Tales of the Bounty Hunters (1996) edited by Kevin J. Anderson

 Tales of the Bounty Hunters

Looks like the banner for a trading card set.

IG-88: Therefore I Am by Keven J. Anderson: 4/5 Strong start. One of the best of Anderson's Star Wars contributions. IG-88 is a droid that uploads its programming into 4 identical droids. They become fairly successful bounty hunters, take over Mechis III (the same planet the Thul family is in charge of in YJKs), and eventually uploads itself into the second Death Star. They all get blown up between that, Boba Fett, and Dash Rendar.

Dengar: Payback by Dave Wolverton: 2/5 This is a good story, but not a good Star Wars story. Too much that doesn't really line up with the rest of the universe, like Dengar's bounty hunting customs (giving his target a blaster). The romantic subplot could probably work with a bit more development. Dengar's a cyborg who had most of his emotions surgically removed, but he brain links with a tech-telepath dancer.

Bossk: The Prize Pelt by Kathy Tyers: 3/5 Tyers is a consistent writer, and I wish she'd been given more chances. Point off since isn't really a Bossk story. It's more about Chenlambec and Tinian, a Wookie and human bounty hunting team. They mange to trick and capture Bossk.

4-LOM and Zuckuss: Of Possible Futures by M. Shayne Bell: 4/5 Another author I wish we'd seen more of. Zuckuss has limited prescience and 4-LOM is a droid who wants to try to figure out how it works so he can do it. They wind up joining the Rebellion in the end to get Zuckuss medical treatmant. It's a good concept. Zuckuss's lungs were damaged by oxygen exposure, and Bell manages to pull some heart strings with it. Probably the best in the set.

Boba Fett: The Last One Standing by Daniel Keys Moran: 3/5 This one has the same problem as the Bossk story. It's as much a Han Solo story as it is a Boba Fett one, and heavily overshadowed by Moran's earlier Boba Fett/Sarlacc story in Tales of Jabba's Palace. Fett goes on one last for Han Solo. It ends with them in a Mexican standoff with each other. This is the story that establishes a lot of the Fett-adjacent characters and his pre-prequel backstory as an ex-cop from Concord Dawn.

Overall: 3/5 This is... fine? Two of the stories are strong, but the rest are pretty skippable. I think the shorter stories in the other collections were a better format.