Tales of the Bounty Hunters (Star Wars) (Book 3) Review

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(More customer reviews)Every heroic saga, whether it is Tolkien's Lord of the Rings or George Lucas' Star Wars series, succeeds or fails on the cunning and sheer "stage presence" of the antagonists faced by the heroes of the story. Let's face it, Lord Darth Vader is more imposing, and more interesting, than Luke Skywalker, the farmboy-turned-Jedi Knight who, by the way, is also Vader's offspring. The fact that Vader was so obviously evil and menacing in the first two Episodes of the Classic Trilogy had already made him one of the most popular movie villains; the revelation that the Dark Lord had once been Anakin Skywalker made him even more interesting, and by extension, Luke also became more complex and heroic.
Star Wars also has a secondary set of villains that dwells in the shadowy corners under the metal and plastic surfaces of the Galactic Empire: the bounty hunters. Every Star Wars film, including Episode I: The Phantom Menace, has a scene with at least one of these amoral, relentless, and resourceful villains, but their role as foils to the Heroes of the Rebellion came to the fore in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back. In this perennial fan favorite, both Lord Vader and crime boss Jabba the Hutt hire a diverse group of bounty hunters in an all-hands effort to capture the Millennium Falcon, her captain Han Solo, and all his companions, including Luke Skywalker.
Although the film only showed this band of ruffians only in one scene that takes place aboard Vader's flagship, Star Wars: Tales of the Bounty Hunters fleshes out this particular part of the saga with five short stories compiled and edited by Kevin J. Anderson (The Jedi Academy Trilogy).
Readers of Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina will recognize all five contributors, including Anderson, whose "Therefore I Am: The Tale of IG-88" adds depth and menace to an assassin droid seen only for a flash in the Vader's flagship scene in Episode V. Think of this story as "The Terminator Meets Star Wars," with a frighteningly self-aware droid that "comes alive," overwhelms its puny human creators, and begins to devise a plan to conquer the galaxy itself. (Readers will notice that parts of this story will not only be echoed in Kathy Tyers' "The Prize Pelt: The Tale of Bossk," but also in Dark Horse Comics' adaptation of Shadows of the Empire.")
Of course, "The Last One Standing: The Tale of Boba Fett," by Daniel Keys Moran, features the Star Wars galaxy's most famous -- or infamous -- bounty hunter. Although its status as an "origins of" story is now rather questionable, since readers now know the genesis of Boba Fett, the story is well-written and captures the nuances of its protagonist. Of the five stories in the anthology, this one covers nearly three decades of Fett's "career," including the bounty hunter's long-standing and relentless pursuit of smuggler-turned-Rebel-Hero Han Solo, not only for Vader and Jabba, but for other crime lords as well. (Star Wars artists working on 2002's Episode II: Attack of the Clones may have had this and other Boba Fett "origin myth" stories when they decided on the design for the clone troopers; Fett supposedly had been a stormtrooper before switching over to bounty hunting; the design of the clone trooper armor was an homage to this notion.)
This anthology, like the others in the Tales series, is entertaining, especially for fans of the original film trilogy who want to know more about those hissable and fearsome villains...the bounty hunters.

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