Status Updates From Huttský gambit (Star Wars: ...

Han and Xaverri had a six month-long sexual relationship. Why does she still call him Solo? That's weird.

It's honestly a bit strange to have an Imperial fleet that DOESN'T contain a Star Destroyer or two. Most EU authors threw them around like candy. (Also, she keeps using the terms squadron and fleet interchangeably. I don't think she knew what those words meant.) Shild thinking he could secede from the Empire without even one Star Destroyer to his name is fucking delusional. But of course that isn't brought up.

Nar Shaddaa is not a planet, but moons are still pretty big. The city covers the entire thing, like Coruscant. Coruscant has a population in the trillions. Nar Shaddaa is in the low billions, easy. The idea that Han can tell ONE person (Mako) about the impending attack, and they assemble people in ONE location to speak to them, and they're pretending like the entire moon is at this meeting, is utterly fucking stupid.

Han says the most basic shit about Star Destroyers and Jabba's all like 'oh such knowledge!' Yeah I guess making everyone else a dumbass is one way to make your protagonist seem smart...
If a droid's 'inference circuits' could be overloaded merely by leering then winking at them, then they would be fucking useless. Dumb.
Why would this admiral immediately tell Han the battle plans? God this is so stupid...

One of the many unnecessary characters introduced was this orphan kid who claimed to be Jarik Solo. Han figured that he wasn't a relative and was lying, but he took him under his wing anyways. But then the kid disappeared from the story for a bit, only to be mentioned again right now. Why even have this character? A lot of these characters are from other EU works, but I looked it up, this kid is not one of them.

Introduce a new woman character out of nowhere, Han immediately goes up to interact with her for literally no good reason, she accepts, and then skip forward a few weeks and say 'their relationship developed.' Fucking christ, this is so shit. If you told me that this book would have worse character and relationship development than your average porn book, I wouldn't have believed you. But it totally does. It's so bad

The scene between Jabba and Boba Fett was surprisingly ok, at least for the standards of this book. But then she can't help herself and Boba just so happens to spot the sarlacc as he's leaving Tatooine. Come the fuck on. That's so dumb. LOOK! LOOK! MOVIE REFERENCE! OMG

It's been 6 years since Han and Bria's relationship ended. It's been 1 year since Han thought he glimpsed Bria (she did a switcheroo and Han doesn't know that he actually saw her). Han JUST came out of a 6 month relationship with Xaverri. Han leases a ship from Lando. Han decides to name it... Bria. Uh. Fucking why? Where's the logic in that?! Crispin desperately wanted to be writing a romance novel instead.

'Mako! Roa!'
'Han! Chewbacca!'
'Hey, Roa! Hey, Mako!'
Is an exchange that legitimately took place. What the fuck. Who speaks like this? Han had already greeted them, why does he greet them a second time?
Nice nod to the Lando Calrissian Adventures series, though. I considered reading those again, but nixed it. Even diehard SWEU fans think they're weird. I was given a copy but I don't think I ever finished them.

Oh, ok, a couple of pages later she establishes it's been 1 year since an early scene in this book. I still contend that Bria and Han (claiming to) love each other after all this time is pure nonsense. It was a 4 month relationship, and it's now been SIX years since it ended. Both of them would've moved on by now.

I have lost track of all of the time jumps that have happened. There was a 5 month jump, then 2 weeks, then I think 2 months and 3 months separately? And now there's been a six month jump? Or is that concurrent with some of the other jumps, because this is now Bria's point of view? I have no idea. And it doesn't really matter, because this is all garbage anyways. Bad way to format your story.

Boba Fett injects Han with a mind control drug. Lando comes out of nowhere, sneaks up on Fett, manages to shove his blaster under Fett's helmet and stuns him. Then they give Han the antidote and use the mind control drug on Fett, forcing him to leave the moon. Then Lando immediately shows Han the Falcon and Han instantly falls in love with it, instantly resolving to own it himself. This is all so fucking stupid!

A mind control poison? Fucking seriously? Come on. That's so goddamn stupid. It would make more sense to just be a paralytic agent. And Han came to the conclusion that Fett was 'clever and dangerous' with literally zero basis. He doesn't even know who he is. Yes, the reader knows who Boba Fett is, but Han does not at this point in time. The writing has never been great but it has become absolute garbage.

This is one of the laziest setups for a relationship I've ever seen. Han saw a magician's performance, and decided he NEEDED to get to know her. And she was totally receptive of this, conveniently. 'It was hard to get her to open up, but Han kept trying.' But don't show us any of that. Just tell us about it. So stupid. Not to mention she is several years older than her, and has a dead husband and children. Awful!

That conversation between Han, Jabba, and Jiliac was one of the worst written dialogue scenes I've read in quite some time. Holy hell that was so bad. 2/3 characters have solidly established tones from the movies, and she utterly failed on all counts. The crunch schedule shines through.
This is only 9 years before RotJ. Why is Jabba not in charge? 9 years is not a long time for a Hutt. He should be in charge already.

The structure of this book doesn't make much sense. Han got the recommendation from Tagta, but then 5 months passed, then another 2 weeks, and only now he is cashing in the recommendation. Why did he wait over 5 months to use it? A recommendation made over 5 months ago surely would be irrelevant by now.

Yeah yeah, gotta get in all your Kessel Run references and explanations. Classic EU overexplanation of a movie thing.
It's not just Han she has shitty writing with. This Kid DXo'ln guy is constantly addressing Han as 'Solo' every few sentences.
So, all of these characters we're meeting are from The New Rebellion, a book that was published 1 year prior but set in 17 ABY. Haven't read that one yet so I didn't know.

STOP FUCKING SAYING PAL ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. My god. This book is going to fucking kill me. No one has ever said pal this goddamn much in the history of the world and all of its fiction.
While we're on the subject of overused words, she uses sentients too much. Nothing wrong with that term, but it seems to be the ONLY way she knows how to refer to a mixed group of aliens. Throw some 'beings' in there for a change.

Why would Teroenza automatically assume that Han Solo is Han's real name? He was using the name Vykk Draygo before. It's perfectly plausible that Han Solo would just be the next fake name he's using. It's an unwarranted leap in logic. But I guess it's a distinction without a difference as far as the story is concerned.
Why does Crispin keep mentioning 'pleasure houses' in these books? It's fucking weird.

Once again, she demonstrates it was a mistake to have the first book's plot span only 5 months. Han and Bria weren't together for that entire time, so their relationship was 3-4 months. It's now been 5 whole YEARS since then. You would have gotten over it by now. Period. This is dumb.
Oh god, now Han is calling Chewie pal every other sentence like he did Muuurgh. Did Crispin even watch the movies? He doesn't do that!

Ugh. I was hoping that Bria wasn't going to be a character anymore, or at least would be absent for longer. Nope, diving right back in. Grrreat.

Wow. She just glosses over how Han saved Chewbacca in expositional recap dialogue. That's so fucking lame. That should be THE point of this whole damn trilogy! But it's entirely possible she was given strict guidelines to follow. Lucasfilm was very weird with their rules about the EU sometimes.

Hoping this one is a little more interesting.
Forgot I noticed this before and never commented on it - of the 5 SW authors I've read in the past year, 3 of them are dead (Allston, Wolverton, Crispin) and they weren't that old when they died. That is a very strange coincidence. Do all baby boomer nerds have terribly poor health?