Forgotten Books: Han Solo at Stars' End by Brian Daley

Has it really been forty years?

That Special Pocket of Time in Star Wars Fandom

Travel back, if you will, to 1979. If you were a kid like me, your life probably revolved around comic books, Saturday morning cartoons, The Three Investigators books, and reading everything you could get your hands on regarding the 1977 movie Star Wars. You had the Star Wars action figures and, depending on your allowance or lawn-mowing money, you might've had some extra cash to spring for the additional nine new figures beyond the original twelve. You were already more than a year into reading the Marvel Comics Star Wars issues, and devoured Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye the year before.

Maybe you could easily imagine yourself as young farm boy, Luke Skywalker, because he was only slightly older than you were. But who you really wanted to be was Han Solo. And if you couldn't be him, then you wanted more adventures featuring him and his trusted partner, Chewbacca.

A Momentous Discovery on the Bookshelves

I"m sure how many young readers knew the name Brian Daley before April 1979, but they sure knew his name after. Commissioned to write three novels featuring Han and Chewie (although we didn't know it at the time), I think you can image the heart palpitations I experienced when I saw that blue hardcover book on the shelves of either B. Dalton Bookstore or Waldenbooks in Westwood Mall in Houston. My parents being readers, it was not a hard sell to at least go into the bookstores and browse. Naturally, I'd find something, then sidle up to one of them with the innocent question "Did you find something?" Because if they found something, I got a book, too.

They must have found something that day, or knew it would be a losing battle if I didn't walk out of the store with that glorious book with the blue cover.

I have no memory of reading through that book forty years ago and, to be honest, had zero memory of what happened. I don't think I ever re-read it, so last month, when it came time for me to select a novel to read, I had my choice. Perfect, since April 2019 marks the books fortieth anniversary. And, in light of the character's evolution over the decades both in the movies and comics, how would the book hold up?

A New Han Solo Story

In those heady days between Star Wars and its then unnamed sequel, the entire Star Wars universe was wide open. Darth Vader killed Luke's dad without "a certain point of view." Heck, Luke and Leia both faced off against the Sith Lord on the planet Mimban in Splinter of the Mind's Eye. The creatures in the cantina were just a small sampling of the vastness of the galaxy just waiting to be discovered. And, in Brian Daley's new novel, you got to see where Han Solo was before he met that old man and the kid.

He was in hot water. And, if you needed to know just how awesome and grown up Han Solo was to a ten-year-old mind, Han actually drops the "d-word" in the first sentence. Mind. Blown.

In his narrow escape from the ships of the Corporate Sector Authority--the stand-in baddies instead of the Imperial Empire--Han damages his ship, the Millennium Falcon. He even pulls out the maneuver he uses in the asteroid field in Empire Strikes Back when he flies the Falcon on its side through a narrow canyon. The dish atop the ship is knocked off (sound familiar) so he's now blind.  But he knows a guy. Of course he does.

Except after going through all the cloak-and-dagger maneuvers to locate Doc, he's gone. Taken by the Espos, the elite police force of the Corporate Sector Authority. His daughter, Jessa, is willing to make repairs to the Falcon in exchange for Han flying to Orron III and picking up some people. Needing the repairs, Han agrees.

And things go downhill from there.

A New Cast of Characters

Joining Han and Chewbacca on this mission to Orron III are a pair of droids. Well, the template had been set with both Star Wars and Splinter. Later, when the Lando Calrissian books are published, he also has a droid partner.  Bullox is a large, old labor-type droid who is not at all like the prim and proper See-Threepio. He's not exactly smart, but he's very loyal. Who is smart is Blue Max, a smaller, up-to-date droid. The only problem is Blue Max has no means of transportation. Thus, he travels around inside Bullox's chest cavity. When the situation calls for it, someone will take Blue Max out, hook him up to a larger computer, a la Artoo Detoo, and work computer magic.

Am I the only one who thinks this sounds an awful lot like Twiki and Dr. Theopolis from the Buck Rogers TV show?

A few other characters show up, but the discovery of them are more fun when you read the novel.

A Good Space Opera Adventure

But what about the book itself? The story cracked along fine with just enough jolts and twists to keep it interesting. Daley had to know he needed to write the book that would appeal not only to adult science fiction readers but early readers like my ten-year-old self. While there is some shooting and gunfights, the violence is kept to a minimum or described using words to hide the reality. For example: "Red beams of annihilation bickered back and forth." Didn't bother me in the least.

I assume Daley had access to the material on sale at the time--which wasn't much--and maybe a little backstory from creator George Lucas. But I also get the impression the author just imagined his way into a Star Wars universe. At the time, Star Wars wasn't too dissimilar to other far-flung space adventure novels, so Daley just ran with whatever idea came to mind. Orron III, for example, was a planet-sized agricultural farm. Like Dagobah is a planet-sized swamp or Coruscant is a planet-sized city. It's merely a piece of imagination.

As an author myself, I enjoy dropping little side notes that hint at other adventures of my characters. Daley does it here, too, but none so tantalizing to young fan than the reference to "Freedom's Sons" in the same sentence as mention of the Jedi Knights! Did Daley know something we didn't? Would Freedom's Sons get into a comic or the next movie? The possibilities were endless.

 I really enjoyed the swiftness of the story. It was a lean 183 pages in my paperback copy. There was a time, even when the property was not from a movie, where a SF author could write a book and it clocked in under 200 pages. Now, so many novels top 400 or 500 pages, if not more, that I hesitate to even start. Granted, Daley didn't need a lot of world building, but I enjoyed that which he gave, including the slang and other parts that contributed to the 'lived in' nature of Star Wars. He went on to flesh out the first Star Wars movie in his fantastic script for the Star Wars radio drama, but that is another post.

Overall, I really enjoyed revisiting this book, and I'm already moving on to the second, HAN SOLO'S REVENGE.

Best Quote of the Book

"Han made a sour face. "I happen to like to shoot first, Rekkon. As opposed to shooting second.""

Book Review Club: The John Carter of Mars Trilogy by Edgar Rice Burroughs

(This is the March 2012 entry in Barrie Summy's Book Review Club. For the complete list, click the icon at the bottom of this review.)

In the run-up to the new Disney movie “John Carter,” bowing this Friday, the guys in my science fiction book club decided to read (or re-read as the case may be) the first two books in the John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs: A Princess of Mars (1912) and The Gods of Mars (1913). Me being the completest person that I am—and because the second book ended on a cliffhanger—I forged ahead and read the third book, Warlord of Mars (1913-1914). After nearly 600 pages of action and adventure, one question still puzzles me: how the heck do you have a sword and all hosts of aliens and monsters when you’re naked?

To be honest, as I re-read Burroughs’ Martian tales—A Princess of Mars was his first book, pre-dating Tarzan by a few months—I kept an eye out to see if the characters really did wear loin clothes, robes, or what. Turns out no one wears clothes. Strange Martian custom. But, then again, strange was the way our hero, John Carter, found his way onto Mars.

A Civil War vet, Carter and a friend found a gold lode in the mountains of Arizona. There’s a problem, natch: Indians. They kill Carter’s friend and come after him. He’s holed up in a cave, waiting to go down with guns blazing when a strange thing happens: he becomes paralyzed. He hears the Indians approach the cave entrance…and then turn in fear. Great, thinks Carter, whatever scared them is behind me and I can’t do anything about it. Turns out, the thing behind him is…himself. He’s some sort of phantom and, before he knows it, he ‘wakes’ up on Mars. There’s little in the way of actual scientific facts regarding how Carter “teleported” to Mars, but that’s really okay. The book isn’t about science. It’s about battles, honor, bravery, and love.

And he’s Superman. He can leap tall buildings (most of the way) in a single bound. His strength is beyond that of mere mortal Martians. Lucky for Carter the Warrior the first beings he meets, the Green Men of Mars (huge hulks (heh) that stand nearly fifteen feet tall with a set of intermediary limbs below the arms and above the legs) only speak War, Bravery, and Combat Prowess. He woos them, even though he’s ostensibly a prisoner.

A Princess of Mars is basically a travelogue of Mars. Carter learns how Martian (Barsoomian in the language of the natives) babies are born, how naval vessels fly through the air, how the thin Martian atmosphere is treated, and how water is preserved on a planet without any surface water. Along the way, he doesn’t even bat an eye that he, and everyone else, is naked. That would include Dejah Thoris, the princess of the book’s title. She is captured after a battle and Carter falls for her. Well, of course. She’s naked. The rest of the book is his attempt to return her to her land and her people usually with many valiant sword fights and battles.

The Gods of Mars picks up ten years after the events of the first book when Carter returns to Barsoom. He saved the day at the end of the first book and mysteriously returned to Earth. Upon re-materializing on Mars, he finds himself in the Valley Dor alongside the River Iss. What makes this particular location treacherous is that Dor and Iss constitute the Martian afterlife. Think about the end of the Lord of the Rings when Frodo and Bilbo sail off into the sunset. No sooner is he back on Mars that he’s doing battle with heretofore unknown plant men, his friend Tars Tarkas (natch) by his side. Through battles, more battles, captivity, escape, more battles, Carter learns more about the religion of Mars, the deception that has been going on for ages, and that his beloved wife, Dejah Thoris, believing Carter dead, has taken the pilgrimage to the valley. What would a Carter/Mars novel be without a princess that needs saving? Not much fun to read, if you ask me. Along the way, Carter assembles allies (his discovers his son in held prisoner *in the very same prison* he land in…of course!) and enemies, charging ahead when mere mortals would think twice. Finally, he reaches the side of Dejah deep underground at Barsoom’s southern polar region only to have her snatched away again in the books final pages (natch).

Warlord of Mars picks up where Gods of Mars ends. Dejah, her staunch comrade, Thuvia, and enemy, Phaidor, all are captured inside a giant temple, the only door of which opens once a year. Oh, and the last time he saw his princess, Phaidor, knife in hand, had launched herself toward Dejah. Carter manages to follow his three main arch-enemies as they secretly rescue all three women only to escape…again! The bad guys fly literally all the way to the top of Mars, with Carter and a new ally, Thuvia’s father, chasing them. More battles, more heroics, more monsters and history of Barsoom ensue.

Let’s not go too deep here. These books are pure, unadulterated fun. Burroughs’ books and stories inspired countless creators of science fiction literature and films throughout the twentieth-century. There were a couple of places where you could see directly how George Lucas was inspired. At one point, Dejah is taken before a giant, ugly monstrosity. Jabba the Hutt and Princess Leia anyone? Speaking of Leia, I think we all know what she told Darth Vader in the first Star Wars movie. Come on. Do I have to quote it exactly? “I am on a diplomatic mission to Alderaan.” Now, cut to this exchange between Dejah and her captor from the first book:

"And the nature of your expedition?" he [bad guy] continued.

"It was a purely scientific research party sent out by my father's father, the Jeddak of Helium, to rechart the air currents, and to take atmospheric density tests," replied the fair prisoner, in a low, well-modulated voice. "We were unprepared for battle," she continued, "as we were on a peaceful mission, as our banners and the colors of our craft denoted."

Of course, I see Star Trek in there, too. And Avatar. And Fern Gully. And Dances With Wolves. In fact, my biggest fear for the movie is that folks who don’t know will just think that “John Carter” ripped off Avatar, not realizing that Avatar ripped off Burroughs first.

The remnants of Victorian prejudices still color Burroughs’ characters. The Green Men of Mars basically are communists. They all live together each person owning nothing individual. One exception is Dejah herself. Like Leia and other damsels, yes, Dejah’s in distress but she holds her own, even helping out Carter a couple of times. It speaks to her character and the fact that Carter doesn’t put up a fuss makes him a better man for it.

This first three books in the eleven-book series is really a trilogy, meant to be read in order. Not all feature Carter and Dejah—I’m reading book #4 now which stars Carthoris, the son of John Carter going after *his* captured love (natch)—but Mars is the real featured player in these stories. Well, that and all our eleven-year-old imaginations that still live within us. I first read A Princess of Mars over thirty years ago and it is one of the few things in which I can literally transport myself to a younger time. In re-reading these stories, that magical time of discovering once again visited me. I’m hoping the movie will do the same.

Yes, there are flaws in these books: yes, a princess is always needing help; yes, there are coincidences that boggle the mind; yes, Carter can come across too good to be true. But logic is not why you read books like these. When you crack these covers and join John Carter on his adventures on another world, you will soar to the heavens with great abandon, losing yourself amid epic tales of heroism and courage, adventure and love. And let’s be honest: isn’t that one of the reasons you read books anyway?

Forgotten Books: The Secret of Terror Castle by Robert Arthur

(My latest entry into the Friday Forgotten Books series started by Patti Abbott)

Nero Wolfe, some believe, is the offspring of Sherlock Holmes and Irene Adler. While that may be more fantasy than gospel—it’s the spirit of the two characters that links them together—then, in that spirit, Jupiter Jones is Wolfe’s grandson…assuming Wolfe even got near a woman long enough to, well, you know.

Who is Jupiter Jones? He is the leader of the Three Investigators, a series of juvenile mystery and detective stories created by Robert Arthur in 1964. A stout, stocky, but not quite fat boy, Jupiter is, in spirit, the youthful heir to Holmes and Wolfe. He is smart, deductive, somewhat off-putting, and prone to use big words. On page four, when Bob Andrews, one of Jupiter’s partners, is frustrated his mother cannot relay the message Jupiter gave to her, she replies, “I could remember an ordinary message, but Jupiter doesn’t leave ordinary messages. It was something fantastic.”

And that’s a good way to describe The Secret of Terror Castle, the first book of the Three Investigators series. The plot is fantastic—i.e., somewhat hard to believe but very fun, nonetheless—the situations the Investigators get themselves into are fantastic, and they find a fantastic patron, none other than Alfred Hitchcock himself.

Terror Castle has the boys—Jupiter (First Investigator), Pete Crenshaw (Second Investigator), and Bob Andrews (Records and Research) searching for a true haunted house in which Hitchcock can make his next film. The corresponding publicity surrounding the Investigators’ discovery—their only fee is that Hitchcock act the part of Dr. Watson and introduce their case—will launch their career as detectives. Or so they hope.

The Three Investigators center their attention on Terror Castle, the old mansion built by a famous horror movie actor named Stephen Terrill. It’s rumored to be haunted, ghosts have been seen, the pipe organ has played at numerous times at night, and no one has been able to spend the night in the house in over twenty years without running out the door screaming in terror. Perfect, thinks Jupiter, and he and his reluctant pals set about trying to prove that Terror Castle is, indeed haunted.

The boys, in groups of two, never all together, enter Terror Castle with flashlights, a camera, and a tape recorder. They are intent on scoring proof of the ghosts and the strange phenomena of anxiety attacks by previous visitors. Along the way, they find secret passages, dusty skeletons, and a visage of the Blue Phantom, the being who plays the pipe organ located within the castle. The Investigators get warned to stay away but they don’t. Until they uncover the truth.

One of the things I liked back in the day when I first read these books and again, this week, as I re-read Terror Castle, is the relationship between the boys. Jupiter is the smart one, often keeping certain deductions secret until their truth has been proven, not unlike Holmes and Wolfe. Pete is the athlete, the legman. His strength is in his actions provided he can stop being scared long enough to do the right thing. Bob is the studious one. He wears glasses, works part-time in a library, and wears a leg brace. Each boy gets a chance to shine and bring their special talent to the fore and help the team solve the mystery.

The reason I bring up Nero Wolfe is the method by which Wolfe solved crimes. He had Archie Goodwin do all the legwork and bring reports back to his New York brownstone apartment. At one point in Terror Castle, Jupiter hurts his ankle and has to remain bedridden for a few days. Thus, Bob and Pete are dispatched with specific instructions and Jupe, as the boys call him, disseminates the data. Pure Wolfe.

Jupiter is also Sherlock Holmes. He has theories about certain aspects of Terror Castle but doesn’t tell his two partners or the reader, allowing you time to assemble the well-laid out clues along the way. One of the nice little structures for these books is that the Investigators reports to Hitchcock himself at the end of the story. Thus, there is the artificial structure that doesn’t feel artificial where all the clues can be discussed in detail. And, in a fun way to end the last chapter with Hitchcock, the director himself entices their curiosity by telling them about a friend who has lost his missing, stuttering parrot. It just so happens that The Mystery of the Stuttering Parrot is the next book. Now that’s cool.

(I just realized something: Michael Chabon’s Holmes pastiche, The Final Problem, involves a missing parrot. I wonder if Chabon’s book isn’t also an homage to the Three Investigators?)

When I was a kid reading pretty much anything I could get my hands on, I discovered mysteries through the Hardy Boys. They were good and I enjoyed them (check out David Cranmer’s review last week for more on the Hardy Boys). But The Three Investigators were the ones whose stories and adventures I still remember. And I think I know why (and it’s not that their titles were cooler).

For one, they were my age, somewhere around 13-15. They couldn’t drive. They had to use their bikes or get someone to drive them. (In Terror Castle, Jupiter has won a contest, the prize being the use of a Rolls Royce for thirty days.) They were middle class. Jupiter was an orphan while Bob and Pete had families. They had chores to do and they always had to do them before going off on their adventures.

And they had Headquarters, a magnificent old mobile home hidden inside the junkyard owned by Jupiter’s uncle. HQ had hidden entrances and exits, a dark room, and other tools of the detective trade all made with things found in the junkyard. I loved their HQ so much, I built my own, complete with an entrance underground.

Re-reading The Secret of Terror Castle this week brought back some memories. I look forward to sharing them with my son. But the story itself is pretty darn good for an adult like me. It’s fast-paced and has more characterization than you’d expect. The POV is third person omniscient with Arthur in and out (and showing himself) of the heads of all three boys. But this does not detract from a splendid read and just a fun book.

Come to think of it, I may just have to read these books again before my son does.

P.S.
Here's an excellent website for lots and lots of good information about The Three Investigators in print and this website gives you some background on Robert Arthur.