JasperKazai’s Reviews > Star Wars: Tales from Jabba's Palace > Status Update

Of course the last story was not only the longest, not only about the fat dancer which is the character I care about the least, but it was also written by AC Crispin, one of my least favorite SW authors. It's like they devised the best way to annoy me specifically at the very end. It wasn't good, but it could've been much worse.
Epilogue was a nice touch, I guess. But yeah overall this was meh, unsurprisingly.

The Boba Fett story was written by Daniel Keys Moran, who did the Fett story in BH Tales. But Lucasfilm forced changes to the story, and as a result Moran refused to put his name on it. Fett escaping the sarlacc is one of those EU tidbits that even people who weren't fans of the EU knew about. It's an easy soundbite to communicate. I'd always been curious about the story, but never read it till now. It's fine.

What the fuck. A very short story about one of the skiff guards recounting a story to Boba Fett on the way to the sarlacc. The issue is that it's about how a group of stormtroopers were so intent on raping the guard's 15 year-old sister that murdered their older brother and then they accidentally drove into the sarlacc while chasing her. Again - what the fuck?? Whyyyyy was this a thing? Incredibly unnecessary.

Another story about the weirdo brain drinker assassin, by the same weirdo author who wrote the one in Cantina. Bad. Straight fuckin' garbage, yet again. I utterly abhor her writing style; at least the style she uses in both of these short stories. Very disappointed that the murder mystery ongoing plot ended up being this fucking guy. Ugh. Such a damn waste.

The Bubo story was so short, I don't even have an opinion on it. It basically was just providing an answer to a small mystery from the Ree-Yees story. That's fine, but it's also not really worthwhile. Then again, it's not like a story about the frogdog thing was ever going to be worthwhile, regardless of how long it was. Lol
Seems like the next couple of stories are also shorter than normal.

Tessek by Dave Wolverton was alright. Both this one and his Cantina story were ok, but Courtship and his Dengar story sucked ass. I guess the difference is that those latter two involved romance, and the former two did not. When he stays away from romance, he can write something ok. The very end was kind of stupid because I don't think the end of RotJ was more than 6 months after Han's rescue but whatever.

The fore(wo)man droid story was alright. A droid that is sadistic toward other droids is an interesting concept. I mainly appreciated getting to learn what Lando actually contributed to the Han rescue plan. He didn't actually do anything in the movie other than be present, lol. One gripe though is how the droid was on Cloud City. Yet another example of 'how fucking small is this galaxy?' Too convenient.

The Weequay story was bad. Reducing the entire race to being idiots that blindly follow directions from what is essentially a high-tech magic 8-ball is beyond stupid. The Gamorreans were already the dumb comedic relief race that is part of Jabba's palace. There didn't need to be a second one. Maybe I just have a soft spot for Weequays because a Weequay action figure was part of my Star Wars toy collection growing up.

I was looking forward to the M. Shayne Bell story, because I enjoyed his other two in the other books. This one was just alright, though. Definitely the weakest of his three. Why would Fortuna and Luke have met to discuss Han before Luke went to the palace? It just seems an unnecessary detail to add. It was fascinating to find out the Secura name originated here, though. I love when details like that are carried on.

Too bad this book was published a year before the Special Editions of the movies came out. It means everybody's favorite alien crooner Joh Yowza couldn't be included in this band story. Lol
That was fine. I just find it baffling that the band's biggest scene in the movie is the one that leads right into Oola getting dropped into the rancor pit, but this story completely skipped over it. Weird choice.