The book Star Wars Scoundrels by Timothy Zahn is a novel about one of Han Solo’s adventures after Star Wars episode 6.  Even though Han played a huge role in the destruction of the Death Star, (a planet-like space station with a large laser which can destroy whole planets), nothing was given to him and he was in debt from the crime lord, Jabba the Hutt. In Star Wars Scoundrels, Han Solo goes in a cantina on the planet of Wukkar.  Han meets a half human, half cyborg man that could completely change his position.  This man has had a large amount of money robbed from him by Avrak Villachor.  Villachor is afflicted with a group called the Black Sun which is a group of big criminals.  With credits tabs, or Star Wars money, only the owner of the credit tabs can get the full value of them which is why Villachor hasn’t cashed them in yet.  So, with a huge payout of up to 163 million credits, Han has to put together a group of people that can help him get the credits back.  This group will have to steal the credits from a heavily guarded vault, without Villachor catching them, not to mention the Empire’s involved.

The theme of this book is to have knowledge of someone before becoming their friend because they could easily turn on you. As said in the last two pages, Eanjer was actually Boba Fett, and he works with Jabba the Hutt. Eanjer lured Han into taking this job, so he could put Han in more debt and be paid a huge amount of money for finding him. This proves that the theme is to be aware of your surroundings because Han wasn’t aware that Eanjer tricked him. Timothy changed point of view from different characters often. Zahn also used great word choice but didn’t go overboard on descriptions. For example, as said on 116 “Tonight, though, the dark light-flecked towers seemed to brood down on him.” and on page 259, “The morning had dawned in full, cloudless sunshine, with the indications of a glorious day ahead.” Lastly, Zahn added some humor to his book by adding sarcasm in some areas. For example, on page 334, “‘Full life support, probably. Certainly has motion-echo power enhancement, half-face heads-up display, comm capabilities, and partial sensor suite. Possible targeting optics, too.’  ‘Thanks,’ Han said dryly.  A shame the kid didn’t know anything specific.

I thought this book was a great read overall.  Many times throughout the book, Timothy Zahn changed the perspective of the story.  For example, he changed from the third person point of view of Han Solo and his recruits to the third person point of view of Villachor and his lead guard Sheqoa.  Eventually, when the group of thieves split up, Zahn changed perspective to each specific group at a time.  I loved that at the end of each change in perspective, he used a cliffhanger.  For example, on page 169, “And suddenly the blasters were no longer pointed at the floor. ‘And now,’ Villachor continued quietly, ‘you’ll tell me what’s really going on.’” This is a great cliffhanger to lead into the next scene and there are many more of these throughout the book.  He related this book greatly to the Star Wars trilogy and added a lot of words that were only in the Star Wars trilogy such as transparisteel, vibroscalp, neuronic whips, and many more.  I would recommend this to anyone who likes the likes the Star Wars trilogy and I would suggest for people to watch the Star Wars movies before reading this because it won’t make much sense otherwise.  I have also heard from people that Timothy Zahn also writes other Star Wars books such as The Last Command, Heir to the Empire, and Allegiance.