit. The last panel of this comic showed a desert scene, with a mysterious hand reaching outwards.
Being the young droid-fan that I was, I concocted a story in which this flesh hand was in fact attached to a droid body, and that this droid was seeking out parts of other beings in order to repair itself.
I submitted my entry to the competition, and to no-one’s surprise, I totally failed to win. This might have had something to do with under-10 me’s total lack of artistic or literary talent. Then again, it might have been something to do with the fact that this concept was one of the most hackneyed tropes in science fiction already (I can think of examples from Doctor Who and Blake’s 7, as well as the movie Saturn 3).
In 2018 Daniel José Older has used this trope as the backbone for the most abysmal entry in the new Star Wars canon that I have yet read. Not only that, he has welded it to half of a droid-revolution plot thieved from Kevin J. Anderson’s awful IG-88 short-story Therefore I Am from Tales of the Bounty Hunters.
The book is in actuality a straightforward macguffin hunt, wrestled and twisted into a repetitive yet somehow totally incoherent non-linear timeline plot. The book chops and changes between time periods with no rhyme or reason - some chapters are short (2 pages or less), and some are longer. Sometimes there is a run of several chapters in the same time period with the same characters, sometimes it just leaps to another time period randomly.
What’s more, the writing style is ghastly - a kind of slovenly YA book masquerading as a novel for adults. Take these excerpts as representative:
“Her mouth was open and she was snoring ever so slightly, and a bit of drool had slipped out, which normally might be icky but somehow seemed charming.
Because Kaasha.”
“A second squad of Sef Con guards had bustled around the corner up ahead. These had some kind of snarling beasties on chains.” - Some kind of?
“Fyzen knew it was correct, but this was how he had always arrived at scientific conclusions—by trodding step by obvious step…” - Trodding?
“It stung his face and smelled like a swamp fart.”
“Peekpa’s data pad shrieked excitedly and so did Peekpa.”
All throughout the novel the protagonists find themselves in what should be terrifying life threatening situations, and yet they are written as if they are enjoying a light hearted afternoon at the pub whilst being irritated by a couple of persistent wasps. The dialogue simply does not match the seriousness of the situation. In a normal action scene, a well-placed one liner serves to punctuate the tension. In this novel, the relentless matter-of-factness just punctures the tension.
In addition to this flaccid lack of drama, Older tries to raise the stakes by putting Han's infant son briefly (ever so briefly) at risk, but when you realise that this is the kid that grows up to be the patricidal maniac Kylo Ren, it is difficult to give a damn, and the attempt at drama falls flat. (Also, why is Leia's BX droid giving coffee to kid Ben Swolo?)
This book also has the temerity to imply that the threat that Lando and Han face is of the same magnitude as the one they defeated in the second Death Star - and that is just a plain insult to the Empire, the Rebellion, and to Return of the Jedi itself.
Also, sloppy continuity - does Fyzen Gor have F-9 gunships, or F-99 gunships? The reader wants to know, gosh darn it!
And as if the organic/technological hybrid theme wasn’t hammered home unsubtly enough, the climax takes place on a vessel constructed entirely from space junk. I was half expecting Locutus of Borg to pop up and demand Lando escort them to sector zero zero one for a good assimilation session.
From the use of the daft red-robot-eyes-means-evil trope to the hey-lets-have-an-ewok-as-an-expert-slicer idiocy, this book does not feel as if was written with the expectation that adults would be reading it. This book is a failure of plotting, structure and style. Which is a shame, because I enjoyed Older’s contribution to From a Certain Point of View.
I started this book in late April, in preparation for the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story. It has taken me more than three months to slog through it. It is only sheer bloody-minded stubbornness that has allowed me to finish it. In between starting this and completing it I have read ten other novels, including two other, better, Star Wars novels.
Seriously, you don't have to read this book - and this is coming from someone who has finished The Crystal Star and The Ruins of Dantooine. I'd take Dusque Mistflier over Kaasha and Peekpa any day of the week.
Being the young droid-fan that I was, I concocted a story in which this flesh hand was in fact attached to a droid body, and that this droid was seeking out parts of other beings in order to repair itself.
I submitted my entry to the competition, and to no-one’s surprise, I totally failed to win. This might have had something to do with under-10 me’s total lack of artistic or literary talent. Then again, it might have been something to do with the fact that this concept was one of the most hackneyed tropes in science fiction already (I can think of examples from Doctor Who and Blake’s 7, as well as the movie Saturn 3).
In 2018 Daniel José Older has used this trope as the backbone for the most abysmal entry in the new Star Wars canon that I have yet read. Not only that, he has welded it to half of a droid-revolution plot thieved from Kevin J. Anderson’s awful IG-88 short-story Therefore I Am from Tales of the Bounty Hunters.
The book is in actuality a straightforward macguffin hunt, wrestled and twisted into a repetitive yet somehow totally incoherent non-linear timeline plot. The book chops and changes between time periods with no rhyme or reason - some chapters are short (2 pages or less), and some are longer. Sometimes there is a run of several chapters in the same time period with the same characters, sometimes it just leaps to another time period randomly.
What’s more, the writing style is ghastly - a kind of slovenly YA book masquerading as a novel for adults. Take these excerpts as representative:
“Her mouth was open and she was snoring ever so slightly, and a bit of drool had slipped out, which normally might be icky but somehow seemed charming.
Because Kaasha.”
“A second squad of Sef Con guards had bustled around the corner up ahead. These had some kind of snarling beasties on chains.” - Some kind of?
“Fyzen knew it was correct, but this was how he had always arrived at scientific conclusions—by trodding step by obvious step…” - Trodding?
“It stung his face and smelled like a swamp fart.”
“Peekpa’s data pad shrieked excitedly and so did Peekpa.”
All throughout the novel the protagonists find themselves in what should be terrifying life threatening situations, and yet they are written as if they are enjoying a light hearted afternoon at the pub whilst being irritated by a couple of persistent wasps. The dialogue simply does not match the seriousness of the situation. In a normal action scene, a well-placed one liner serves to punctuate the tension. In this novel, the relentless matter-of-factness just punctures the tension.
In addition to this flaccid lack of drama, Older tries to raise the stakes by putting Han's infant son briefly (ever so briefly) at risk, but when you realise that this is the kid that grows up to be the patricidal maniac Kylo Ren, it is difficult to give a damn, and the attempt at drama falls flat. (Also, why is Leia's BX droid giving coffee to kid Ben Swolo?)
This book also has the temerity to imply that the threat that Lando and Han face is of the same magnitude as the one they defeated in the second Death Star - and that is just a plain insult to the Empire, the Rebellion, and to Return of the Jedi itself.
Also, sloppy continuity - does Fyzen Gor have F-9 gunships, or F-99 gunships? The reader wants to know, gosh darn it!
And as if the organic/technological hybrid theme wasn’t hammered home unsubtly enough, the climax takes place on a vessel constructed entirely from space junk. I was half expecting Locutus of Borg to pop up and demand Lando escort them to sector zero zero one for a good assimilation session.
From the use of the daft red-robot-eyes-means-evil trope to the hey-lets-have-an-ewok-as-an-expert-slicer idiocy, this book does not feel as if was written with the expectation that adults would be reading it. This book is a failure of plotting, structure and style. Which is a shame, because I enjoyed Older’s contribution to From a Certain Point of View.
I started this book in late April, in preparation for the movie Solo: A Star Wars Story. It has taken me more than three months to slog through it. It is only sheer bloody-minded stubbornness that has allowed me to finish it. In between starting this and completing it I have read ten other novels, including two other, better, Star Wars novels.
Seriously, you don't have to read this book - and this is coming from someone who has finished The Crystal Star and The Ruins of Dantooine. I'd take Dusque Mistflier over Kaasha and Peekpa any day of the week.
May 5, 2018
So. This book had an Ewok in it, which is always a good start. I do not determine my ratings solely on the presence or absence of Ewoks, but they are appreciated when they appear.
Beyond Peekpa, this was a very fun Han and Lando adventure story. Remembering to make Star Wars fun is in fact something that factors into my score. Also there are scenes from Lando's POV where he thinks of himself like a female character being written by a male author and I can absolutely buy him doing that. Definitely an enjoyable one.
Beyond Peekpa, this was a very fun Han and Lando adventure story. Remembering to make Star Wars fun is in fact something that factors into my score. Also there are scenes from Lando's POV where he thinks of himself like a female character being written by a male author and I can absolutely buy him doing that. Definitely an enjoyable one.
April 12, 2018
You’ll want to pick up a copy of this book when it releases on Tuesday. Trust me.
April 16, 2023
i listen to the audiobook and i did not enjoy ANY of the narrators, i just feel like none of them fit the characters? the only one that worked for me was older lando.
anyway on to the book. the plot itself was terrible, i liked the characters and the people that we meet. i also liked seeing han’s solo struggle to be a father but for some reason i felt leia and han’s solo relationship felt off? like idk he made her seem like a nagging wife even though he clearly didn’t feel that way it just seemed like they weren’t very connected. the chemistry just was not there. sana starros being in this book kinda gagged me i cant lie, i haven’t read her comics but i read about her ancestor in the high republic and i just thought it was so cool i was introduced to sana in this novel. i cant wait to read her comics.
anyway on to the book. the plot itself was terrible, i liked the characters and the people that we meet. i also liked seeing han’s solo struggle to be a father but for some reason i felt leia and han’s solo relationship felt off? like idk he made her seem like a nagging wife even though he clearly didn’t feel that way it just seemed like they weren’t very connected. the chemistry just was not there. sana starros being in this book kinda gagged me i cant lie, i haven’t read her comics but i read about her ancestor in the high republic and i just thought it was so cool i was introduced to sana in this novel. i cant wait to read her comics.
February 5, 2023
So..... Yeah. This book definitely exists and it is not my favourite Star Wars story. I don't really feel like writing a not necessarily nice review, so I'll just leave it at that. I'm a bit disappointed because I loved DJO's other Star Wars works (specifically THR: Midnight Horizon) but I guess this one wasn't for me!
May 15, 2018
I'm a massive Star Wars fan and after finishing this I'm really disappointed. The writing isnt bad, I actually enjoyed the dialogue between Lando and Han but I feel like it was more of a Lando book though. I also feel like knowing the end game for these characters in other mediums, the plot was always going to be too simple. The stakes arent overly high because you know where they end up in a way. Hopefully the next Star Wars novel creates a cool character to follow.
July 15, 2018
Daniel Jose Older’s novel “Last Shot” is disappointing, to say the least, although die-hard Star Wars fans may find a few golden moments within its pages. Perhaps my expectations were too high, as a novel featuring strictly Han Solo and Lando Calrissian in a post-Episode VI adventure hasn’t really been done before.
Fans may recall Brian Daley’s Han Solo Adventures trilogy, published in 1979, L.Neil Smith’s Lando Calrissian Adventures trilogy, published in 1983, and A.C. Crispin’s 1997 trilogy, none of which is now official canon. Although flawed, and in many ways inconsistent even with the “Old Canon” mythos, they were silly good fun, reminiscent of the early sci-fi pulp novels that were highly influential to George Lucas’s original film “Star Wars”.
Older’s novel is silly and fun, but it’s not that good. Too much time is spent on flashbacks that don’t clarify their relevance to the present story. Too little time is spent on the friendship of Han and Lando, and, in fact, a majority of the novel sees both characters separating into two different storylines. Not enough time is spent explaining the motives and means of the villain, an insane doctor who wants to program droids to kill humans.
While some of the repartee is clever, there is simply too much dialogue. At times, “Last Shot” reads more like a bad screenplay.
Even more disappointing is the fact that it arrives on the heels of the release of “Solo: A Star Wars Story”, the second stand-alone film in the new canon. Directed by Ron Howard and written by Jonathon and Lawrence Kasdan, “Solo” is an amazingly entertaining film that highlights the early years of the charismatic rogue (played well by Alden Ehrenreich, who may not be Harrison Ford but still manages to exude boyish charm). The film’s brightest spot is Donald Glover’s spot-on performance as Lando. Glover brilliantly channels Billy Dee William’s swag, although he arguably has plenty of his own.
To his credit, Howard keeps the film fun and loose while also remembering to incorporate the heart that made “Star Wars” so successful. He also manages to remind us of the stakes that are involved for young Solo, who may not have any desire yet to join the Rebellion, but it doesn’t mean that seeds haven’t been planted.
Older could have taken some direction from Howard’s film. For that matter, he could have taken direction from any of the other past writers who have attempted to flesh out two of Lucas’s best-loved characters. Unfortunately, Older’s “Last Shot” was a dud.
Fans may recall Brian Daley’s Han Solo Adventures trilogy, published in 1979, L.Neil Smith’s Lando Calrissian Adventures trilogy, published in 1983, and A.C. Crispin’s 1997 trilogy, none of which is now official canon. Although flawed, and in many ways inconsistent even with the “Old Canon” mythos, they were silly good fun, reminiscent of the early sci-fi pulp novels that were highly influential to George Lucas’s original film “Star Wars”.
Older’s novel is silly and fun, but it’s not that good. Too much time is spent on flashbacks that don’t clarify their relevance to the present story. Too little time is spent on the friendship of Han and Lando, and, in fact, a majority of the novel sees both characters separating into two different storylines. Not enough time is spent explaining the motives and means of the villain, an insane doctor who wants to program droids to kill humans.
While some of the repartee is clever, there is simply too much dialogue. At times, “Last Shot” reads more like a bad screenplay.
Even more disappointing is the fact that it arrives on the heels of the release of “Solo: A Star Wars Story”, the second stand-alone film in the new canon. Directed by Ron Howard and written by Jonathon and Lawrence Kasdan, “Solo” is an amazingly entertaining film that highlights the early years of the charismatic rogue (played well by Alden Ehrenreich, who may not be Harrison Ford but still manages to exude boyish charm). The film’s brightest spot is Donald Glover’s spot-on performance as Lando. Glover brilliantly channels Billy Dee William’s swag, although he arguably has plenty of his own.
To his credit, Howard keeps the film fun and loose while also remembering to incorporate the heart that made “Star Wars” so successful. He also manages to remind us of the stakes that are involved for young Solo, who may not have any desire yet to join the Rebellion, but it doesn’t mean that seeds haven’t been planted.
Older could have taken some direction from Howard’s film. For that matter, he could have taken direction from any of the other past writers who have attempted to flesh out two of Lucas’s best-loved characters. Unfortunately, Older’s “Last Shot” was a dud.
April 27, 2018
It's a shame, because there were parts of this book that were done really well--some really nice Han and Lando moments in particular. But the story itself was far too messy, too overdone. The idea driving it was good, but the problems resided in the execution. I didn't even so much mind the jumping in time--that worked well enough. But scene to scene, things were muddled. The action and events were unclear, and scenes went on for far, far too long.
Also, and people mentioned this already, but the modern vernacular was awful. Not only because it doesn't fit the universe, but because it was deployed so inconsistently. Older seemed to drop in this modern slang for a line or two, withdraw from it, then seed it in again only to withdraw, over and over. It's not fitting, nor was it used well.
So, some good in here, but buried underneath a lot of bad.
Also, and people mentioned this already, but the modern vernacular was awful. Not only because it doesn't fit the universe, but because it was deployed so inconsistently. Older seemed to drop in this modern slang for a line or two, withdraw from it, then seed it in again only to withdraw, over and over. It's not fitting, nor was it used well.
So, some good in here, but buried underneath a lot of bad.
August 17, 2018
Please! LISTEN TO THIS AUDIOBOOK.
I finished this in 2 days and it was so fucking amazing. I searched for another audiobook with the same narrator and found one.
The book is told via the past and present which I missed for much of the book. They even used music from the original movies!
The 4 star rating is because I found it hard to follow along with the plot, struggled to keep up with who was who and ultimately didn't like the reveal.
But, I highly recommend this audiobook!!
I finished this in 2 days and it was so fucking amazing. I searched for another audiobook with the same narrator and found one.
The book is told via the past and present which I missed for much of the book. They even used music from the original movies!
The 4 star rating is because I found it hard to follow along with the plot, struggled to keep up with who was who and ultimately didn't like the reveal.
But, I highly recommend this audiobook!!
April 22, 2018
Fallen low the new canon has, just around the corner the end of Star Wars is.
February 21, 2025
1.5 rounded up
Despite one of my year’s plans for Star Wars-related reading being to check out books focused on Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, Daniel José Older’s “Last Shot” hadn’t been on that list originally. Confusingly set in a few different time periods, the book is about the duo (plus their associates) trying to find a MacGuffin created by a mad scientist that wants to take over the Galaxy with an army of droids. I ultimately listened to the audiobook for Last Shot as I’m a completionist, the fact I’m becoming a fan of Marc Thompson’s Star Wars narrations, and to see if there’s any new insight about these characters’ lives/personalities in their younger days and as they near middle age. Truthfully, the book is too messy to tell.
The biggest problem with the book is the narrative. Splitting the book into four different time periods makes the story way too disjointed to follow. Beyond established Star Wars characters it's hard to keep track of the characters and their objectives in each time period. Especially aggravating is Older’s decision to jump around between time periods at awkward points in the middle of action pieces in a vain attempt to create cliffhangers but really it just kills the momentum of each sequence. As for what’s actually happening with a cult that’s trying to merge organic and robotic life and start a galaxy wide droid uprising, I truly think that plot is too big for a solitary book and one that should have been given to a different set of characters. Marvel Comics had a similar storyline with “Dark Droids” and while I can’t say how well it did the robot uprising story, it at least seems to have been spread out with a much bigger impact. As is in Last Shot, there’s traces of a good conflict/story but Older in general wastes it.
Beyond the story, I am split on the main characters. As someone that’s usually been ambivalent about Han as a character but has been growing to appreciate him in the last few years and recent books I’ve read, the book’s treatment of Han is bad. It just really makes him seem more like a sloppy and clumsy loser across all eras and doesn’t make him feel like the competent hero he can be most of the time. He’s too often the butt of the joke here. Even his interactions with baby Ben Solo don't amount to much. Unlike Han, I did like Lando’s storyline in both time periods. Seeing him trying to continue to be the suave and sometimes sleazy player while also being heroic and considering what type of man he wants to be/finding love actually was a compelling arc. His story also adds a bit more to L3-37’s story past the events of “Solo” which I appreciated. I just think that Lando’s arc deserves a better book than this.
There’s a few frankly bizarre creative decisions throughout the book . A lot of the other reviews have mentioned the abundance of modern slang and the frequent use of the word “ass” does get weird after a while. A Star Wars project like “Andor” saying “sh*t” once was effective, the frequent use of “ass” just got a bit too “try hard” (the use of the word “orgy” even more so). As for characters, there’s some odd choices for supporting characters like an Ewok computer hacker. This only takes place <3 years after the Battle of Endor and they expect us to believe an Ewok became a top tier computer hacker in that time??? More believable is a Gungan prison warden who is the opposite of Jar Jar Binks and makes a point about calling out in-universe/meta assumptions about Gungans. It’s amusing enough.
As far as the audiobook is, Thompson and January LaVoy do the best with what they are given. Thompson does good work as always even if I found his voice for the character of Taka was aggravating. LaVoy meanwhile does solid work with the Lando flashbacks even if I think she doesn’t quite get L3’s voice/attitude. The audiobook falls short in the Han flashbacks where Older of all people is the narrator and unlike the other two who are professional VAs, he really isn’t good at voicing the characters/narrating the action of his own book.
In the end, the only meaningful thing I got out of “Last Shot” was traces of good character work on Lando. Everything else was a big misfire that squanders the potential of the main conflicts and particularly the main two in an otherwise unexplored part of their lives.
Despite one of my year’s plans for Star Wars-related reading being to check out books focused on Han Solo and Lando Calrissian, Daniel José Older’s “Last Shot” hadn’t been on that list originally. Confusingly set in a few different time periods, the book is about the duo (plus their associates) trying to find a MacGuffin created by a mad scientist that wants to take over the Galaxy with an army of droids. I ultimately listened to the audiobook for Last Shot as I’m a completionist, the fact I’m becoming a fan of Marc Thompson’s Star Wars narrations, and to see if there’s any new insight about these characters’ lives/personalities in their younger days and as they near middle age. Truthfully, the book is too messy to tell.
The biggest problem with the book is the narrative. Splitting the book into four different time periods makes the story way too disjointed to follow. Beyond established Star Wars characters it's hard to keep track of the characters and their objectives in each time period. Especially aggravating is Older’s decision to jump around between time periods at awkward points in the middle of action pieces in a vain attempt to create cliffhangers but really it just kills the momentum of each sequence. As for what’s actually happening with a cult that’s trying to merge organic and robotic life and start a galaxy wide droid uprising, I truly think that plot is too big for a solitary book and one that should have been given to a different set of characters. Marvel Comics had a similar storyline with “Dark Droids” and while I can’t say how well it did the robot uprising story, it at least seems to have been spread out with a much bigger impact. As is in Last Shot, there’s traces of a good conflict/story but Older in general wastes it.
Beyond the story, I am split on the main characters. As someone that’s usually been ambivalent about Han as a character but has been growing to appreciate him in the last few years and recent books I’ve read, the book’s treatment of Han is bad. It just really makes him seem more like a sloppy and clumsy loser across all eras and doesn’t make him feel like the competent hero he can be most of the time. He’s too often the butt of the joke here. Even his interactions with baby Ben Solo don't amount to much. Unlike Han, I did like Lando’s storyline in both time periods. Seeing him trying to continue to be the suave and sometimes sleazy player while also being heroic and considering what type of man he wants to be/finding love actually was a compelling arc. His story also adds a bit more to L3-37’s story past the events of “Solo” which I appreciated. I just think that Lando’s arc deserves a better book than this.
There’s a few frankly bizarre creative decisions throughout the book . A lot of the other reviews have mentioned the abundance of modern slang and the frequent use of the word “ass” does get weird after a while. A Star Wars project like “Andor” saying “sh*t” once was effective, the frequent use of “ass” just got a bit too “try hard” (the use of the word “orgy” even more so). As for characters, there’s some odd choices for supporting characters like an Ewok computer hacker. This only takes place <3 years after the Battle of Endor and they expect us to believe an Ewok became a top tier computer hacker in that time??? More believable is a Gungan prison warden who is the opposite of Jar Jar Binks and makes a point about calling out in-universe/meta assumptions about Gungans. It’s amusing enough.
As far as the audiobook is, Thompson and January LaVoy do the best with what they are given. Thompson does good work as always even if I found his voice for the character of Taka was aggravating. LaVoy meanwhile does solid work with the Lando flashbacks even if I think she doesn’t quite get L3’s voice/attitude. The audiobook falls short in the Han flashbacks where Older of all people is the narrator and unlike the other two who are professional VAs, he really isn’t good at voicing the characters/narrating the action of his own book.
In the end, the only meaningful thing I got out of “Last Shot” was traces of good character work on Lando. Everything else was a big misfire that squanders the potential of the main conflicts and particularly the main two in an otherwise unexplored part of their lives.
December 16, 2020
Last Shot is such a hot mess in so many ways. Daniel Jose Older actually manages to give Christie Golden a run for her money as the worst Star Wars author, which is really saying something. In the end, there are some worthwhile reflections on Han Solo's struggles with fatherhood and there is exactly one scene featuring L3-37 (Lando's droid sidekick from the film 'Solo') where everything stops being stupid and L3 gets a nice spotlight moment, as she pontificates about life and watches the stars streak past while in hyperspace. I felt like I'd suddenly started reading a chapter from a different book. But then that chapter was over and everything was stupid again. So anyway, those two things make Older a little higher than Golden on the quality scale, but that is damning with faint praise. So why was Last Shot so terrible? Well...
Terrible Terrible Terrible Dialogue
Last Shot is too long, and there's a bunch of stuff that could be cut, and most of that is stupid dialogue. You get the impression that Older fancied himself quite the clever writer of banter. The back-and-forth between characters is labored and over-written, and you can often pinpoint the exact spots where Older thinks the laugh-track audience should start guffawing at his characters' 'hilarious' wits. I think if you just edited out all the dialogue, I'd feel comfortable bumping this up to three stars. In addition to being over-written, it's littered with all kinds of hipster millennial speech patterns. A typical exchange would go something like this:
Han: Um...so, are we gonna get this show on the road?
Leia: Wow! Calm down, flyboy!
Han: Who you callin' flyboy? We're not even in a ship, last I could tell. So who's flyin'?
Leia: Really?
Han: Sorry, I'm just really ready to go whup some ass.
Leia: You'll get your chance. But seriously, calm down.
Han: So that means you're not ready to go?
Leia: Sheesh...I just can't.
And scene...
For the record, that's not actual dialogue from the book, but the phrase 'whup ass' does appear multiple times, as does 'sheesh' as an exasperated exclamation. Also, there are lots of Um's and Uh's. I'm guessing maybe Older workshopped all this stuff with his 13 year old daughters before he committed it to the final manuscript.
Gimmicky and Pointless Side Characters
Older fleshes out his cast with characters that on paper seem a bit zany, and perhaps could have lent the story a wild, gonzo tone. But it quickly becomes apparent that these characters are just there as one-off gags, and Older has no other ideas about what to do with them, so they just linger and clutter up the proceedings while their schtick gets staler and staler. Some examples:
* An Ugnaught Mechanic who is hilariously surly and speaks in incomprehensible alien dialect and adds nothing to the story.
* An Ewok Slicer who is hilariously cranky and speaks in incomprehensible alien dialect and adds nothing to the story.
* A hilariously gross little pet familiar who leaves slime everywhere and on the audio book probably makes lots of farting noises and adds nothing to the story.
* A Gungan Security Guard who delivers a 'hilarious' lecture to Han Solo about how he's sick and tired of people making fun of the way Jar Jar Binks talks, and this goes on for a few pages in the middle of what I thought was going to be tense scene involving the gang breaking into a prison, but turns into a comedy routine instead because Han keeps trying to interrupt, but get this: he can't get a word in edgewise! because this sassy Gungan Security Guard ain't having none of that! He joins the gang for a few scenes then just kind of disappears.
* A Tiny Alien Mob Boss who speaks with a stereotypical Italian accent that is spelled out phonetically, and honestly I couldn't tell why he was in the story, but there he was.
* Sana Starros, who I think I'm supposed to find interesting because she was apparently in a Star Wars comic book, so Older decides it's not his job to make her interesting since somebody already did that. Gotta love that corporate synergy.
* Chewbacca. Now, before you get all bothered about why I'd take issue with Chewbacca being included in a Han Solo adventure, it's because Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy established that Chewbacca finally fulfilled his life debt and returned to Kashyyyk to take care of his family. Now, there are some flashback scenes where Chewbacca's presence is totally logical, but in the Present Day storyline, there is zero need for Chewbacca, but Older comes up with a stupid contrived reason to include him anyway, so he joins the gang, and then proceeds to add absolutely nothing to the story.
Odd Woke Transgender Inclusion?
I have no problem including a transgender character, and I have even less problem including a transgender character and then making sure that their transgenderness isn't that character's sole defining characteristic. In generally, I think that's a good move.
But it was very odd how the character of Taka was introduced pretending they were Han Solo, which kind of plants the idea in your head that they're male, but then every character, including the ones who have never met Taka before, seem to automatically know to use 'they/them/their' as Taka's pronouns. This was a heretofore unused convention in the Star Wars universe, and has been applied to zero other Star Wars characters ever, up to and including every character in this book except Taka. Why did everyone use it with them? I mean, in real life, you wouldn't just assume the use of non-gender-specific pronouns with some random person you met on the street, so why do Han and Lando? Even if you want to pretend that Han and Lando are just so with it that gender-neutral pronouns are totally easy for them to wrap their brains around, why do they only use them with this one character with zero prompting or explanation? The mechanics of it just seemed kind of arbitrary.
Pointless and Non-Sensical Action Scenes
If a big chunk of this book's wasted page count is taken up by terrible dialogue, the next biggest chunk is taken up by overly-busy, poorly motivated, ineptly choreographed shoot-outs. Characters just kind of run around and get into these battles because Older needs to delay the achieving of their objectives. Han needs to turn off a thing, but first: six pages of people running, dodging, falling, sneaking, and shooting, while lasers singe the hair off their heads. Never ending hordes of bad guy droids just kind of show up. There was more than one scene where I had no idea why anything was happening. This wasn't helped by the...
...Ineffective Use of Multiple Time-Lines
There are basically four different time lines in play, and this is fine. It has been done successfully before. The problem is that Older jumps around seemingly at random. There are a few straight up action set-pieces that should have been allowed to play out from start to finish, but Older breaks them up into four or five chunks and shuffles them up with chunks from a few other timelines. The scene shuffling has no rhythm, doesn't build to anything; the scenes don't compliment or play off of one another. It just makes it a chore to remember why everyone is running around shooting and fighting and who they're chasing or who is chasing them. If any of these fights had any impact on the story, maybe cutting constantly between them would carry some dramatic weight, but they all just feel like page-fillers, so even if they hadn't been diced and shuffled, you'd still just be mindlessly reading waiting for them to end.
Inane Plotting
There's supposed to be a mystery that Han and Lando are trying to sort out. It all stars when a mysterious figure in a green cape tries to kill Lando, then escapes. Lando goes and recruits Han to help him find the dastardly villain. The first thing they need to do is go hire a ship (they're too famous to go zipping around in the Millennium Falcon incognito), so they go to a space station to look for a pilot. While there, they see someone wearing a green cape. Now, to be clear, they don't think this is the bad guy. They just see the green cape and think, maybe we should follow him? So they follow him and he leads them to a fortune teller and Lando steals her fortune-telling gewgaws (he's a fortune-telling gewgaws aficionado), and they do an analysis of the gewgaws and hot damn it's a clue which tells them where to go next! That is some next level sleuthing.
If Older had attempted to lay in some kind of subtext about luck or happenstance, I guess just blindly wandering around and accidentally discovering things could work, but Older doesn't do that. It's like he just pulled an idea out of his ass about how Han and Lando could find their way to the next part of the story, but then forgot to build in any kind of in-story justification for how that would make any sense. This happens multiple times through the book. It felt like an improv-party game where the group tells a story, one person at a time, and every time you say a secret word, a new person has to continue the story, but the new person was just in the bathroom and didn't hear most of the previous part of the story, but wanted to play anyway, so the new part of the story doesn't really square with the previous bit of the story, but it's okay because it's just a game, am I right?
Also, there's a bit where they're hunting for the bad guy, but they take a break by going into a diner, and it turns out the bad guy just got hired as a chef at the diner, which they figure out and a chase ensues. Like, if the bad guy had mentioned he liked cooking, or he needed some money so decided to get a job, maybe? Anyway, lots of jarring, non-sequitur nonsense masquerading as a plot.
Whiplash Tonal Shifts
For most of the book, Older feels like he's writing the screenplay for an episode of iCarly only with Star Wars! Juvenile dialogue, dumb banter that's only funny to the canned laugh-track audience, sight-gags written out in prose which makes the sight-gags somewhat less effective. And right when the tween audience is starting to enjoy themselves, Lando starts admiring the bulge in his pants and the word 'ass' gets uttered dozens of times. But hang on, because now things turn overly-maudlin when Lando is suddenly deeply torn about having a relationship with a Twi'Lek he met during the war. The Han-Leia stuff is also kind of corny, but it sort of works since we know these characters and their histories so well. But Lando's love doesn't work because his true love is so underdeveloped and the desperate emotional struggles are at odds with and keep interrupting the already shakily plotted adventure ostensibly going on in the background.
Dumb Bad Guy
To be fair, the bad guy is only dumb in execution. The idea was a decent one, but he's so clunkily developed and his personality is presented so inconsistently, it undercuts any sense of menace he might have otherwise had. He's a medical prodigy! He's a tortured victim of gang warfare! He's a chef at a diner! He's a maniacal cult-leader! Pick a hat, man.
So...
...this one needed a few more passes, and the editor who let this see the light of day really ought to be ashamed of themselves.
Terrible Terrible Terrible Dialogue
Last Shot is too long, and there's a bunch of stuff that could be cut, and most of that is stupid dialogue. You get the impression that Older fancied himself quite the clever writer of banter. The back-and-forth between characters is labored and over-written, and you can often pinpoint the exact spots where Older thinks the laugh-track audience should start guffawing at his characters' 'hilarious' wits. I think if you just edited out all the dialogue, I'd feel comfortable bumping this up to three stars. In addition to being over-written, it's littered with all kinds of hipster millennial speech patterns. A typical exchange would go something like this:
Han: Um...so, are we gonna get this show on the road?
Leia: Wow! Calm down, flyboy!
Han: Who you callin' flyboy? We're not even in a ship, last I could tell. So who's flyin'?
Leia: Really?
Han: Sorry, I'm just really ready to go whup some ass.
Leia: You'll get your chance. But seriously, calm down.
Han: So that means you're not ready to go?
Leia: Sheesh...I just can't.
And scene...
For the record, that's not actual dialogue from the book, but the phrase 'whup ass' does appear multiple times, as does 'sheesh' as an exasperated exclamation. Also, there are lots of Um's and Uh's. I'm guessing maybe Older workshopped all this stuff with his 13 year old daughters before he committed it to the final manuscript.
Gimmicky and Pointless Side Characters
Older fleshes out his cast with characters that on paper seem a bit zany, and perhaps could have lent the story a wild, gonzo tone. But it quickly becomes apparent that these characters are just there as one-off gags, and Older has no other ideas about what to do with them, so they just linger and clutter up the proceedings while their schtick gets staler and staler. Some examples:
* An Ugnaught Mechanic who is hilariously surly and speaks in incomprehensible alien dialect and adds nothing to the story.
* An Ewok Slicer who is hilariously cranky and speaks in incomprehensible alien dialect and adds nothing to the story.
* A hilariously gross little pet familiar who leaves slime everywhere and on the audio book probably makes lots of farting noises and adds nothing to the story.
* A Gungan Security Guard who delivers a 'hilarious' lecture to Han Solo about how he's sick and tired of people making fun of the way Jar Jar Binks talks, and this goes on for a few pages in the middle of what I thought was going to be tense scene involving the gang breaking into a prison, but turns into a comedy routine instead because Han keeps trying to interrupt, but get this: he can't get a word in edgewise! because this sassy Gungan Security Guard ain't having none of that! He joins the gang for a few scenes then just kind of disappears.
* A Tiny Alien Mob Boss who speaks with a stereotypical Italian accent that is spelled out phonetically, and honestly I couldn't tell why he was in the story, but there he was.
* Sana Starros, who I think I'm supposed to find interesting because she was apparently in a Star Wars comic book, so Older decides it's not his job to make her interesting since somebody already did that. Gotta love that corporate synergy.
* Chewbacca. Now, before you get all bothered about why I'd take issue with Chewbacca being included in a Han Solo adventure, it's because Chuck Wendig's Aftermath trilogy established that Chewbacca finally fulfilled his life debt and returned to Kashyyyk to take care of his family. Now, there are some flashback scenes where Chewbacca's presence is totally logical, but in the Present Day storyline, there is zero need for Chewbacca, but Older comes up with a stupid contrived reason to include him anyway, so he joins the gang, and then proceeds to add absolutely nothing to the story.
Odd Woke Transgender Inclusion?
I have no problem including a transgender character, and I have even less problem including a transgender character and then making sure that their transgenderness isn't that character's sole defining characteristic. In generally, I think that's a good move.
But it was very odd how the character of Taka was introduced pretending they were Han Solo, which kind of plants the idea in your head that they're male, but then every character, including the ones who have never met Taka before, seem to automatically know to use 'they/them/their' as Taka's pronouns. This was a heretofore unused convention in the Star Wars universe, and has been applied to zero other Star Wars characters ever, up to and including every character in this book except Taka. Why did everyone use it with them? I mean, in real life, you wouldn't just assume the use of non-gender-specific pronouns with some random person you met on the street, so why do Han and Lando? Even if you want to pretend that Han and Lando are just so with it that gender-neutral pronouns are totally easy for them to wrap their brains around, why do they only use them with this one character with zero prompting or explanation? The mechanics of it just seemed kind of arbitrary.
Pointless and Non-Sensical Action Scenes
If a big chunk of this book's wasted page count is taken up by terrible dialogue, the next biggest chunk is taken up by overly-busy, poorly motivated, ineptly choreographed shoot-outs. Characters just kind of run around and get into these battles because Older needs to delay the achieving of their objectives. Han needs to turn off a thing, but first: six pages of people running, dodging, falling, sneaking, and shooting, while lasers singe the hair off their heads. Never ending hordes of bad guy droids just kind of show up. There was more than one scene where I had no idea why anything was happening. This wasn't helped by the...
...Ineffective Use of Multiple Time-Lines
There are basically four different time lines in play, and this is fine. It has been done successfully before. The problem is that Older jumps around seemingly at random. There are a few straight up action set-pieces that should have been allowed to play out from start to finish, but Older breaks them up into four or five chunks and shuffles them up with chunks from a few other timelines. The scene shuffling has no rhythm, doesn't build to anything; the scenes don't compliment or play off of one another. It just makes it a chore to remember why everyone is running around shooting and fighting and who they're chasing or who is chasing them. If any of these fights had any impact on the story, maybe cutting constantly between them would carry some dramatic weight, but they all just feel like page-fillers, so even if they hadn't been diced and shuffled, you'd still just be mindlessly reading waiting for them to end.
Inane Plotting
There's supposed to be a mystery that Han and Lando are trying to sort out. It all stars when a mysterious figure in a green cape tries to kill Lando, then escapes. Lando goes and recruits Han to help him find the dastardly villain. The first thing they need to do is go hire a ship (they're too famous to go zipping around in the Millennium Falcon incognito), so they go to a space station to look for a pilot. While there, they see someone wearing a green cape. Now, to be clear, they don't think this is the bad guy. They just see the green cape and think, maybe we should follow him? So they follow him and he leads them to a fortune teller and Lando steals her fortune-telling gewgaws (he's a fortune-telling gewgaws aficionado), and they do an analysis of the gewgaws and hot damn it's a clue which tells them where to go next! That is some next level sleuthing.
If Older had attempted to lay in some kind of subtext about luck or happenstance, I guess just blindly wandering around and accidentally discovering things could work, but Older doesn't do that. It's like he just pulled an idea out of his ass about how Han and Lando could find their way to the next part of the story, but then forgot to build in any kind of in-story justification for how that would make any sense. This happens multiple times through the book. It felt like an improv-party game where the group tells a story, one person at a time, and every time you say a secret word, a new person has to continue the story, but the new person was just in the bathroom and didn't hear most of the previous part of the story, but wanted to play anyway, so the new part of the story doesn't really square with the previous bit of the story, but it's okay because it's just a game, am I right?
Also, there's a bit where they're hunting for the bad guy, but they take a break by going into a diner, and it turns out the bad guy just got hired as a chef at the diner, which they figure out and a chase ensues. Like, if the bad guy had mentioned he liked cooking, or he needed some money so decided to get a job, maybe? Anyway, lots of jarring, non-sequitur nonsense masquerading as a plot.
Whiplash Tonal Shifts
For most of the book, Older feels like he's writing the screenplay for an episode of iCarly only with Star Wars! Juvenile dialogue, dumb banter that's only funny to the canned laugh-track audience, sight-gags written out in prose which makes the sight-gags somewhat less effective. And right when the tween audience is starting to enjoy themselves, Lando starts admiring the bulge in his pants and the word 'ass' gets uttered dozens of times. But hang on, because now things turn overly-maudlin when Lando is suddenly deeply torn about having a relationship with a Twi'Lek he met during the war. The Han-Leia stuff is also kind of corny, but it sort of works since we know these characters and their histories so well. But Lando's love doesn't work because his true love is so underdeveloped and the desperate emotional struggles are at odds with and keep interrupting the already shakily plotted adventure ostensibly going on in the background.
Dumb Bad Guy
To be fair, the bad guy is only dumb in execution. The idea was a decent one, but he's so clunkily developed and his personality is presented so inconsistently, it undercuts any sense of menace he might have otherwise had. He's a medical prodigy! He's a tortured victim of gang warfare! He's a chef at a diner! He's a maniacal cult-leader! Pick a hat, man.
So...
...this one needed a few more passes, and the editor who let this see the light of day really ought to be ashamed of themselves.
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