The Rest of the Tales from Jabba's Palace

 Wrapping it up.

Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer’s Tale by A. C. Crispin: 4/5 A more uniform naming scheme would've really been a good idea. Some of them are "The Tale of X" some of them are "X's Tale" most of them have the character's name, but not all. So when you get "The Fat Dancer's Tale" it seems kind of judgmental and mundane. At least make it, "The Six Breasted Dancer's Tale" or something. Either way, this is the best (and longest) story in the collection. Decent writing, actual characters, and an ending that isn't "And then I couldn't kill Jabba cause he was already dead and the B'Omarr took my brain." Instead, we get some light romance, a trip across the Dune Sea, and some good old space wandering. Hopefully Crispin's Han Solo trilogy lives up to this when I get there.

Overall: 2/5 There's a couple good stories here, a few bad ones, and a whole pile of meh. I usually poke around online when I write these entries, and there are a fair number of people really like this and Mos Eisley, like top 5 EU books ever. While not as lobotomy inducing as a lot of the other recent selections, I think these are pretty mediocre overall. Mos Eisley is the stronger of the two (though I wouldn't pin a bunch of award on either) for several reasons, some of which I've already alluded to.

1. Too samey: Why are we still on Tatooine, still around the time of the OT, and in a different hive of scum and villainy? There's a lot of repeat minor characters, settings, etc. and not a ton of world building here. I get that Tatooine is the center of the Star Wars universe, but could we have at least gotten 100 years ago, or in a "respectable" part of the planet or something? Mos Eisley actually got out of Mos Eisley for a lot of the stories, and got us some cool sand people/moisture farmer/Jawa lore. This is mostly Jabba's palace, a dash of Mos Eisley, a sprinkling of the Pit of Carkoon, and the tiniest speck of anywhere else. Almost any other setting would've been a definite improvement, but I think "Tales of a Coruscant Club" would've been the front runner. Show the same place under the Old Republic, Empire, New Republic, etc. and mix up the setting to be less dingy.

2. Too anchored: Mos Eisley mostly revolved around the time Luke, Han, Chewie, and Obi-Wan's visit to the cantina, but most of the characters weren't intimately involved in those encounters (the exception being the very weak Greedo story, and the Ponda Baba/Dr. Evazan one, which benefits from a flash forward). The vast majority of these revolve around characters planning to kill/betray Jabba, and then failing because Leia does it. 

There's probably room for a collection of "all the ways Jabba didn't die" (maybe as a comedy? Rashomon style retelling as everyone claims they killed Jabba?) but it's not tight enough here to work. The other throughlines (the monks and the Anzati) aren't strong enough to carry it (I never want to read about soup again), and there's not much suspense: The Anzati can't actually kill anyone important, and the monks can't get anyone until the last page of their stories. Nor do we really care if they do, since they're basically done being relevant to the canon at that point. The Jawa "assassin" through line was also better executed since you got new details sprinkled throughout the story.

Overall, combined with pretty weak characterization for a lot of the leads, makes this mostly "Tales of Who Even Cares?"

Final recommendation: For a Star Wars fan? Worth at least skimming and pulling the ones that seem interesting/relate to characters you like. For a sci-fi fan in general? A passable short story collection, if you're looking for that sort of thing. Overall, pretty skippable.

Next up, Junior Jedi Knights AKA Attempt #2 at a Young Readers series.