9. The Lando Calrissian Adventures Part 3: The Starcave of ThonBoka (1983)
The Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka
Summary: Lando and Vuffi Raa find a space stingray starving to death. They feed it literal shit and garbage, and it agrees to make them precious gems (it can/cannot convert matter as the plot demands) and it flies off. A short while later, it contacts them to tell them about a blockade of their nebula by "The Navy" (The Centrality is/is not related to the Empire and is less characterized than the Corporate Sector Authority in the Han Solo books). Lando cons/sneaks his way through the blockade in the one of the book's requisite Sabacc scenes (taking place in the middle instead of the beginning. Smith is stretching his craft to the max here). They meet with the Oswaft (space stingray) elders. They attack the blockade ships, triggering a full invasion. THE SORCERER OF TUND tells them to stop until he (and the rag tag fighter band from the last book, and the evil anthropologist who was in like two scenes in the other books) gets there with his poorly described ELECTROMAGNET TORPEDO BEAM.
He challenges Lando to AN OLD FASHIONED PISTOL DUEL IN SPACE. (It's kind of cheesy, but it is pretty Star Wars, so I'll let it pass.) Vuffi Raa helps, having sort of gotten over his pacifism programming off screen after a conversation with the stingrays. Lando (accidentally) hits him in the ankle (which is his weakpoint or something.)
The aliens that made Vuffi Raa show up and have a beam war with the Torpedo/Laser thing.
By the end, THE SORCER OF TUND is dead, the sting rays are saved, and Vuffi Raa goes back with his aliens. He finally stops calling Lando master. It's literally the last line of the trilogy. It's hilarious and/or a big deal.
What it introduces:
Croke (formal introduction of THE SORCERER OF TUND'S species)
Oswaft: The only appearance of the space stingray/jellyfish. The can sort of do hyperspace (Smith has no idea how hyperspace works for ships, and wisely leaves it vague for the Oswaft.) Presumably, these are an inspiration for the Purrgil that show up in the Disney canon (space whale/squid that can hyperspace jump.)
Silentium: The aliens that made Vuffi Raa. They get foreshadows (more like foreanviled) early in the book, and actually show up for a scene or two at the end of the book.
Commentary: The best thing I can say about this novel is that Smith did try something different. While the other two books read like they were written by Mad Libsing into the same outline, this one follows a substantially different plot structure. Lando is also far more active here, and even solves several problems on his own or significantly contributing to team ups with the other characters. Smith still falls back on Earth refences, including the awkwardly specific allusion to "the Portugese man-o'-war." Jellyfish would probably have worked fine, but he needed to be extra specific and break our immersion there. Lando literally says the word, "Zzzzz" while snoring. Outside of bad Star Wars novels, Smith is best known for his libertarian sci-fi, which Vuffi Raa plays with for a paragraph or so while musing about the market value of his life.
Smith tries (and fails miserably) at getting naval. Speed gets measured in Megaknots at one point. There's an awkward attempt at explaining water rationing on the ship, akin to modern ships, but it doesn't really match up or make sense (showers aren't really a thing in most of Star Wars, and they apparently have enough power to have solar system destroying lasers, but not water recycling). The Oswaft consider making bombs, but declare it too complicated (unlike making rubies and stuff.) Smith totally forgets that permeable force field airlocks have existed since ANH and tries to work out how to deal with air pressure and filtration for fighter launches. At one point there's an awkward attempt at naval protocol (enlisted vs warrant officer vs commissioned officer) that falls flat.
Starting common as the series progresses, but dropping off some towards the end, are Smith's overly long sarcastic/oxymoronic descriptions like "Nothing special--as long as you regarded quadrpling human life expectancy 'nothing special.'"
Review: 0.5/5 In the weekish from when I finished this novel to when I came to write this post I complete forgot what happened. I started writing, and actually had to go back and make sure I'd read it. That's how forgettable it was. Not just bland and boring, but so dull I wasn't even sure if I had read it or not. Smith is still a bad writer, but it's really the forgetableness that stands out, and drives the average here down half a point.
I'll be taking a little break from novels for the next couple weeks to cover anything/everything else interesting between 1976 (ANH novelization) and May 1991 (the release of Heir to the Empire). This will definitely include the West End Games sourcebooks (which some of the early EU writers mentioned using for research) and NPR radio dramas, along with whatever else I decide is interesting enough to cover. At that point, I'll be on the Thrawn Trilogy, and what I'm calling the EU Golden Age (release of Heir to the Empire to The Phantom Menace).
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