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Star Wars: Tales #3
Star Wars: Tales from Jabba's Palace
In the dusty heat of twin-sunned Tatooine lives the wealthiest gangster in a hundred worlds, master of a vast crime empire and keeper of a vicious, flesh-eating monster for entertainment (and disposal of his enemies). Bloated and sinister, Jabba the Hutt might have made a good joke -- if he weren't so dangerous. A cast of soldiers, spies, assassins, scoundrels, bounty hunters, and pleasure seekers have come to his palace, and every visitor to Jabba's grand abode has a story. Some of them may even live to tell it. . . .
Featuring original stories by: Kevin J. Anderson, M. Shayne Bell, John Gregory Betancourt, Mark Budz and Marina Fitch, A.C. Crispin, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, George Alec Effinger, Kenneth C. Flint, Esther Friesner, Barbara Hambly, Daryl F. Mallett, J.D. Montgomery, Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens, Jennifer Roberson, Kathy Tyers, Deborah Wheeler, Dave Wolverton, William F. Wu, Timothy Zahn.
Featuring original stories by: Kevin J. Anderson, M. Shayne Bell, John Gregory Betancourt, Mark Budz and Marina Fitch, A.C. Crispin, Dan'l Danehy-Oakes, George Alec Effinger, Kenneth C. Flint, Esther Friesner, Barbara Hambly, Daryl F. Mallett, J.D. Montgomery, Judy and Gar Reeves-Stevens, Jennifer Roberson, Kathy Tyers, Deborah Wheeler, Dave Wolverton, William F. Wu, Timothy Zahn.
448 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1996
About the author
Kevin J. Anderson
924 books2,982 followersYes, I have a lot of books, and if this is your first visit to my amazon author page, it can be a little overwhelming. If you are new to my work, let me recommend a few titles as good places to start. I love my Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series, humorous horror/mysteries, which begin with DEATH WARMED OVER. My steampunk fantasy adventures, CLOCKWORK ANGELS and CLOCKWORK LIVES, written with Neil Peart, legendary drummer from Rush, are two of my very favorite novels ever. And my magnum opus, the science fiction epic The Saga of Seven Suns, begins with HIDDEN EMPIRE. After you've tried those, I hope you'll check out some of my other series.
I have written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and I'm the co-author of the Dune prequels. My original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity. I have also written several comic books including the Dark Horse Star Wars collection Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Predator titles (also for Dark Horse), and X-Files titles for Topps.
I serve as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest.
My wife is author Rebecca Moesta. We currently reside near Monument, Colorado.
I have written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and I'm the co-author of the Dune prequels. My original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity. I have also written several comic books including the Dark Horse Star Wars collection Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Predator titles (also for Dark Horse), and X-Files titles for Topps.
I serve as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest.
My wife is author Rebecca Moesta. We currently reside near Monument, Colorado.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 170 reviews
March 9, 2011
To prove how good this book is. I don't think I will ever forget the short story about the rancor keeper. I enjoyed it so much that I had to buy the rancor keeper action figure...
I enjoy these types of stories that expose a different angle or prospective of famous events that were shown in the movie...
I enjoy these types of stories that expose a different angle or prospective of famous events that were shown in the movie...
December 22, 2015
Time to finally catch up on writing some reviews! It takes me forever to review short story collections, because sorting out my thoughts on like 19 different stories is hard. This is my third Star Wars collection, and much like the others in that it fleshes out background characters from the movies and shows you snatches of their lives and stories (and, sometimes, grisly deaths). This time, it all centers on the same short period within Jabba's palace from Return of the Jedi, with tons of different schemes simmering and coming to a boil at the exact same time, right when Han, Leia, Lando, Chewbacca, and Luke come crashing through the palace and throwing everything into turmoil.
Pretty much my favourite thing was seeing that there are like a dozen different assassination attempts in play, that Jabba is so unpopular that everyone is trying to murder him at the same time, and it's just a matter of time before one of them culminates... until Leia goes ahead and steals the kill. It reminds me of the Murder on the Orient Express, Star Wars-edition. :') I also love that most of the stories intertwine and connect with one another, since that's a narrative technique I love in anthologies.
And I've genuinely loved all of these collections, but the pacing of any collection in general doesn't sit well with me (there's a reason they take me like a month to get through), so I might dip into some EU novels after this for a change of pace.
Of 19 stories, here's the gender breakdown of the authors:
- 11m
- 6f
- 2 shared
Which is okay. Not as good as the Empire collection, but not as scarce as the Bounty Hunters. There are soooo many stories here, so let's see what I remember about them 20 days later:
- "A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale" by Kevin J. Anderson: SOOOO GOOD. It's an obvious choice for the starter, since Anderson edited the collection as a whole -- but it's also one that crushed my heart. Now that brief glimpse in the movie of Malakili screaming and crying over the corpse of the rancor destroys me. I'm really really sad about the rancor, you guys!!!
- "Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef" by Barbara Hambly: Kind of hilarious, in the depiction of the chef's neuroses about preparing food for Jabba and trying to avoid his master being poisoned. It really must be the most high-stress job, only below filing Darth Vader's paperwork.
- "That's Entertainment: The Tale of Salacious Crumb" by Esther M. Friesner: The nervous academic is a hysterical character -- more aggravated about tenure & scholarly rivalries than his likely death in Jabba's den -- although Salacious Crumb himself just as aggravating on paper as he is on-screen. The academic satire, though, is just SO ON POINT.
- "A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: Oola's Tale" by Kathy Tyers: Oh lawwwd. Kathy Tyers is so predictably fantastic, as she's been in the other collections. Oola is strong and compassionate and in such a bad situation, her tale is heartbreaking, and the brief glimpse of Luke we get is great.
- "Let Us Prey: The Whiphid's Tale" by Marina Fitch and Mark Budz: I actually can't remember anything of what happens in this story, and even after looking it up, only had a vague impression of it. Eh.
- "Sleight of Hand: The Tale of Mara Jade" by Timothy Zahn: This was my first time meeting Mara Jade! And it makes me really excited to read further Zahn things in order to see more of her. (Since she's not a background character from the palace, however, this story especially made me think of something like, idk, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead -- surprise, extremely significant plot characters were drifting between the lines all along!)
- "And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale" by William F. Wu: The Gamorrean guard is so charmingly, mindnumbingly stupid, although what he ends up doing is so gross. So, so gross. I have a weird soft spot for his attempts at being a gumshoe of a detective, though.
- "Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale" by Kenneth C. Flint: Aw, this one was great. Jabba's only true, genuine friend, revealing that there's further depths beneath that hideous exterior, and that the Hutt is capable of caring for people (and vice versa).
- "Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees" by Deborah Wheeler: Couldn't really remember this one either.
- "And the Band Played On: The Band's Tale" by John Gregory Betancourt: The jizz band is hilarious, and I just want all the best for these assholes.
- "Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale" by M. Shayne Bell: Am I weird if I kind of adore Bib Fortuna? He's such a great character: Jabba's cunning and sly majordomo: trusted yet plotting Jabba's downfall nonetheless, keeping his finger on the pulse of all the various schemes in-play and balls in the air, so quietly malicious and annoyed at his own circumstances. I want to co-opt his catchphrase for my own use: Of the days annoyances, these. And the end of this one is horrifying!!
- "The Great God Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays" by George Alec Effinger: Ludicrous, but funny. Once you realise what the Great God Quay is...
- "A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9" by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens: I had to look EV-9D9 up to remember who she was. It's an interesting idea, and I love the inclusion of Lando, but it doesn't really go anywhere with this premise (also I was probably spoiled by the awesome droids in the Bounty Hunter collection...).
- "A Free Quarren in the Palace: Tessek's Tale" by Dave Wolverton: I literally cannot remember anything from this one either, and Wookieepedia is no help for once. :(
- "Tongue-tied: Bubo's Tale" by Daryl F. Mallett: BUBO THE FROG-DOG. PLOT TWIST: HE IS A SECRET SPY AND ASSASSIN
- "Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale" by Jennifer Roberson: Creepy. Interesting but not so much my cup of tea.
- "Shaara and the Sarlacc: The Skiff Guard's Tale" by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: APPARENTLY I LOVE ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE SARLACC. Shaara's tale is magnificent, and I love the intimate confessional first-person narration (and the dramatic irony of the reader knowing what will happen to Boba Fett imminently). I was almost surprised to see it was a male author, because it's such a sympathetic portrayal of a girl who is strong and resourceful and being preyed upon by men who have absolutely the worst intentions toward her. It's also the perfect segue to the next tale...
- "A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett" by Daniel Keys Moran (under the pseudonym J.D. Montgomery): I know Moran himself doesn't like this one as much because of how much he had to change the story (hence the pseudonym), but idc, I adored it. He wrote the best most amazing Boba Fett story in the Bounty Hunters collection, and this one is right up there for me too: claustrophobic, horrifying, revealing more about the nature of the Sarlacc itself, and also displaying Boba's resourcefulness and stubborn, persistent drive to survive. The phrase a barve like that practically gives me little shivers now.
- "Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale" by A. C. Crispin: ALL. MY. FEELINGS. This time, I wasn't surprised to find out that A.C. Crispin is a woman, because again, the main character is strong without having to tote around blasters: she's non-traditionally beautiful, making the best of a rough situation, there are strong maternal themes throughout, and this odd-couple jaunt across the desert is a wonderful little story. I was rooting for them SO MUCH, and it's the perfect ending to this collection as a whole because it left me warm and uplifted. Plus, Chekhov's krayt dragon... :] (c'mon, you knew it had to appear at some point!)
- Epilogue: Whatever Became Of...?: A great little capstone, letting you know what happens to everyone afterwards. More warm and fuzziness to counteract the horrors that came before.
---
In summary: it's a good collection , fleshing out all of the background characters you catch glimpses of in ROTJ. The stand-out best stories, imo, are the rancor keeper, Oola, Ephant Mon, Bib Fortuna, Shaara, Boba Fett, and the fat dancer.
I'll type up favourite quotes later!
Pretty much my favourite thing was seeing that there are like a dozen different assassination attempts in play, that Jabba is so unpopular that everyone is trying to murder him at the same time, and it's just a matter of time before one of them culminates... until Leia goes ahead and steals the kill. It reminds me of the Murder on the Orient Express, Star Wars-edition. :') I also love that most of the stories intertwine and connect with one another, since that's a narrative technique I love in anthologies.
And I've genuinely loved all of these collections, but the pacing of any collection in general doesn't sit well with me (there's a reason they take me like a month to get through), so I might dip into some EU novels after this for a change of pace.
Of 19 stories, here's the gender breakdown of the authors:
- 11m
- 6f
- 2 shared
Which is okay. Not as good as the Empire collection, but not as scarce as the Bounty Hunters. There are soooo many stories here, so let's see what I remember about them 20 days later:
- "A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale" by Kevin J. Anderson: SOOOO GOOD. It's an obvious choice for the starter, since Anderson edited the collection as a whole -- but it's also one that crushed my heart. Now that brief glimpse in the movie of Malakili screaming and crying over the corpse of the rancor destroys me. I'm really really sad about the rancor, you guys!!!
- "Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef" by Barbara Hambly: Kind of hilarious, in the depiction of the chef's neuroses about preparing food for Jabba and trying to avoid his master being poisoned. It really must be the most high-stress job, only below filing Darth Vader's paperwork.
- "That's Entertainment: The Tale of Salacious Crumb" by Esther M. Friesner: The nervous academic is a hysterical character -- more aggravated about tenure & scholarly rivalries than his likely death in Jabba's den -- although Salacious Crumb himself just as aggravating on paper as he is on-screen. The academic satire, though, is just SO ON POINT.
- "A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: Oola's Tale" by Kathy Tyers: Oh lawwwd. Kathy Tyers is so predictably fantastic, as she's been in the other collections. Oola is strong and compassionate and in such a bad situation, her tale is heartbreaking, and the brief glimpse of Luke we get is great.
- "Let Us Prey: The Whiphid's Tale" by Marina Fitch and Mark Budz: I actually can't remember anything of what happens in this story, and even after looking it up, only had a vague impression of it. Eh.
- "Sleight of Hand: The Tale of Mara Jade" by Timothy Zahn: This was my first time meeting Mara Jade! And it makes me really excited to read further Zahn things in order to see more of her. (Since she's not a background character from the palace, however, this story especially made me think of something like, idk, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead -- surprise, extremely significant plot characters were drifting between the lines all along!)
- "And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale" by William F. Wu: The Gamorrean guard is so charmingly, mindnumbingly stupid, although what he ends up doing is so gross. So, so gross. I have a weird soft spot for his attempts at being a gumshoe of a detective, though.
- "Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale" by Kenneth C. Flint: Aw, this one was great. Jabba's only true, genuine friend, revealing that there's further depths beneath that hideous exterior, and that the Hutt is capable of caring for people (and vice versa).
- "Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees" by Deborah Wheeler: Couldn't really remember this one either.
- "And the Band Played On: The Band's Tale" by John Gregory Betancourt: The jizz band is hilarious, and I just want all the best for these assholes.
- "Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale" by M. Shayne Bell: Am I weird if I kind of adore Bib Fortuna? He's such a great character: Jabba's cunning and sly majordomo: trusted yet plotting Jabba's downfall nonetheless, keeping his finger on the pulse of all the various schemes in-play and balls in the air, so quietly malicious and annoyed at his own circumstances. I want to co-opt his catchphrase for my own use: Of the days annoyances, these. And the end of this one is horrifying!!
- "The Great God Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays" by George Alec Effinger: Ludicrous, but funny. Once you realise what the Great God Quay is...
- "A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9" by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens: I had to look EV-9D9 up to remember who she was. It's an interesting idea, and I love the inclusion of Lando, but it doesn't really go anywhere with this premise (also I was probably spoiled by the awesome droids in the Bounty Hunter collection...).
- "A Free Quarren in the Palace: Tessek's Tale" by Dave Wolverton: I literally cannot remember anything from this one either, and Wookieepedia is no help for once. :(
- "Tongue-tied: Bubo's Tale" by Daryl F. Mallett: BUBO THE FROG-DOG. PLOT TWIST: HE IS A SECRET SPY AND ASSASSIN
- "Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale" by Jennifer Roberson: Creepy. Interesting but not so much my cup of tea.
- "Shaara and the Sarlacc: The Skiff Guard's Tale" by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes: APPARENTLY I LOVE ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE SARLACC. Shaara's tale is magnificent, and I love the intimate confessional first-person narration (and the dramatic irony of the reader knowing what will happen to Boba Fett imminently). I was almost surprised to see it was a male author, because it's such a sympathetic portrayal of a girl who is strong and resourceful and being preyed upon by men who have absolutely the worst intentions toward her. It's also the perfect segue to the next tale...
- "A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett" by Daniel Keys Moran (under the pseudonym J.D. Montgomery): I know Moran himself doesn't like this one as much because of how much he had to change the story (hence the pseudonym), but idc, I adored it. He wrote the best most amazing Boba Fett story in the Bounty Hunters collection, and this one is right up there for me too: claustrophobic, horrifying, revealing more about the nature of the Sarlacc itself, and also displaying Boba's resourcefulness and stubborn, persistent drive to survive. The phrase a barve like that practically gives me little shivers now.
- "Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale" by A. C. Crispin: ALL. MY. FEELINGS. This time, I wasn't surprised to find out that A.C. Crispin is a woman, because again, the main character is strong without having to tote around blasters: she's non-traditionally beautiful, making the best of a rough situation, there are strong maternal themes throughout, and this odd-couple jaunt across the desert is a wonderful little story. I was rooting for them SO MUCH, and it's the perfect ending to this collection as a whole because it left me warm and uplifted. Plus, Chekhov's krayt dragon... :] (c'mon, you knew it had to appear at some point!)
- Epilogue: Whatever Became Of...?: A great little capstone, letting you know what happens to everyone afterwards. More warm and fuzziness to counteract the horrors that came before.
---
In summary: it's a good collection , fleshing out all of the background characters you catch glimpses of in ROTJ. The stand-out best stories, imo, are the rancor keeper, Oola, Ephant Mon, Bib Fortuna, Shaara, Boba Fett, and the fat dancer.
I'll type up favourite quotes later!
November 29, 2023
2/5 stars, this was really just okay.
The stars I did give come in the form of appreciation for the unique perspective of telling the same story (the opening 20-30 minutes of RotJ) from different perspectives and fleshing out minor background characters.
The stories about the well known characters (Mara Jade and Boba Fett) were also fairly well written, particularly Mara written by Zahn himself.
However, compared to Tales of the Bounty Hunters, this was largely a miss for me. One giant problem was I felt like there were just too many different stories and characters. I think it would’ve read better as maybe 6-8 characters with longer chapters.
The writing also felt weird, particularly the alien speech that was all translated to Galactic Basic; it read overly simplified and not like traditional Star Wars dialogue. Reading Jabba speak English instead of having C-3PO translate as much was just odd.
This is probably worth a skip unless there are specific characters tales you’re interested.
The stars I did give come in the form of appreciation for the unique perspective of telling the same story (the opening 20-30 minutes of RotJ) from different perspectives and fleshing out minor background characters.
The stories about the well known characters (Mara Jade and Boba Fett) were also fairly well written, particularly Mara written by Zahn himself.
However, compared to Tales of the Bounty Hunters, this was largely a miss for me. One giant problem was I felt like there were just too many different stories and characters. I think it would’ve read better as maybe 6-8 characters with longer chapters.
The writing also felt weird, particularly the alien speech that was all translated to Galactic Basic; it read overly simplified and not like traditional Star Wars dialogue. Reading Jabba speak English instead of having C-3PO translate as much was just odd.
This is probably worth a skip unless there are specific characters tales you’re interested.
October 6, 2024
3.5 stars. I liked this one better than Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina. Some really great stories that didn’t feel as gimmicky as the first installment. It’s interesting to see how some of these concepts influenced subsequent plot points in canon while others were disregarded.
December 1, 2017
This is a collection of well-written tales, but Jabba the Hutt and his environment are some of the least interesting aspects (at least, to me) of the "Star Wars" universe, and there are too many characters I simply wasn't interested in reading about. That said, at least two of the stories (about the Rancor & his keeper, and Jabba's band) are absolute gems, and you can never go wrong when Timothy Zahn shows up to give us another taste of Mara Jade. A mixed bag, but with a few gorgeous diamonds.
August 19, 2016
Some entertaining stories...but I prefer the novels. Having a contribution from the Reeves-Stevenses is a plus, though.
November 3, 2022
I'll start by saying I genuinely enjoyed the writing in this book, especially the variety of stories told by different authors throughout. To be honest, though, Return of the Jedi ranks fairly low on my Star Wars movies list, if I were to actually rank them - I like it, it's just not near my favorite. And my least favorite segment of Return of the Jedi happens to be every moment of Jabba's Palace.
So I wasn't surprised that I struggled with these stories. There's nothing wrong with them and I'm glad to have read the book if only to familiarize myself with some characters whom I knew the names of but didn't have much background on. This book just isn't for me! And that's OK.
I do love that the Tales books in Legends laid the groundwork for the Certain Point of View anthologies in Canon. And I did enjoy the Mara Jade story.
I'd consider this one of those Legends books you could consume a story at a time without rushing and you'd be fine. But it's still worth giving it a go, especially if you love Return of the Jedi. Maybe this book is absolutely for you. You'll never know until you try.
So I wasn't surprised that I struggled with these stories. There's nothing wrong with them and I'm glad to have read the book if only to familiarize myself with some characters whom I knew the names of but didn't have much background on. This book just isn't for me! And that's OK.
I do love that the Tales books in Legends laid the groundwork for the Certain Point of View anthologies in Canon. And I did enjoy the Mara Jade story.
I'd consider this one of those Legends books you could consume a story at a time without rushing and you'd be fine. But it's still worth giving it a go, especially if you love Return of the Jedi. Maybe this book is absolutely for you. You'll never know until you try.
September 13, 2016
I've always thought Jabba the Hutt was the perfect villain. He's grotesque both physically and morally, sexually perverse, capricious, loyal to no one, and doesn't have a single redeeming quality that an optimistic hero would ever try to latch onto. George Lucas went all the way.
I loved reading the personal histories of all the freaky little critters in his palace, most of whom are trying to kill him. There was a good variety of writing styles and every character from the movie that we could possibly be interested in was covered.
But it also reads like more of an outline. There's a lot of great ideas in here, none of which are fleshed out. Many of the stories are interconnected: the creatures are trying to figure out who killed a kitchen boy and a dimwitted alien handyman. I wasn't surprised that Jabba's henchmen were plotting against him. But I was surprised that their plotting was so boring. I wish Ree-Yees and the Weequays weren't in here. Plus all the stories take place at the same time: when Luke and Leia come in to save Han. Which I'm not sure is necessary. It would have been much better if there were fewer stories and more detail about the lead character in each of them.
It's a shame because there's so much to work with here. I loved the Bo'marr monks sitting in brain jars contemplating the universe. I would have loved to read a story starring them. And Jabba's badass female competitor, Lady Valerian, definitely deserves her own narrative.
Of course, I also wanted a first-person story from Jabba. But he doesn't play much of a part in most of these stories. He comes in briefly towards the end as the one-dimensional invertebrate Tony Soprano we expect. His employees don't know any more about his inner life than Luke Skywalker does.
There's some gems though. The best stories:
The Rancor Keeper's Tale
Malakili, an gritty circus trainer "recruited" to work for Jabba, turns out to be exactly the kind of rare soul who should be working with animals. I felt his pain.
A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance: Oola's Tale
I think the only character in Jabba's employ who we had any sympathy for was the Twi'lek dancer. The writer clearly does too. Oola had a love affair with Bib Fortuna ("his thick lekku") and he betrayed her. Oola feels like a real woman here. Which is a refreshing change of pace from the slobs in most of the other stories.
And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale
Gartogg is the dumbest member of a species that's pretty damn dumb to begin with. The epilogue is hilarious.
Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale
Ephant Mon is an arms dealer who's paying a voluntary life debt to Jabba, who saved him from certain death on a criminal mission. Luke uses a mind control trick to remind Mon of how much he loved his peaceful home planet. Mon feels more human than the human characters as it dawns on him that he doesn't want to work for the Hutt anymore. He begins to view everything he once loved with disgust. It's also the only story which portrays Jabba with any sort of nuance. I almost felt sorry for him watching him lose his only friend.
Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale
I always thought Bib was more menacing than Jabba. At least Jabba you could laugh at. Bib could give a child nightmares. This story does him justice. It's one of the longer ones in here and it gives the most backstory. And Bib's fate is perfect.
A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9
Do droids have souls? Answer: yes. Ninedenine strikes me not so much as evil but as a robot who desperately wants to be human. Which is sad.
A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett
So you can eat something, metabolize it's DNA, and absorb its consciousness. That's a pretty fresh idea as far as I can tell. I would have liked more explanation as to exactly how they stayed alive inside the Sarlacc for so long, but so it goes.
Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale
Yarna finds love in a hopeless place. This one also shows some of the chaos that ensues right after Jabba dies.
A running theme in the book is how different species view beauty. Yarna, obese and six-breasted, is mocked by many denizens but lusted after by Jabba himself. And Lady Valarian, the greasy "Whiphid dame" who resembles a wild boar, grosses out the humans but is the hottest thing on the planet to J'Quille and Ephant Mon.
This book had a lot of flaws, but overall it was exciting and brought up a lot of points that made me want to explore vintage Star Wars fanfic more.
I loved reading the personal histories of all the freaky little critters in his palace, most of whom are trying to kill him. There was a good variety of writing styles and every character from the movie that we could possibly be interested in was covered.
But it also reads like more of an outline. There's a lot of great ideas in here, none of which are fleshed out. Many of the stories are interconnected: the creatures are trying to figure out who killed a kitchen boy and a dimwitted alien handyman. I wasn't surprised that Jabba's henchmen were plotting against him. But I was surprised that their plotting was so boring. I wish Ree-Yees and the Weequays weren't in here. Plus all the stories take place at the same time: when Luke and Leia come in to save Han. Which I'm not sure is necessary. It would have been much better if there were fewer stories and more detail about the lead character in each of them.
It's a shame because there's so much to work with here. I loved the Bo'marr monks sitting in brain jars contemplating the universe. I would have loved to read a story starring them. And Jabba's badass female competitor, Lady Valerian, definitely deserves her own narrative.
Of course, I also wanted a first-person story from Jabba. But he doesn't play much of a part in most of these stories. He comes in briefly towards the end as the one-dimensional invertebrate Tony Soprano we expect. His employees don't know any more about his inner life than Luke Skywalker does.
There's some gems though. The best stories:
The Rancor Keeper's Tale
Malakili, an gritty circus trainer "recruited" to work for Jabba, turns out to be exactly the kind of rare soul who should be working with animals. I felt his pain.
A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance: Oola's Tale
I think the only character in Jabba's employ who we had any sympathy for was the Twi'lek dancer. The writer clearly does too. Oola had a love affair with Bib Fortuna ("his thick lekku") and he betrayed her. Oola feels like a real woman here. Which is a refreshing change of pace from the slobs in most of the other stories.
And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale
Gartogg is the dumbest member of a species that's pretty damn dumb to begin with. The epilogue is hilarious.
Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale
Ephant Mon is an arms dealer who's paying a voluntary life debt to Jabba, who saved him from certain death on a criminal mission. Luke uses a mind control trick to remind Mon of how much he loved his peaceful home planet. Mon feels more human than the human characters as it dawns on him that he doesn't want to work for the Hutt anymore. He begins to view everything he once loved with disgust. It's also the only story which portrays Jabba with any sort of nuance. I almost felt sorry for him watching him lose his only friend.
Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale
I always thought Bib was more menacing than Jabba. At least Jabba you could laugh at. Bib could give a child nightmares. This story does him justice. It's one of the longer ones in here and it gives the most backstory. And Bib's fate is perfect.
A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9
Do droids have souls? Answer: yes. Ninedenine strikes me not so much as evil but as a robot who desperately wants to be human. Which is sad.
A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett
So you can eat something, metabolize it's DNA, and absorb its consciousness. That's a pretty fresh idea as far as I can tell. I would have liked more explanation as to exactly how they stayed alive inside the Sarlacc for so long, but so it goes.
Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale
Yarna finds love in a hopeless place. This one also shows some of the chaos that ensues right after Jabba dies.
A running theme in the book is how different species view beauty. Yarna, obese and six-breasted, is mocked by many denizens but lusted after by Jabba himself. And Lady Valarian, the greasy "Whiphid dame" who resembles a wild boar, grosses out the humans but is the hottest thing on the planet to J'Quille and Ephant Mon.
This book had a lot of flaws, but overall it was exciting and brought up a lot of points that made me want to explore vintage Star Wars fanfic more.
July 6, 2014
This second Star Wars EU short story collection is not nearly as good as the first one, "Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina." In fact, I almost gave this two stars. But a few of the stories are just good enough to make it worth the trouble and elevate it into the realm of readability.
As with the previous collection, editor Kevin J. Anderson gathers a group of writers to tell stories of minor and unnamed characters from one of the more memorable sequences in the original Star Wars trilogy: Jabba's palace. As before, the plot lines are interwoven so that characters appear in multiple stories and mysteries presented in one tale are explained in another. However, I didn't find that any of these connections are particularly interesting or revelatory. Most of them seem either irrelevant or hackneyed. Is it possible that one character's idiocy unwittingly leads to the demise of another? Sure. Is it interesting or rewarding for me as a reader to know this? No.
Given that Jabba's palace receives more screen time than the Mos Eisley cantina, one imagines that the writers would have had a lot to work with in terms of expanding the milieu. Unfortunately, the exact opposite appears to have been the case. The paucity of imagination presented here is quite disappointing. For the first section of the book nearly every story winds up with someone being fed to the Rancor or with an assassination plot being foiled. There is also a persistent theme of the stupidity of Jabba's henchmen that predominates. I found all of this quite disappointing. If we accept what we know of the Star Wars universe already, it is hard to credit the idea that Jabba the Hutt got to be so rich and powerful while hiring such shoddy help or while making so many enemies. Sure, a master criminal will have some people out to get him. But this book almost infers that he has no loyal supporters who are not idiots. That hardly seems like a recipe for success in organized crime.
There are a few notable exceptions, and it is these stories that (almost) salvage the book. "Old Friends" recounts the story of Ephant Mon, one of Jabba's oldest and most loyal supporters. It is a bittersweet exploration of the conflict between loyalty and morality, as Ephant Mon sees the Jabba he once knew - a criminal of cunning and bravery and a certain level of honor - replaced by the vile Jabba we know from the movies. Also good is the story "A Barve Like That," which describes what happens to Boba Fett once he is swallowed by the Sarlacc. Suffice it to say, Fett is nothing if not a survivor - and he is not an idiot. I also liked the books final story, "Skin Deep," which recounts some of the aftermath of Jabba's death through the eyes of the woman we know in the movies only as the "fat dancer." It is a lovely little love story, and it is incongruous both in theme and quality from the other tales here.
Overall, I find it hard to recommend this book for anyone but die hard fans. My recommendation for the casual fan would be simply to read the individual stories I have called out above and skip the rest.
As with the previous collection, editor Kevin J. Anderson gathers a group of writers to tell stories of minor and unnamed characters from one of the more memorable sequences in the original Star Wars trilogy: Jabba's palace. As before, the plot lines are interwoven so that characters appear in multiple stories and mysteries presented in one tale are explained in another. However, I didn't find that any of these connections are particularly interesting or revelatory. Most of them seem either irrelevant or hackneyed. Is it possible that one character's idiocy unwittingly leads to the demise of another? Sure. Is it interesting or rewarding for me as a reader to know this? No.
Given that Jabba's palace receives more screen time than the Mos Eisley cantina, one imagines that the writers would have had a lot to work with in terms of expanding the milieu. Unfortunately, the exact opposite appears to have been the case. The paucity of imagination presented here is quite disappointing. For the first section of the book nearly every story winds up with someone being fed to the Rancor or with an assassination plot being foiled. There is also a persistent theme of the stupidity of Jabba's henchmen that predominates. I found all of this quite disappointing. If we accept what we know of the Star Wars universe already, it is hard to credit the idea that Jabba the Hutt got to be so rich and powerful while hiring such shoddy help or while making so many enemies. Sure, a master criminal will have some people out to get him. But this book almost infers that he has no loyal supporters who are not idiots. That hardly seems like a recipe for success in organized crime.
There are a few notable exceptions, and it is these stories that (almost) salvage the book. "Old Friends" recounts the story of Ephant Mon, one of Jabba's oldest and most loyal supporters. It is a bittersweet exploration of the conflict between loyalty and morality, as Ephant Mon sees the Jabba he once knew - a criminal of cunning and bravery and a certain level of honor - replaced by the vile Jabba we know from the movies. Also good is the story "A Barve Like That," which describes what happens to Boba Fett once he is swallowed by the Sarlacc. Suffice it to say, Fett is nothing if not a survivor - and he is not an idiot. I also liked the books final story, "Skin Deep," which recounts some of the aftermath of Jabba's death through the eyes of the woman we know in the movies only as the "fat dancer." It is a lovely little love story, and it is incongruous both in theme and quality from the other tales here.
Overall, I find it hard to recommend this book for anyone but die hard fans. My recommendation for the casual fan would be simply to read the individual stories I have called out above and skip the rest.
December 29, 2021
Star Wars Legends Project #289
Background: Tales from Jabba's Palace was edited by Kevin J. Anderson and published in December of 1995. It is an anthology of 19 short stories featuring characters from Jabba's palace as seen in Return of the Jedi. Several were written by authors who have also written Star Wars novels, and many of the rest also wrote stories for one of the other anthologies. All of them feature some of the events that take place during the movie as prominent scenes.
Review: I had never realized before that this was published only 5 months after Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina. That seems rushed, even when you're talking about short stories, and it explains why this felt so bland. When I reviewed that previous volume, I noted how surprised I was that I remembered the stories so vividly after decades. In this case, I was surprised that that didn't happen, but it made sense given how Just Kind of There a lot of these stories are. Anyway, here's how I rank them and a few words about each story:
Sleight of Hand: The Tale of Mara Jade by Timothy Zahn
Although Mara Jade is undercover as a dancing girl in Jabba's court for much of this story, as far as I know, the character she is disguised as never actually appears on screen. Though I'd rather have gotten his take on an actual character from the movies, and I'm not a huge fan of Jade having yet another improbable close encounter with Luke Skywalker before their official first meeting in the years to come . . . it's really hard to complain too loud about Zahn writing us a fun Mara Jade story.
Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale by A.C. Crispin
I'm not sure anyone would pinpoint Yarna d'al' Gargan as the character most likely to star in an entertaining and exciting story, but here we are. Crispin brings the formidable skills that produced the great Han Solo Trilogy fully to bear, and the result is surprisingly dramatic, emotional, and satisfying, striking the perfect note with which to end this volume.
A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett by Daniel Keys Moran
I didn't have high hopes for this, partially because it's apparently surprisingly difficult to tell a good Boba Fett story and partially because the Boba Fett story in the previous volume . . . isn't very good. But this is a pleasant surprise because it deals with Boba Fett once he's already in the Sarlacc and there's some really rich world-building spring boarding off of the questionable and confusing premise of "slowly digested over a thousand years."
A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale by Kevin J. Anderson
The potential is obvious for a story about the man who memorably bursts into heart-rending sobs at the sight of the dead Rancor after its battle with Luke Skywalker, and Anderson actually delivers for once. He gives depth and dimension to a character who proves well-worth the extra attention.
And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale by William F. Wu
Your mileage may vary on this one. Probably a lot of people will find the premise either disgusting or dumb, or both, but I loved the conceit of a whodunnit where the detective investigating the case is too thick to possibly ever have an inkling about what's going on. There is a thread running through several stories about a string of murders that are taking place inside Jabba's Palace during this time, but this is the only story that really does anything interesting with that idea.
Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale by M. Shayne Bell
This is my least favorite of Bell's stories for the various anthologies, but he's always at least worth checking out. He's constrained here by the limitations of the character rather than any flaw in his writing, but I liked the way he builds out the mythos surrounding the B'omarr monks.
Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale by Kenneth C. Flint
Ephant Mon is such a strange character within the EU. Writers have done things with him that you'd never remotely expect from the brevity of his appearance in one movie. I don't know what to make of all that, but that said, this story is a pretty decent portrait of someone who is in Jabba's court purely out of friendship, not out of fear or greed or deceit or some other underhanded motive. It's a different enough motivation from anything else we see in the book that it stood out as worth the read.
A Free Quarren in the Palace: Tessek's Tale by Dave Wolverton
This is basically a slightly less-interesting version of Bib Fortuna's Tale, but I did like getting the perspective of a character that several other characters had already given their opinion on. Not much more to say about it than that . . . Firmly middle of the pack.
A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9 by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Writing a good story with a completely unsympathetic protagonist is tricky, but possible. This is mediocre on that score, but I did enjoy the Lando connection, so bonus points for that.
And the Band Played On: The Band's Tale by John Gregory Betancourt
There's so much unrealized potential in this story, as Betancourt fails to do anything interesting in developing either these characters or their experiences.
Let Us Prey: The Whiphid's Tale by Marina Fitch and Mark Budz
Just another one of several same-y stories about sneaky characters sneaking around and doing intrigue. There's nothing particularly bad about it, but it doesn't really stand out, either.
A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance: Oola's Tale by Kathy Tyers
I definitely expected more from this story of the most tragic member of Jabba's retinue. I wanted a story about someone who is something more than a victim of their own foolish choices, and this felt like another huge missed opportunity.
Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef by Barbara Hambly
I really liked this character, and his relationship with one of my other favorites, the Rancor Keeper. They made for a very complementary pairing. That said, nothing interesting happens within this actual story. It felt mostly like it was cobbled together out of bits that needed to be put in place for other stories, and they forgot to include one for this entry.
Tongue-tied: Bubo's Tale by Daryl F. Mallett
Who is Bubo, you ask? He's the ugly toad creature that's sitting outside Jabba's Palace in that one scene. And he's . . . actually a sentient alien who is part of an elaborate ongoing plot within the palace? Did we need that? Yes, he is, and no, we didn't. Plus this story is like 6 pages long. Was NOT worth the effort.
Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale by Jennifer Roberson
Hey look, one of my least favorite characters from the Mos Eisley Cantina is back for another story even though he doesn't actually appear in Jabba's Palace. This would be a pass even without the offensive implications of that really terrible title.
Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees by Deborah Wheeler
You spend the whole book hearing about how much everyone hates Ree-Yees, and then you get to this story and you see why.
The Great God Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays by George Alec Effinger
We're talking about aliens, so it's not quite racist that a group of beings who exist around and use advanced technology are depicted as such primitive simpletons that they think the equivalent of a magic 8-ball is a god guiding their actions. But it definitely trades in uncomfortable stereotypes about "uncivilized" tribal peoples. I mean, come on, even the Ewoks are more sophisticated than that.
Shaara and the Sarlacc: The Skiff Guard's Tale by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
I don't understand what this story is, let alone what it's trying to be. It has nothing to do with anything.
That's Entertainment: The Tale of Salacious Crumb by Esther M. Friesner
I don't know what "that" is, but it's certainly not entertainment. There's a series of deeply-unfunny events building to the worst punchline in Star Wars, and perhaps literary, history.
C+
Background: Tales from Jabba's Palace was edited by Kevin J. Anderson and published in December of 1995. It is an anthology of 19 short stories featuring characters from Jabba's palace as seen in Return of the Jedi. Several were written by authors who have also written Star Wars novels, and many of the rest also wrote stories for one of the other anthologies. All of them feature some of the events that take place during the movie as prominent scenes.
Review: I had never realized before that this was published only 5 months after Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina. That seems rushed, even when you're talking about short stories, and it explains why this felt so bland. When I reviewed that previous volume, I noted how surprised I was that I remembered the stories so vividly after decades. In this case, I was surprised that that didn't happen, but it made sense given how Just Kind of There a lot of these stories are. Anyway, here's how I rank them and a few words about each story:
Sleight of Hand: The Tale of Mara Jade by Timothy Zahn
Although Mara Jade is undercover as a dancing girl in Jabba's court for much of this story, as far as I know, the character she is disguised as never actually appears on screen. Though I'd rather have gotten his take on an actual character from the movies, and I'm not a huge fan of Jade having yet another improbable close encounter with Luke Skywalker before their official first meeting in the years to come . . . it's really hard to complain too loud about Zahn writing us a fun Mara Jade story.
Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale by A.C. Crispin
I'm not sure anyone would pinpoint Yarna d'al' Gargan as the character most likely to star in an entertaining and exciting story, but here we are. Crispin brings the formidable skills that produced the great Han Solo Trilogy fully to bear, and the result is surprisingly dramatic, emotional, and satisfying, striking the perfect note with which to end this volume.
A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett by Daniel Keys Moran
I didn't have high hopes for this, partially because it's apparently surprisingly difficult to tell a good Boba Fett story and partially because the Boba Fett story in the previous volume . . . isn't very good. But this is a pleasant surprise because it deals with Boba Fett once he's already in the Sarlacc and there's some really rich world-building spring boarding off of the questionable and confusing premise of "slowly digested over a thousand years."
A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale by Kevin J. Anderson
The potential is obvious for a story about the man who memorably bursts into heart-rending sobs at the sight of the dead Rancor after its battle with Luke Skywalker, and Anderson actually delivers for once. He gives depth and dimension to a character who proves well-worth the extra attention.
And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale by William F. Wu
Your mileage may vary on this one. Probably a lot of people will find the premise either disgusting or dumb, or both, but I loved the conceit of a whodunnit where the detective investigating the case is too thick to possibly ever have an inkling about what's going on. There is a thread running through several stories about a string of murders that are taking place inside Jabba's Palace during this time, but this is the only story that really does anything interesting with that idea.
Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale by M. Shayne Bell
This is my least favorite of Bell's stories for the various anthologies, but he's always at least worth checking out. He's constrained here by the limitations of the character rather than any flaw in his writing, but I liked the way he builds out the mythos surrounding the B'omarr monks.
Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale by Kenneth C. Flint
Ephant Mon is such a strange character within the EU. Writers have done things with him that you'd never remotely expect from the brevity of his appearance in one movie. I don't know what to make of all that, but that said, this story is a pretty decent portrait of someone who is in Jabba's court purely out of friendship, not out of fear or greed or deceit or some other underhanded motive. It's a different enough motivation from anything else we see in the book that it stood out as worth the read.
A Free Quarren in the Palace: Tessek's Tale by Dave Wolverton
This is basically a slightly less-interesting version of Bib Fortuna's Tale, but I did like getting the perspective of a character that several other characters had already given their opinion on. Not much more to say about it than that . . . Firmly middle of the pack.
A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9 by Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens
Writing a good story with a completely unsympathetic protagonist is tricky, but possible. This is mediocre on that score, but I did enjoy the Lando connection, so bonus points for that.
And the Band Played On: The Band's Tale by John Gregory Betancourt
There's so much unrealized potential in this story, as Betancourt fails to do anything interesting in developing either these characters or their experiences.
Let Us Prey: The Whiphid's Tale by Marina Fitch and Mark Budz
Just another one of several same-y stories about sneaky characters sneaking around and doing intrigue. There's nothing particularly bad about it, but it doesn't really stand out, either.
A Time to Mourn, A Time to Dance: Oola's Tale by Kathy Tyers
I definitely expected more from this story of the most tragic member of Jabba's retinue. I wanted a story about someone who is something more than a victim of their own foolish choices, and this felt like another huge missed opportunity.
Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef by Barbara Hambly
I really liked this character, and his relationship with one of my other favorites, the Rancor Keeper. They made for a very complementary pairing. That said, nothing interesting happens within this actual story. It felt mostly like it was cobbled together out of bits that needed to be put in place for other stories, and they forgot to include one for this entry.
Tongue-tied: Bubo's Tale by Daryl F. Mallett
Who is Bubo, you ask? He's the ugly toad creature that's sitting outside Jabba's Palace in that one scene. And he's . . . actually a sentient alien who is part of an elaborate ongoing plot within the palace? Did we need that? Yes, he is, and no, we didn't. Plus this story is like 6 pages long. Was NOT worth the effort.
Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale by Jennifer Roberson
Hey look, one of my least favorite characters from the Mos Eisley Cantina is back for another story even though he doesn't actually appear in Jabba's Palace. This would be a pass even without the offensive implications of that really terrible title.
Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees by Deborah Wheeler
You spend the whole book hearing about how much everyone hates Ree-Yees, and then you get to this story and you see why.
The Great God Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays by George Alec Effinger
We're talking about aliens, so it's not quite racist that a group of beings who exist around and use advanced technology are depicted as such primitive simpletons that they think the equivalent of a magic 8-ball is a god guiding their actions. But it definitely trades in uncomfortable stereotypes about "uncivilized" tribal peoples. I mean, come on, even the Ewoks are more sophisticated than that.
Shaara and the Sarlacc: The Skiff Guard's Tale by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
I don't understand what this story is, let alone what it's trying to be. It has nothing to do with anything.
That's Entertainment: The Tale of Salacious Crumb by Esther M. Friesner
I don't know what "that" is, but it's certainly not entertainment. There's a series of deeply-unfunny events building to the worst punchline in Star Wars, and perhaps literary, history.
C+
March 20, 2020
Didn’t love Tales from Jabba’s Palace, not did I hate it. I found myself enjoying some of the stories and absolutely despising some of the others. This is definitely better than Tales from the Empire as its far more complete, consistent, and has a theme interwoven between all of the stories, yet I still think the disparity between some stories leads to me taking a couple of stars off its final rating.
First, the good.
- Kevin J Anderson’s “A Boy and His Monster” was a great story both to start out the collection and a great story in general. In a weird way, Anderson makes you feel kinda sorry for the rancor that Luke kills in Return of the Jedi and also sorry for the poor guy who’s balling his eyes out when he sees what Skywalker did to his pet.
- “A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance” by Kathy Tyers is another story that gives background to a bit player from the films. We all know the poor Twiilek girl who gets fed to the rancor, but know, thanks to Tyers, we get to know her a bit and understand her motivations.
-“A Bad Feeling” which gives personality and a backstory to that droid that tortures other droids. Didn’t know it was worth telling, but I guess I was wrong.
- “And the Band Played On” by John Gregory Betancourt was easily the best story in the entire collection and hands down my favorite. Probably one of the best Star Wars short stories I’ve ever read. Though it’s been kind of retconned now by both being moved to the EU and with Lucas’s peddling and changing of the original cut of Return of the Jedi, it’s still a really well written and conceived tale of Max Rebo and the rest of his band.
- “Skin Deep” is the longest story in this entire collection but it bookends Tales From Jabba’s Palace perfectly. Crispin would go on to write the classic Han Solo Trilogy (for better or worse, depending on your belief system), so it’s no wonder this novella length story came out so well.
The bad
- “And Then There Were Some” night now be the worst in this anthology but it’s definitely top (or would that be bottom?) three. Gamorean guards are supposed to be big, dumb, and stupid. Why William F. Wu decided to give them personality and backstory, I’ll never know.
-“The Great God Quay” by George Alec Effinger is also one of the collected stories that ranks somewhere near the bottom for me. I don’t need a story about Weequays worshiping a magic 8 ball and furthermore, the attempts at humor fall flat, quickly.
- Probably the worst Tale’s From Jabba’s Palace, “Out of the Closet” is the one story that easily lead me to drop the rating for the entire book. Roberson tries to write a Star Wars story in some bizarre lit fiction style and it fails horribly. Rather than tell a good tale about Jabb’a pet vampire, it comes across as pretentious, hard to read, and just plain weird.
And there you have it: my two cents on this Star Wars anthology. Obviously there are a lot more shorts in here that I failed to mention, so you’ll have to pick up Tales From Jabba’s Palace to read them all and see for yourself.
First, the good.
- Kevin J Anderson’s “A Boy and His Monster” was a great story both to start out the collection and a great story in general. In a weird way, Anderson makes you feel kinda sorry for the rancor that Luke kills in Return of the Jedi and also sorry for the poor guy who’s balling his eyes out when he sees what Skywalker did to his pet.
- “A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance” by Kathy Tyers is another story that gives background to a bit player from the films. We all know the poor Twiilek girl who gets fed to the rancor, but know, thanks to Tyers, we get to know her a bit and understand her motivations.
-“A Bad Feeling” which gives personality and a backstory to that droid that tortures other droids. Didn’t know it was worth telling, but I guess I was wrong.
- “And the Band Played On” by John Gregory Betancourt was easily the best story in the entire collection and hands down my favorite. Probably one of the best Star Wars short stories I’ve ever read. Though it’s been kind of retconned now by both being moved to the EU and with Lucas’s peddling and changing of the original cut of Return of the Jedi, it’s still a really well written and conceived tale of Max Rebo and the rest of his band.
- “Skin Deep” is the longest story in this entire collection but it bookends Tales From Jabba’s Palace perfectly. Crispin would go on to write the classic Han Solo Trilogy (for better or worse, depending on your belief system), so it’s no wonder this novella length story came out so well.
The bad
- “And Then There Were Some” night now be the worst in this anthology but it’s definitely top (or would that be bottom?) three. Gamorean guards are supposed to be big, dumb, and stupid. Why William F. Wu decided to give them personality and backstory, I’ll never know.
-“The Great God Quay” by George Alec Effinger is also one of the collected stories that ranks somewhere near the bottom for me. I don’t need a story about Weequays worshiping a magic 8 ball and furthermore, the attempts at humor fall flat, quickly.
- Probably the worst Tale’s From Jabba’s Palace, “Out of the Closet” is the one story that easily lead me to drop the rating for the entire book. Roberson tries to write a Star Wars story in some bizarre lit fiction style and it fails horribly. Rather than tell a good tale about Jabb’a pet vampire, it comes across as pretentious, hard to read, and just plain weird.
And there you have it: my two cents on this Star Wars anthology. Obviously there are a lot more shorts in here that I failed to mention, so you’ll have to pick up Tales From Jabba’s Palace to read them all and see for yourself.
August 14, 2017
Disclaimer: I didn't actually "finish" it, but I read all the stories that looked interesting which amounted to about 70% of the book.
This is a collection of short stories about every character you may or may not have noticed inside Jabba's palace at the beginning of Return of The Jedi. The stories are more or less in chronological order so the plots build on each other which makes the book really cool. The details are fantastic and you can almost feel the hot, stinky interior of Jabba's palace - full of greedy alien scum. The stories themselves range from really gross, to suspenseful and creepy, to outright hilarious. Some of the characters I didn't even realize existed ended up being some of my favorite stories.
This was just my 2nd time reading a Star Wars book, and I had no idea what to expect but I certainly wasn't hoping for anything this good. This book is a great way to step into another world without having to be committed (the stories are so short!) and getting just the right taste of aliens and adventure. Would definitely recommend to Star Wars fans.
(Note: The Boba Fett story is weird as hell and so cool.)
This is a collection of short stories about every character you may or may not have noticed inside Jabba's palace at the beginning of Return of The Jedi. The stories are more or less in chronological order so the plots build on each other which makes the book really cool. The details are fantastic and you can almost feel the hot, stinky interior of Jabba's palace - full of greedy alien scum. The stories themselves range from really gross, to suspenseful and creepy, to outright hilarious. Some of the characters I didn't even realize existed ended up being some of my favorite stories.
This was just my 2nd time reading a Star Wars book, and I had no idea what to expect but I certainly wasn't hoping for anything this good. This book is a great way to step into another world without having to be committed (the stories are so short!) and getting just the right taste of aliens and adventure. Would definitely recommend to Star Wars fans.
(Note: The Boba Fett story is weird as hell and so cool.)
January 11, 2024
This is definitely the best of the three “tales” books, as the other two had parts I all but skimmed through. This one had none. It’s objectively difficult to not grow bored at times, seeing so many of the stories end up intertwining and telling the same thing over and over again just from a different character perspective. But, the ones that did it well were very entertaining, especially if it gave the character a unique backstory. It’s also just neat seeing some of them have an actual personality. If I could recommend skipping around just for the really good ones, I’d say prioritize: The Rancor Keeper, Jabba’s chef, Oola, Mara Jade, Bib Fortuna, EV-9D9, and Boba Fett (far better than his tale in the bounty hunter comp). The rest range from fine to boring.
Read
March 28, 2017זה ספר טוב להתחיל בו קריאה במסגרת סטאר וורז, אוסף של סיפורים מכותבים שונים
June 22, 2020
For 2020, I decided to reread (in publication order) all the Bantam-era Star Wars books that were released between 1991 and 1999; that shakes out to 38 adult novels and 5 anthologies of short stories & novellas.
This week’s focus: Tales from Jabba’s Palace, edited by Kevin J. Anderson.
SOME HISTORY:
After Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina took the approach of quantity over quality (I'm not afraid to say it!), Tales from Jabba’s Palace arrived with a whopping nineteen stories. There seems to be some confusion online about the release date, though: Wikipedia says December 1995, while my book and Wookieepedia both say January 1996. And as I found with the first Tales collection, it didn’t seem to make it into the top 15 on the New York Times paperback bestseller list, because I can’t find any data on it.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I thought that the Anzat assassin story was the only thing I remembered from Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, but I actually think I was remembering the Anzat assassin story from THIS collection… Mara Jade’s story and Yarna’s story also felt familiar to me, but I had forgotten the rest of them.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Jump into the lives of the guards, slaves, and all around schemers of Jabba’s Palace denizens in these nineteen stories.
THE STORIES:
“A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale” by Kevin J. Anderson
Malakili, the rancor keeper, really loves that rancor. The rancor seems more vicious than the ones we met in The Courtship of Princess Leia, but that might be a consequence of it being a juvenile confined to a pit, as Wolverton suggested. Right off the bat, this also introduces the first occurrence of someone scheming against Jabba—Malakili visits Lady Valarian so she can arrange for the rancor and him to escape, but we know how that ends…
“Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef” by Barbara Hambly
Porcellus is terrified that someone is trying to poison Jabba and frame him for the act, and at the same time he keeps finding dead bodies in his kitchen. We have another description of Leia’s hair as “dark-red” (Hambly explain?), and the food seems a bit too Earth-centric. But how to describe food in an intelligible manner without using terms like beignet or doughnut?
“That's Entertainment: The Tale of Salacious Crumb” by Esther M. Friesner
This one was OK. We have an outsider POV from a visiting academic, and Crumb comes across as rather more intelligent than he appears in RotJ. We aren’t familiar with this unknown academic, though, so the ending fell a little flat for me.
“A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: Oola's Tale” by Kathy Tyers
I thought Tyers, meanwhile, fleshed out Oola in a believable, sympathetic way. She’s proud of her dancing skills, to the point that she hesitates during Luke’s rescue attempt. His message to Jabba brings her some hope, but too late—we all know what happens to her. Poor Oola.
“Let Us Prey: The Whiphid's Tale” by Mark Budz and Marina Fitch
J’Quille is in the employ of Lady Valarian, Jabba’s rival in Mos Eisley, and he’s here to kill Jabba! This was the point in the book where I realized that pretty much everyone was going to be scheming against Jabba and trying to kill him. I just wish they were better at it?
“Sleight of Hand: The Tale of Mara Jade” by Timothy Zahn
The Thrawn trilogy introduced the idea that Mara Jade was present in Jabba’s Palace. Here Zahn shows us how it all went down. Mara is confident in her abilities, she’s a proficient Force user, but she can’t influence Jabba—as Luke obviously found out. We also get her first interaction with Melina Carniss, who will show up again (working for Karrde, but spying for Isard) in The Bacta War.
“And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale” by William F. Wu
Do you want a mystery tale in which the detective is an idiot? Gartogg is trying to figure out who keeps killing people in the Palace, but he’s not particularly good at investigating--he is, after all, only a Gamorrean.
“Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale” by Kenneth C. Flint
I was glad to see another story from Flint! This worked for me a lot better than his Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina story. This story has a film noir vibe, which was fun. Ephant Mon isn’t involved in any plots, and is completely loyal to Jabba. An interaction with Luke alters his viewpoint, though, and he never makes it on the sail barge. He’s also perhaps Jabba’s only friend, which makes the ending bittersweet: Mon thinks that he was constantly in Jabba’s debt, while Jabba didn’t seem to feel the same way.
“Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees” by Deborah Wheeler
Ree-Yees is a Gran, which means he looks like a three-eyed goat. He’s always drunk, and he’s also scheming against Jabba. His story has a weird twist, because apparently Jabba implanted a bomb in his chest and tries (unsuccessfully) to trigger it when Leia’s choking him.
“And the Band Played On: The Band's Tale” by John Gregory Betancourt
I liked that this story didn’t just cover the canon events from the movie. We got to learn how the band came to Tatooine, how Max Rebo became the bandleader, and how Sy Snootles is really the brains of the operation. Of course, the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi in 1997 added nine more members to the Max Rebo band, so the canonicity of this backstory is questionable.
“Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale” by M. Shayne Bell
M. Shayne Bell wrote one of my favorite stories in Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, but this story didn’t hold up as well for me. Bib Fortuna is another schemer who wants to oust Jabba, and he’s teamed up with the B’omarr Monks to do so. I don’t find the Monks especially interesting; their brain spiders look cool in the movie, but their general situation is not intriguing to me. This also introduces a running plot point, which is the sheer number of people who gets their brains removed by the end.
“The Great God Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays” by George Alec Effinger
I don’t remember Barada from the movie (he’s a Klatoonian and Jabba’s mechanic), and the Weequays are the reptilian-looking guys on the skiffs. It’s silly, but the Weequays and their magic eight ball-like god made me laugh. Just not sure how Barada fits in here.
“A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9” by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
EV-9D9 is a weird torturer droid, and she apparently has past history with Lando Calrissian. After R2-D2 and C-3PO are taken into Jabba’s service, 9D9 realizes that something is up and recognizes that Lando is undercover. She’s ultimately taken out, though, by a Cloud City droid. There was a lot of droid jargon here, which I didn’t enjoy, and the concept of a droid who torturers other droids for fun is a bit beyond me.
“A Free Quarren in the Palace: Tessek's Tale” by Dave Wolverton
Tessek is Jabba’s accountant, and he’s also scheming! Is anyone in Jabba’s employ not planning to kill him? Tessek also meets his fate at the hands of the Monks--their body count grows.
“Tongue-tied: Bubo's Tale” by Daryl F. Mallett
Bubo is Jabba’s frog-dog: you see him on the wide angle shot of the outside of the Palace. Apparently he’s also an assassin and a spy and he talks to the Monks a lot. Not a fan of Bubo. And Bubo also gets debrainified in the end.
“Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale” by Jennifer Roberson
Another story about Dannik Jerriko, the Anzat assassin. He wants to drink Han Solo’s soup, and Jabba’s soup, but instead kills lesser people and then never even makes it on the sail barge. I guess he goes crazy in the end? This is also the first of two tales about characters that can’t be spotted in the movie.
“Shaara and the Sarlacc: The Skiff Guard's Tale” by Dan’l Danehy-Oakes
A first person narrative from one of the skiff guards to Boba Fett. Very colloquial in style, and very short. I think it’s meant to foreshadow how quickly Fett escapes from the Sarlacc.
“A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett” by J.D. Montgomery
J.D. Montgomery is Daniel Keys Moran: his initial outline of the story wasn’t approved, and even further changes were made to his story, and since he wasn’t happy with the final story, he used a pseudonym. Moran wanted Fett to stay in the Sarlacc for a long time, and he wanted the Sarlacc to be sentient. Instead, Fett busts out after one or two days, and a previous being long consumed by the Sarlacc converses with Fett. It’s hard for me to accept that the Sarlacc could really take thousands of years to digest someone, but Moran makes a valiant attempt to explain things.
“Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale” by A.C. Crispin
Yarna takes advantage of the chaos after Jabba’s death to head out to Mos Eisley with Sergeant Doallyn (the helmeted guy that Chewbacca shoved down the stairs), hopefully to buy back her children. Like Tyers did with Oola, Crispin took a very minor character (the Fat Dancer) and really did a deep dive into what drives her. Yarna is maligned by pretty much everyone in the Palace, and you’re really rooting for her to get her family back and be free again.
ISSUES:
The stories in this collection interplay and fit together much better than in the previous collection, but there are still some quibbles. Dannik Jerriko kills the chef’s assistant, but I thought that was Porcellus? It’s hard to keep track of who actually placed a bomb on the sail barge. Jerriko lets Yarna see his tendril things but she’s saved by either Sergeant Doallyn (in Roberson’s story) or a Gamorrean guard (in Crispin’s story).
There also seemed to be a lot of repetition of ideas and plot points. Did we really need to have so many people plotting against Jabba, especially because they were ultimately so bad at it? DId we also need to have five people undergo brain removal: Nat Secura, Bib Fortuna, Tessek, Bubo, and J’Quille? (So many brain spiders…)
IN CONCLUSION:
Don’t do what I did, and read two stories a day until you panicked and tore through ten stories in one twelve-hour period. Pick the stories that look most interesting to you, and only read those! My top three stories were probably Oola, Mara Jade, and Yarna; my bottom three were the ones about Salacious Crumb, Bubo, and Rees-Yees. Be prepared, though, for a lot of people to have their brains removed.
Next up: Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/jS-eTzUyhFQ
This week’s focus: Tales from Jabba’s Palace, edited by Kevin J. Anderson.
SOME HISTORY:
After Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina took the approach of quantity over quality (I'm not afraid to say it!), Tales from Jabba’s Palace arrived with a whopping nineteen stories. There seems to be some confusion online about the release date, though: Wikipedia says December 1995, while my book and Wookieepedia both say January 1996. And as I found with the first Tales collection, it didn’t seem to make it into the top 15 on the New York Times paperback bestseller list, because I can’t find any data on it.
MY RECOLLECTION OF THE BOOK:
I thought that the Anzat assassin story was the only thing I remembered from Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, but I actually think I was remembering the Anzat assassin story from THIS collection… Mara Jade’s story and Yarna’s story also felt familiar to me, but I had forgotten the rest of them.
A BRIEF SUMMARY:
Jump into the lives of the guards, slaves, and all around schemers of Jabba’s Palace denizens in these nineteen stories.
THE STORIES:
“A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale” by Kevin J. Anderson
Malakili, the rancor keeper, really loves that rancor. The rancor seems more vicious than the ones we met in The Courtship of Princess Leia, but that might be a consequence of it being a juvenile confined to a pit, as Wolverton suggested. Right off the bat, this also introduces the first occurrence of someone scheming against Jabba—Malakili visits Lady Valarian so she can arrange for the rancor and him to escape, but we know how that ends…
“Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef” by Barbara Hambly
Porcellus is terrified that someone is trying to poison Jabba and frame him for the act, and at the same time he keeps finding dead bodies in his kitchen. We have another description of Leia’s hair as “dark-red” (Hambly explain?), and the food seems a bit too Earth-centric. But how to describe food in an intelligible manner without using terms like beignet or doughnut?
“That's Entertainment: The Tale of Salacious Crumb” by Esther M. Friesner
This one was OK. We have an outsider POV from a visiting academic, and Crumb comes across as rather more intelligent than he appears in RotJ. We aren’t familiar with this unknown academic, though, so the ending fell a little flat for me.
“A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: Oola's Tale” by Kathy Tyers
I thought Tyers, meanwhile, fleshed out Oola in a believable, sympathetic way. She’s proud of her dancing skills, to the point that she hesitates during Luke’s rescue attempt. His message to Jabba brings her some hope, but too late—we all know what happens to her. Poor Oola.
“Let Us Prey: The Whiphid's Tale” by Mark Budz and Marina Fitch
J’Quille is in the employ of Lady Valarian, Jabba’s rival in Mos Eisley, and he’s here to kill Jabba! This was the point in the book where I realized that pretty much everyone was going to be scheming against Jabba and trying to kill him. I just wish they were better at it?
“Sleight of Hand: The Tale of Mara Jade” by Timothy Zahn
The Thrawn trilogy introduced the idea that Mara Jade was present in Jabba’s Palace. Here Zahn shows us how it all went down. Mara is confident in her abilities, she’s a proficient Force user, but she can’t influence Jabba—as Luke obviously found out. We also get her first interaction with Melina Carniss, who will show up again (working for Karrde, but spying for Isard) in The Bacta War.
“And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale” by William F. Wu
Do you want a mystery tale in which the detective is an idiot? Gartogg is trying to figure out who keeps killing people in the Palace, but he’s not particularly good at investigating--he is, after all, only a Gamorrean.
“Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale” by Kenneth C. Flint
I was glad to see another story from Flint! This worked for me a lot better than his Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina story. This story has a film noir vibe, which was fun. Ephant Mon isn’t involved in any plots, and is completely loyal to Jabba. An interaction with Luke alters his viewpoint, though, and he never makes it on the sail barge. He’s also perhaps Jabba’s only friend, which makes the ending bittersweet: Mon thinks that he was constantly in Jabba’s debt, while Jabba didn’t seem to feel the same way.
“Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees” by Deborah Wheeler
Ree-Yees is a Gran, which means he looks like a three-eyed goat. He’s always drunk, and he’s also scheming against Jabba. His story has a weird twist, because apparently Jabba implanted a bomb in his chest and tries (unsuccessfully) to trigger it when Leia’s choking him.
“And the Band Played On: The Band's Tale” by John Gregory Betancourt
I liked that this story didn’t just cover the canon events from the movie. We got to learn how the band came to Tatooine, how Max Rebo became the bandleader, and how Sy Snootles is really the brains of the operation. Of course, the Special Edition of Return of the Jedi in 1997 added nine more members to the Max Rebo band, so the canonicity of this backstory is questionable.
“Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale” by M. Shayne Bell
M. Shayne Bell wrote one of my favorite stories in Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, but this story didn’t hold up as well for me. Bib Fortuna is another schemer who wants to oust Jabba, and he’s teamed up with the B’omarr Monks to do so. I don’t find the Monks especially interesting; their brain spiders look cool in the movie, but their general situation is not intriguing to me. This also introduces a running plot point, which is the sheer number of people who gets their brains removed by the end.
“The Great God Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays” by George Alec Effinger
I don’t remember Barada from the movie (he’s a Klatoonian and Jabba’s mechanic), and the Weequays are the reptilian-looking guys on the skiffs. It’s silly, but the Weequays and their magic eight ball-like god made me laugh. Just not sure how Barada fits in here.
“A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9” by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens
EV-9D9 is a weird torturer droid, and she apparently has past history with Lando Calrissian. After R2-D2 and C-3PO are taken into Jabba’s service, 9D9 realizes that something is up and recognizes that Lando is undercover. She’s ultimately taken out, though, by a Cloud City droid. There was a lot of droid jargon here, which I didn’t enjoy, and the concept of a droid who torturers other droids for fun is a bit beyond me.
“A Free Quarren in the Palace: Tessek's Tale” by Dave Wolverton
Tessek is Jabba’s accountant, and he’s also scheming! Is anyone in Jabba’s employ not planning to kill him? Tessek also meets his fate at the hands of the Monks--their body count grows.
“Tongue-tied: Bubo's Tale” by Daryl F. Mallett
Bubo is Jabba’s frog-dog: you see him on the wide angle shot of the outside of the Palace. Apparently he’s also an assassin and a spy and he talks to the Monks a lot. Not a fan of Bubo. And Bubo also gets debrainified in the end.
“Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale” by Jennifer Roberson
Another story about Dannik Jerriko, the Anzat assassin. He wants to drink Han Solo’s soup, and Jabba’s soup, but instead kills lesser people and then never even makes it on the sail barge. I guess he goes crazy in the end? This is also the first of two tales about characters that can’t be spotted in the movie.
“Shaara and the Sarlacc: The Skiff Guard's Tale” by Dan’l Danehy-Oakes
A first person narrative from one of the skiff guards to Boba Fett. Very colloquial in style, and very short. I think it’s meant to foreshadow how quickly Fett escapes from the Sarlacc.
“A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett” by J.D. Montgomery
J.D. Montgomery is Daniel Keys Moran: his initial outline of the story wasn’t approved, and even further changes were made to his story, and since he wasn’t happy with the final story, he used a pseudonym. Moran wanted Fett to stay in the Sarlacc for a long time, and he wanted the Sarlacc to be sentient. Instead, Fett busts out after one or two days, and a previous being long consumed by the Sarlacc converses with Fett. It’s hard for me to accept that the Sarlacc could really take thousands of years to digest someone, but Moran makes a valiant attempt to explain things.
“Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale” by A.C. Crispin
Yarna takes advantage of the chaos after Jabba’s death to head out to Mos Eisley with Sergeant Doallyn (the helmeted guy that Chewbacca shoved down the stairs), hopefully to buy back her children. Like Tyers did with Oola, Crispin took a very minor character (the Fat Dancer) and really did a deep dive into what drives her. Yarna is maligned by pretty much everyone in the Palace, and you’re really rooting for her to get her family back and be free again.
ISSUES:
The stories in this collection interplay and fit together much better than in the previous collection, but there are still some quibbles. Dannik Jerriko kills the chef’s assistant, but I thought that was Porcellus? It’s hard to keep track of who actually placed a bomb on the sail barge. Jerriko lets Yarna see his tendril things but she’s saved by either Sergeant Doallyn (in Roberson’s story) or a Gamorrean guard (in Crispin’s story).
There also seemed to be a lot of repetition of ideas and plot points. Did we really need to have so many people plotting against Jabba, especially because they were ultimately so bad at it? DId we also need to have five people undergo brain removal: Nat Secura, Bib Fortuna, Tessek, Bubo, and J’Quille? (So many brain spiders…)
IN CONCLUSION:
Don’t do what I did, and read two stories a day until you panicked and tore through ten stories in one twelve-hour period. Pick the stories that look most interesting to you, and only read those! My top three stories were probably Oola, Mara Jade, and Yarna; my bottom three were the ones about Salacious Crumb, Bubo, and Rees-Yees. Be prepared, though, for a lot of people to have their brains removed.
Next up: Rogue Squadron by Michael A. Stackpole
My YouTube review: https://youtu.be/jS-eTzUyhFQ
May 29, 2020
Most of these beings are horrible! But I like the little epilogue with some happy endings. Interestingly woven together.
February 3, 2012
This is a fun read and is a collection of short stories based on the characters seen in Jabba the Hutt's Palace in Return of the Jedi. It provides history and the interactions of each to the overall story.
Introduction
"A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale"
"Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef"
"That's Entertainment: The Tale of Salacious Crumb"
"A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: Oola's Tale"
"Let Us Prey: The Whiphid's Tale"
"Sleight of Hand: The Tale of Mara Jade"
"And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale"
"Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale"
"Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees"
"And the Band Played On: The Band's Tale"
"Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale"
"The Great God Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays"
"A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9"
"A Free Quarren in the Palace: Tessek's Tale"
"Tongue-tied: Bubo's Tale"
"Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale"
"Shaara and the Sarlacc: The Skiff Guard's Tale" by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
"A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett" by Daniel Keys Moran
"Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale" by A. C. Crispin
Epilogue: Whatever Became Of...?
Introduction
"A Boy and His Monster: The Rancor Keeper's Tale"
"Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef"
"That's Entertainment: The Tale of Salacious Crumb"
"A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: Oola's Tale"
"Let Us Prey: The Whiphid's Tale"
"Sleight of Hand: The Tale of Mara Jade"
"And Then There Were Some: The Gamorrean Guard's Tale"
"Old Friends: Ephant Mon's Tale"
"Goatgrass: The Tale of Ree-Yees"
"And the Band Played On: The Band's Tale"
"Of the Day's Annoyances: Bib Fortuna's Tale"
"The Great God Quay: The Tale of Barada and the Weequays"
"A Bad Feeling: The Tale of EV-9D9"
"A Free Quarren in the Palace: Tessek's Tale"
"Tongue-tied: Bubo's Tale"
"Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale"
"Shaara and the Sarlacc: The Skiff Guard's Tale" by Dan'l Danehy-Oakes
"A Barve Like That: The Tale of Boba Fett" by Daniel Keys Moran
"Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale" by A. C. Crispin
Epilogue: Whatever Became Of...?
December 16, 2017
After enjoying the majority of Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, I read this other collection of short stories. Contrary to the first book, the events and characters depicted are in Jabba's palace surroundins during the time of Star Wars Episode 6 : Return of the Jedi. And unlike the first book, the tales do not replay over and over the same scene from differen tpoitn of views. In fact, there are a few mentions of Luke Skywalker and his friends, but the tales deal mostly with the different plots among Jabba's minions.
Of course, these stories are classified as "Legends" since Disney bought Star Wars franchise rights, but even before that, they must have been already considered as non-canonical after the second trilogy.
The Rancor keeper's tale : offers some background on the Rancor. The relationship between the beast and his keeper Maliki is probably not as moving as intented by the author. I did feel the bond between the keeper and his creature, but it did not moved me.
* The Tale of Jabba's chef : captivating plot. Readers get the first hints at all the plots and sub-plots on-going in Jabba's palace.
The Tale of Salacious crumb : as irritating and boring as its main character. Even the writing style was not good.
** Oola's Tale : the best written tale at this point in the book. Good story, good writing, interesting character and new insights on Luke's return to Tatooine before he reached Jabba's palace. One of my favourite tales.
The Whiphid's tale : another tale involving conspiracy against Jabba equals another enthralling story.
The tale of Mara Jade : a little frustrating as Mara Jade, Hand of the Emperor, accomplishes nothing in her undercover mission in Jabba's Palace to assassinate Luke Skywalker. I admit I was a bit disappointed by author Timothy Zahn.
* The Gamorrean Guard's tale : very funny as it follows the most stupid Gamorrean guard in Jabba's Palace. Moreover, it lays the ground for several plots among Jabba's minions. Not mind-blowing, but one of the best tales.
Ephant Mon's tale : tells the story of Jabba's allied and close friend Ephant Mon who becomes aware of Luke Skywalker's abalities and warns the Hutt not to threaten the Jedi and his friends' lives. The scenes in Return of the Jedi did not show how confident and powerful was Luke when entering Jabba's palace.
The tale of Ree-Yees : another tale with someone conspiring against Jabba, but this one has a big surprise at the end. Furthermore, this is the first tale which includes the final scene of the film at the Great Pit of Carkoon.
The Band's Tale : tells the story of Max Rebo and his fellow musicians. There is not much to write on it, neither bad nor good : it doesn't bring much to the table and is not memorable.
* Bib Fortuna's tale : Unlike the previous tale, this one reveals a new side of Jabba's majordome Bid Fortuna. It turns out that Bib Fortuna was a different character than what the Return of Jedi suggests. As head of security, he knew about many of the schemes against Jabba, but he was not the last to plot against the Hutt. The tale also involves the mysterious monks living in Jabba's Palace.
The tale of Barada and the Weequays : The Weequays are not the most clever guards of in Jabba's palace, but not as stupid as the Gamorreans of course. Barada is another person who lives in Jabba's palace who has a grudge against the Hutt and plots against him. As ones progress in the book, the number of conspiracies against Jabba increases and it becomes step by step difficult to keep track of every schemes. This tale is not the best but it is still worth reading.
* The tale of EV-9d9 : possibly the best tale of this collection of short stories. It tells about a vicious droid who tries to discover the secret of pain. I find it very well written, it felt as if the droid has "human" feelings and concerns. The pace is good too. Really, I can't see any default in this short story.
Tessek's tale : another short story involving the B'omarr monks. Another look at Jabba's doom at the Great Pit of Carkoon. Another character involved in plots which offer readers new insights on all the previous conspiracies.
Bubo's tale : very short tale. Not bad, but anecdotal.
The Assassin's tale : urgh, the return of Dannik Jerriko, the Soup-thirsty assassin. I already disliked his tale in the Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina, this one is not better. I don't like the character, the writing style, anything.
The Skiff's guard tale : a very short story too, but it offers a good introdcution to the next tale as the Skiff's guard tells Boba Fett about the Sarlacc.
* The Tale of Boba Fett : a very good one, where we learn how Boba Fett manages to escape from the Sarlacc. As the Bounty hunter is prisoner of the Sarlacc, being slowly digested, he is visited by the spirits of previous victims. Sometimes confusing (whose thoughts is Boba Fett having ?), but nevertheless informing on the Sarlacc.
** The Fat Dancer's tale : at first, the two main characters, "ugly" dancer Yarna Gargan and Sergeant Doallyn, are supposed to be the most interesting characters to write about. But their story as they flee Jabba's Palace after the Hutt's death is captivating and well-written. Little by little I care more for them, I wanted to know how their relationship would evolve and if they would manage to reach Mos Eisley. One of the best tales, definitely in the top 5, maybe top 3 of this book.
Finally, there is an epilogue that tells the future of those who managed to escape alive Jabba's palace.
I find it difficult to remember all the plots against Jabba on-going in the hallways of the Hutt's palace. Maybe it would have been better to merge several plots and have different characters involved in the same plot.
One last regret : I wish the mysterious B'omarr monks had their own short story and I regret we don't get more background about them.
Except for one or two short stories, there are no bad tales, all of them are readable and I did enjoy several of them.
Of course, these stories are classified as "Legends" since Disney bought Star Wars franchise rights, but even before that, they must have been already considered as non-canonical after the second trilogy.
The Rancor keeper's tale : offers some background on the Rancor. The relationship between the beast and his keeper Maliki is probably not as moving as intented by the author. I did feel the bond between the keeper and his creature, but it did not moved me.
* The Tale of Jabba's chef : captivating plot. Readers get the first hints at all the plots and sub-plots on-going in Jabba's palace.
The Tale of Salacious crumb : as irritating and boring as its main character. Even the writing style was not good.
** Oola's Tale : the best written tale at this point in the book. Good story, good writing, interesting character and new insights on Luke's return to Tatooine before he reached Jabba's palace. One of my favourite tales.
The Whiphid's tale : another tale involving conspiracy against Jabba equals another enthralling story.
The tale of Mara Jade : a little frustrating as Mara Jade, Hand of the Emperor, accomplishes nothing in her undercover mission in Jabba's Palace to assassinate Luke Skywalker. I admit I was a bit disappointed by author Timothy Zahn.
* The Gamorrean Guard's tale : very funny as it follows the most stupid Gamorrean guard in Jabba's Palace. Moreover, it lays the ground for several plots among Jabba's minions. Not mind-blowing, but one of the best tales.
Ephant Mon's tale : tells the story of Jabba's allied and close friend Ephant Mon who becomes aware of Luke Skywalker's abalities and warns the Hutt not to threaten the Jedi and his friends' lives. The scenes in Return of the Jedi did not show how confident and powerful was Luke when entering Jabba's palace.
The tale of Ree-Yees : another tale with someone conspiring against Jabba, but this one has a big surprise at the end. Furthermore, this is the first tale which includes the final scene of the film at the Great Pit of Carkoon.
The Band's Tale : tells the story of Max Rebo and his fellow musicians. There is not much to write on it, neither bad nor good : it doesn't bring much to the table and is not memorable.
* Bib Fortuna's tale : Unlike the previous tale, this one reveals a new side of Jabba's majordome Bid Fortuna. It turns out that Bib Fortuna was a different character than what the Return of Jedi suggests. As head of security, he knew about many of the schemes against Jabba, but he was not the last to plot against the Hutt. The tale also involves the mysterious monks living in Jabba's Palace.
The tale of Barada and the Weequays : The Weequays are not the most clever guards of in Jabba's palace, but not as stupid as the Gamorreans of course. Barada is another person who lives in Jabba's palace who has a grudge against the Hutt and plots against him. As ones progress in the book, the number of conspiracies against Jabba increases and it becomes step by step difficult to keep track of every schemes. This tale is not the best but it is still worth reading.
* The tale of EV-9d9 : possibly the best tale of this collection of short stories. It tells about a vicious droid who tries to discover the secret of pain. I find it very well written, it felt as if the droid has "human" feelings and concerns. The pace is good too. Really, I can't see any default in this short story.
Tessek's tale : another short story involving the B'omarr monks. Another look at Jabba's doom at the Great Pit of Carkoon. Another character involved in plots which offer readers new insights on all the previous conspiracies.
Bubo's tale : very short tale. Not bad, but anecdotal.
The Assassin's tale : urgh, the return of Dannik Jerriko, the Soup-thirsty assassin. I already disliked his tale in the Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina, this one is not better. I don't like the character, the writing style, anything.
The Skiff's guard tale : a very short story too, but it offers a good introdcution to the next tale as the Skiff's guard tells Boba Fett about the Sarlacc.
* The Tale of Boba Fett : a very good one, where we learn how Boba Fett manages to escape from the Sarlacc. As the Bounty hunter is prisoner of the Sarlacc, being slowly digested, he is visited by the spirits of previous victims. Sometimes confusing (whose thoughts is Boba Fett having ?), but nevertheless informing on the Sarlacc.
** The Fat Dancer's tale : at first, the two main characters, "ugly" dancer Yarna Gargan and Sergeant Doallyn, are supposed to be the most interesting characters to write about. But their story as they flee Jabba's Palace after the Hutt's death is captivating and well-written. Little by little I care more for them, I wanted to know how their relationship would evolve and if they would manage to reach Mos Eisley. One of the best tales, definitely in the top 5, maybe top 3 of this book.
Finally, there is an epilogue that tells the future of those who managed to escape alive Jabba's palace.
I find it difficult to remember all the plots against Jabba on-going in the hallways of the Hutt's palace. Maybe it would have been better to merge several plots and have different characters involved in the same plot.
One last regret : I wish the mysterious B'omarr monks had their own short story and I regret we don't get more background about them.
Except for one or two short stories, there are no bad tales, all of them are readable and I did enjoy several of them.
April 24, 2018
Utter disappointment.
I grew up in the 80's, a child with an active imagination. Needless to say, Jabba's palace was the coolest aspect of Return of the Jedi, IMHO. I had seen this book for years and years and years, imagining all the cool stories those weird aliens had, maybe a slice of life vignette that gave us a good glimpse of who they were, or maybe what led them up to ending up in Jabba's Palace.
So, a few years ago, I got my hands on it.
Utter disappointment.
Every story was what the characters were doing when Luke Skywalker showed up. Some were silly and trying way too hard to be clever and funny. Others were just dull and boring. Very few, if any, were well written.
This was clearly authors getting a paycheck so that Star Wars could get an even bigger one.
I grew up in the 80's, a child with an active imagination. Needless to say, Jabba's palace was the coolest aspect of Return of the Jedi, IMHO. I had seen this book for years and years and years, imagining all the cool stories those weird aliens had, maybe a slice of life vignette that gave us a good glimpse of who they were, or maybe what led them up to ending up in Jabba's Palace.
So, a few years ago, I got my hands on it.
Utter disappointment.
Every story was what the characters were doing when Luke Skywalker showed up. Some were silly and trying way too hard to be clever and funny. Others were just dull and boring. Very few, if any, were well written.
This was clearly authors getting a paycheck so that Star Wars could get an even bigger one.
July 20, 2024
It took me some time to get through this book, but I have wanted to read it for quite a while. After reading, I wasn't sure if I should give it 3 stars or 4 stars because the stories were very memorable, but they also got repetitive. They are presented in chronological order, which helps keep the timeline orderly but retells the same events multiple times. I found that I preferred the stories that I knew the least about, but I still found value in the stories that didn't hold my interest as much. This book is a nice supplement to the Star Wars expanded universe or legends, and once read will change the way you view Jabba's palace, Return of the Jedi, and Tatooine in general. You will never forget the stories of these characters.
February 9, 2010
Not a great book, but a fun one that I remember fondly from growing up, and one I'm thankful exists for at least one reason: it wrote Boba Fett out of that goddamn sarlacc pit. Even if he died immediately after escaping, it'd still be an improvement over getting bopped in the jetpack by a blind man ("Boba Fett? Boba Fett!?!" Ugh.). But rather than settle for better-than-terrible, the story itself manages to be kind of awesome, and definitely goes a long way toward restoring my favorite Mandalorian's street cred.
August 6, 2014
Along with the Mos Eisley Cantina scene, Tatooine in Return of the Jedi had been one of the few scenes that had actually featured a large multitude of different aliens in the Original Trilogy. Tales from Jabba’s Palace, edited by Kevin J. Anderson, is the second Star Wars anthology book released and is based on the background characters from the classic Jabba scenes in Return of the Jedi. I found it a great book, and it was very entertaining to read about the various plots and schemes of the characters trying to rid Jabba.
May 4, 2009
Better the second time, but out of synch with later SW novels.
The Gaemorrrean guard's tale tickled my funny bone.
The Gaemorrrean guard's tale tickled my funny bone.
May 16, 2024
I hate this garbage book. I've hated it since I was 8 years old, and my hatred has only grown with age.
Specifically, I have always hated the way the movie, Return of the Jedi, treats the minor character of Oola the dancer. Introducing her as a slave in obvious, unspoken duress, subjecting her to physical abuse (in what, in the special edition, is an otherwise comedic musical number) and disposing of her in a graphically violent (if off screen) way. She is then immediately forgotten, as if no more important than plot setup for more popular and significant characters.
This book, in expanding upon her story, seems to have come to the conclusion that it needed to make her less sympathetic for that ending to still land. Thus it goes out of its way to make her responsible for her own fate, having her freely choose slavery (and only regret it because Jabba is physically undesirable), and gleefully turn down an opportunity to escape in favor of pursuing the riches she expects to find in her new life. Then, in the palace, she is depicted as so utterly miserable that she wants to die, the book adding such sadistic details to her story as her being beaten, force fed disgusting food, with even sympathetic characters like C3PO and the dancer Yarna (who is seen laughing at her in the pit in the film, but so much for consistent characterization across the expanded universe) lamenting that she brought it all on herself, and "if only" she had listened to their advice on "how to stay alive" (let Jabba assault you if he wants, I guess) then she too would have survived. In other words, it was all *her* fault.
It all comes off as bizarrely, unnecessarily meanspirited and hateful towards a character who does nothing genuinely wrong, and who is shown in the film to be an innocent victim. In seemingly trying to make her fate more palatable, this book only succeeds in the most vile of victim blaming,. Worst of all, in adding a book-only side character, another potential slave who does escape (and who is treated more sympathetically in the story as a result), it paints her as even less important, even more disposable (something the special edition of the movie, released after this book and which contradicts it in many respects, would continue, by adding other attractive dancers to Jabba's Palace, including a second member of Oola's own species), as if having one Twi'lek dancer escape is, eh, "good enough".
It also has her speak wistfully of death, of how it "frees your spirit to dance" and that you shouldn't "cling to life too hard". Child me was horrified by that especially, as if the story is setting up her fate to be, somehow, a positive end for her. An abused slave so miserable that she begun longing for death, and then gets it. This belongs in Star Wars? There have always been dark, or tragic moments to the series. This, by comparison, is gross and distasteful. And this book revels in it, using its new lack of sympathy for Oola to include passages about how she was "eaten in 3 bites, that the rancor savored", with the sounds of "bones snapping" and the "smell of fresh blood" described in graphic detail. What did this poor woman DO to deserve this treatment? If any other Star Wars character were treated in this ugly, disrespectful way, fans would riot.
The treatment of Oola has always been a nauseating misstep for the franchise, that the film brushes under the rug fast enough that it isn't allowed to linger and become truly repulsive. It lingers all over this book and taints whatever other merits it might have. This book, in fact, might be the overall low point of the franchise's treatment of Oola, which also includes bringing back the actress 15 years later to shoot a completely superfluous but even crueler final scene for the character, as if the audience really didn't understand how miserable her fate was the first time around.
All I can say is that I am delighted this book is no longer canon (not that Disney has seen fit to do any better by Oola, and in the absence of any improvements the unpleasantness of her original EU story assumedly remains), and that I have enjoyed cathartically working through my feelings about it and Oola's scene in the movie by writing fix-it fanfiction to explain how she escaped the rancor pit (off screen, in the plausible deniability of the oh so helpful cutaway shot) and went on to the better life she deserves. That's my headcanon for Oola, which I find a lot more palatable than victim blaming an abused slave who was brutally murdered for standing up for herself. That entire notion, and its depiction in this book (and in her short scene in the movie), can go rot. Oola lives. Oola deserves better.
Specifically, I have always hated the way the movie, Return of the Jedi, treats the minor character of Oola the dancer. Introducing her as a slave in obvious, unspoken duress, subjecting her to physical abuse (in what, in the special edition, is an otherwise comedic musical number) and disposing of her in a graphically violent (if off screen) way. She is then immediately forgotten, as if no more important than plot setup for more popular and significant characters.
This book, in expanding upon her story, seems to have come to the conclusion that it needed to make her less sympathetic for that ending to still land. Thus it goes out of its way to make her responsible for her own fate, having her freely choose slavery (and only regret it because Jabba is physically undesirable), and gleefully turn down an opportunity to escape in favor of pursuing the riches she expects to find in her new life. Then, in the palace, she is depicted as so utterly miserable that she wants to die, the book adding such sadistic details to her story as her being beaten, force fed disgusting food, with even sympathetic characters like C3PO and the dancer Yarna (who is seen laughing at her in the pit in the film, but so much for consistent characterization across the expanded universe) lamenting that she brought it all on herself, and "if only" she had listened to their advice on "how to stay alive" (let Jabba assault you if he wants, I guess) then she too would have survived. In other words, it was all *her* fault.
It all comes off as bizarrely, unnecessarily meanspirited and hateful towards a character who does nothing genuinely wrong, and who is shown in the film to be an innocent victim. In seemingly trying to make her fate more palatable, this book only succeeds in the most vile of victim blaming,. Worst of all, in adding a book-only side character, another potential slave who does escape (and who is treated more sympathetically in the story as a result), it paints her as even less important, even more disposable (something the special edition of the movie, released after this book and which contradicts it in many respects, would continue, by adding other attractive dancers to Jabba's Palace, including a second member of Oola's own species), as if having one Twi'lek dancer escape is, eh, "good enough".
It also has her speak wistfully of death, of how it "frees your spirit to dance" and that you shouldn't "cling to life too hard". Child me was horrified by that especially, as if the story is setting up her fate to be, somehow, a positive end for her. An abused slave so miserable that she begun longing for death, and then gets it. This belongs in Star Wars? There have always been dark, or tragic moments to the series. This, by comparison, is gross and distasteful. And this book revels in it, using its new lack of sympathy for Oola to include passages about how she was "eaten in 3 bites, that the rancor savored", with the sounds of "bones snapping" and the "smell of fresh blood" described in graphic detail. What did this poor woman DO to deserve this treatment? If any other Star Wars character were treated in this ugly, disrespectful way, fans would riot.
The treatment of Oola has always been a nauseating misstep for the franchise, that the film brushes under the rug fast enough that it isn't allowed to linger and become truly repulsive. It lingers all over this book and taints whatever other merits it might have. This book, in fact, might be the overall low point of the franchise's treatment of Oola, which also includes bringing back the actress 15 years later to shoot a completely superfluous but even crueler final scene for the character, as if the audience really didn't understand how miserable her fate was the first time around.
All I can say is that I am delighted this book is no longer canon (not that Disney has seen fit to do any better by Oola, and in the absence of any improvements the unpleasantness of her original EU story assumedly remains), and that I have enjoyed cathartically working through my feelings about it and Oola's scene in the movie by writing fix-it fanfiction to explain how she escaped the rancor pit (off screen, in the plausible deniability of the oh so helpful cutaway shot) and went on to the better life she deserves. That's my headcanon for Oola, which I find a lot more palatable than victim blaming an abused slave who was brutally murdered for standing up for herself. That entire notion, and its depiction in this book (and in her short scene in the movie), can go rot. Oola lives. Oola deserves better.
May 13, 2024
A compilation (as the title suggests) of several stories taking place in Jabba's Palace, more specifically during the first act of 'Return of the Jedi', before, during, and after Luke's rescue of Han Solo, and Princess Leia. To be more specific, these tales are told from the perspective of some of Jabba's courtship, some allies, some conspirers against him, but for the most part, creatures who appeared in the movie, in some occasions briefly. From the Rancor's Keeper, to Jabba's dancers and Bounty Hunters, these storie's main purpose is to fill certain gaps, and to clarify the whereabouts of some of these characters, since most would assume, after seen Episode VI, that the entire court of Jabba died after Luke's rescue, but in a surprising turn of events, many of the characters seen in this scenario actually made it out alive, either by random circumstances, or because of elaborated plots conceived in order to take down Jabba, ultimately adding certain weight to Luke's rescue, and how certain people closed to Jabba contributed to his demise, which some fans might find a little anti-climatic, and disrespectful to the movie, but I personally managed to find certain funny moments, and some interesting insight that would lead to this exciting point in the film. Several writers participated in it, and honestly, everyone did a fantastic job with their respective shorts. Perhaps the least engaging ones were the first ones, more specifically 'That's Entertainment: The Tale of Salacious Crumb', and 'Taster's Choice: The Tale of Jabba's Chef's, written by Esther M. Freisner, and Barbara Hambly respectively, and the weirdest one I'd say was 'Out of the Closet: The Assassin's Tale' by Jennifer Roberson, which is the tale of Dannik Jerriko, a bounty hunter who actually first appeared in 'Episode IV: A New Hope's, but here is revealed as a "vampire" who consumes the brain matter of his victims, referred by him as "soup of life", and the way the short is narrated is entirely with his point of view, which makes for an interesting reading that differs from the typical narrative style of the previous and further stories. Perhaps the most stand out ones were the ones about Boba Fett, and even Mara Jade (Retcon as to be present during Luke's arrival to Jabba's Palace), but curiously, two of the most interesting ones were 'A Time to Mourn, a Time to Dance: Oola's Tale'', which is the story of the Twi'lek dancer who Jabba kills after throwing her to the rancor, written by Kathy Tyers, and centers on Oola and her sister and the story behind their imprisonment at the palace, which makes for an interesting ride since we get to know that she encountered Luke before the Episode even started, and makes for a more tragic context after her demise. Also, the last one, 'Skin Deep: The Fat Dancer's Tale', by A.C. Crispin, resulted way better than I could've expected, using a lesser known character to actually give her one of the most engaging and emotional stories in the lot, and one that even has a Krayt Dragon in it, I definitely did not see it coming. There's no doubt, my favorite tale was the tale of Boba Fett, written by J.D. Montgomery, since it explains what happens after he got swallowed by the Sarlacc, and even there's a nice tie-in with the novel 'Shadows of the Empire' at the very start, but the way Montgomery depicts the interiors of the creature, and the way it traps it's victim's consciousness after a thousand years of digestion adds a creepyness and creative system of functionality that seems quite interesting, following with his escape. Perhaps my biggest complain with this anthology was the absence of a Jabba story, perhaps narrated from his POV, or even as a third person. It seemed strange in an anthology dedicated to a scenario related directly to his, but even if he was present in a major way in each tale, a short written about him solely was needed. Other than that, this was a fun and insightful read, mostly to get a little more context on certain mechanics and back stories related to this specific moment in time in the Star Wars saga. Plenty of talent was gathered in here, and the amount of characters depicted was fairly extensive, but never tiresome. An entertaining reading, and a suitable companion for both, 'Return of the Jedi', and 'Shadows of the Empire' alike.
November 26, 2022
Tales from Jabba's Palace is the second collection of short fiction set in the Star Wars expanded universe, and as its title suggests, all of the stories contained in this volume have to do with the side characters seen in Jabba's Palace during the events of Return of the Jedi.
I've always been a pretty big fan of Return of the Jedi, and some of that love comes from the sequence featuring the Hutt and his weird palace. Nevertheless, like the issues I had with Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina, this book isn't perfect. Having to read or reread the summarized events of Leia's rescue of Han or Luke Skywalker's ultimatum to Jabba, the killing of the rancor, or blowing up Jabba's sail barge becomes pretty exhausting one after the other.
In spite of the repetition, the stories are very tightly plotted around one another, with a pretty consistent set of story beats gradually uncovered through the lenses of all the myriad characters of this volume. Some mysteries introduced in a particular story don't get answered until another story coincides with events, and it really is a marvel that it is so tightly edited for continuity. Hats off to Kevin J. Anderson in this respect; he really does a great job pulling all these stories together.
But many of the stories, in spite of being very humorous or tightly paced, just don't quite do enough to flesh out Jabba or his entourage. Because the book's events focus a little too tightly on the days leading up to and then following up after Jabba's death at the hands of Leia and Luke, there's little done to get a good sense of where Jabba's criminal empire came from, or even what power vacuum was left on Tatooine (or the Outer Rim) as a result of Jabba's death.
There were some takeaways I genuinely did love: a Gamorrean (rightfully) solves some murders in a sendup of detective novels like Agatha Christie's; a group of Weequay thugs consult their Magic 8-Ball god as they search for an assassination attempt on Jabba's life; Boba Fett escapes the (psychic?) Sarlacc on account of his pure, unadulterated hatred; and the rancor's handler mourns the loss of his pet. There's a lot of stuff in here that, individually, is really interesting, but the repetition of story beats and events just tends to drag, making this book feel much longer than it needs to be.
All of that said, this is still a pretty decent gem for '90s Star Wars. It's not perfect, but no book in this series really is, and the good still outweighs the bad.
I've always been a pretty big fan of Return of the Jedi, and some of that love comes from the sequence featuring the Hutt and his weird palace. Nevertheless, like the issues I had with Tales of the Mos Eisley Cantina, this book isn't perfect. Having to read or reread the summarized events of Leia's rescue of Han or Luke Skywalker's ultimatum to Jabba, the killing of the rancor, or blowing up Jabba's sail barge becomes pretty exhausting one after the other.
In spite of the repetition, the stories are very tightly plotted around one another, with a pretty consistent set of story beats gradually uncovered through the lenses of all the myriad characters of this volume. Some mysteries introduced in a particular story don't get answered until another story coincides with events, and it really is a marvel that it is so tightly edited for continuity. Hats off to Kevin J. Anderson in this respect; he really does a great job pulling all these stories together.
But many of the stories, in spite of being very humorous or tightly paced, just don't quite do enough to flesh out Jabba or his entourage. Because the book's events focus a little too tightly on the days leading up to and then following up after Jabba's death at the hands of Leia and Luke, there's little done to get a good sense of where Jabba's criminal empire came from, or even what power vacuum was left on Tatooine (or the Outer Rim) as a result of Jabba's death.
There were some takeaways I genuinely did love: a Gamorrean (rightfully) solves some murders in a sendup of detective novels like Agatha Christie's; a group of Weequay thugs consult their Magic 8-Ball god as they search for an assassination attempt on Jabba's life; Boba Fett escapes the (psychic?) Sarlacc on account of his pure, unadulterated hatred; and the rancor's handler mourns the loss of his pet. There's a lot of stuff in here that, individually, is really interesting, but the repetition of story beats and events just tends to drag, making this book feel much longer than it needs to be.
All of that said, this is still a pretty decent gem for '90s Star Wars. It's not perfect, but no book in this series really is, and the good still outweighs the bad.
May 29, 2022
2.5/5, it was ok-ish, mixed bag, nothing spectacular. rounding up to 3 because i felt kind of mean writing this review:
i came into this funny little book expecting a bunch of barely connected stand-alone stories that simply had something to do with jabba's palace to expand the world, but it disappointed me when it was just set around the Return of the Jedi movie, and was basically a bunch of weird fanfic rather than worldbuilding. the setting was expanded with different characters as well as behind the scenes stories of plots against jabba, different goings on, etc., but mostly it only did to cheapen the narrative rather than enrich it. i did get what i wanted from some of these stories, listed below, but mostly it was just... not that good, and pointed out many of the bad aspects of expanding the star wars universe without actually EXPANDING it. shut up about luke and leia and han goddammit, can i get some random story about some other blorbo please?!
the stories i liked:
"out of the closet", a fun short horror about a space-vampire's descent into madness that fascinated me,
"shaara and the sarlacc", a simple, small little country tale,
"a barve like that". after both oola and bib fortuna's tales I expected nothing but disappointment from a famous character, but this was really well written and just really fun and creepy all in all.
"that's entertainment", a little cute a little funny, self contained.
"a bad feeling", another horror, one the writers really seemed to have a great time writing, though it really didn't need to include lando? could've been written without him I'm sure,
and "skin deep", a little desert romance to finish it all off (i did not enjoy the skinnification of the main character tho, a promise of thinness to make her more romanceable? lol)
the stories i liked brought it to like a 2.5/3 rating. if i were to judge this by the damn mara jade story alone it would've been 1/5 because damn, it bad. i guess including new characters isn't always the right choice after all. literally had to stop once every paragraph to laugh in disbelief at how ass it was.
all in all I'd recommend the list above to my star wars friends. maybe Enphant Mon's story could be in there, too. this book was mostly a headache to read, but then again the fun, mostly self contained tales made it kiiind of worth the pain.
I'm mostly disappointed by bib's tale, though. really had my hopes up for that one
i came into this funny little book expecting a bunch of barely connected stand-alone stories that simply had something to do with jabba's palace to expand the world, but it disappointed me when it was just set around the Return of the Jedi movie, and was basically a bunch of weird fanfic rather than worldbuilding. the setting was expanded with different characters as well as behind the scenes stories of plots against jabba, different goings on, etc., but mostly it only did to cheapen the narrative rather than enrich it. i did get what i wanted from some of these stories, listed below, but mostly it was just... not that good, and pointed out many of the bad aspects of expanding the star wars universe without actually EXPANDING it. shut up about luke and leia and han goddammit, can i get some random story about some other blorbo please?!
the stories i liked:
"out of the closet", a fun short horror about a space-vampire's descent into madness that fascinated me,
"shaara and the sarlacc", a simple, small little country tale,
"a barve like that". after both oola and bib fortuna's tales I expected nothing but disappointment from a famous character, but this was really well written and just really fun and creepy all in all.
"that's entertainment", a little cute a little funny, self contained.
"a bad feeling", another horror, one the writers really seemed to have a great time writing, though it really didn't need to include lando? could've been written without him I'm sure,
and "skin deep", a little desert romance to finish it all off (i did not enjoy the skinnification of the main character tho, a promise of thinness to make her more romanceable? lol)
the stories i liked brought it to like a 2.5/3 rating. if i were to judge this by the damn mara jade story alone it would've been 1/5 because damn, it bad. i guess including new characters isn't always the right choice after all. literally had to stop once every paragraph to laugh in disbelief at how ass it was.
all in all I'd recommend the list above to my star wars friends. maybe Enphant Mon's story could be in there, too. this book was mostly a headache to read, but then again the fun, mostly self contained tales made it kiiind of worth the pain.
I'm mostly disappointed by bib's tale, though. really had my hopes up for that one
August 24, 2024
Star Wars Tales from Jabba's Palace. A decent collection of short stories set in the Palace of Jabba the Hutt showing small stories of the characters in the background we see in The Return of the Jedi like Max Rebo and his band and Oola the Twilek dancer.
It's a very fun read for Fans of Star Wars but nothing special in my personal opinion.
Some interesting things added to the lore but nothing that really changes your experience with the movies or TV shows.
This book is 19 stories set in Jabbas Palace there are some good ones in here that I use enjoyed quite a lot especially the Mara Jade one Timothy Zawn never misses.
I also like the one about the Rancor Keeper and the one about the Weequays was interesting finding out information about them.
There was also a decent story with Boba Fett which added some interesting lore about the Sarlacc Pit we're it as a conscious in there from one of its victims Susejo it was an interesting take.
It's a decent collection and cool seeing these stories all taking place during or after the events of Return of the Jedi i also like what they do with the Weequays and how they have no individual names.
And how they believe In a god called the Quay and Weequay actually stands for Follow of the Quay that's the kind of interesting lore I like in Star Wars and it was a fascinating read and one of my favourite ones in the book I would say that and the Mara Jade one.
However apart from those 4 stories (Boba Fett, Mara Jade, Rancor Keeper and the Weequay stories) the rest of them aren't anything special and most of them in my opinion are rather boring and don't add to Star Wars for me personally.
I also feel like most of them are just the same story just from different characters points of view all leading to the point in ROTJ where Luke shows up.
It's interesting but just feels lazy and I wanted more about the history of Jabbas Palace and more about Bomarr Monks and what came before which would have been so much better in my opinion.
Verdict ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ a fun read for star wars fans just nothing special in my personal opinion and I won't be in a rush to read anymore of these Tales From books as this was a little underwhelming for me
It's a very fun read for Fans of Star Wars but nothing special in my personal opinion.
Some interesting things added to the lore but nothing that really changes your experience with the movies or TV shows.
This book is 19 stories set in Jabbas Palace there are some good ones in here that I use enjoyed quite a lot especially the Mara Jade one Timothy Zawn never misses.
I also like the one about the Rancor Keeper and the one about the Weequays was interesting finding out information about them.
There was also a decent story with Boba Fett which added some interesting lore about the Sarlacc Pit we're it as a conscious in there from one of its victims Susejo it was an interesting take.
It's a decent collection and cool seeing these stories all taking place during or after the events of Return of the Jedi i also like what they do with the Weequays and how they have no individual names.
And how they believe In a god called the Quay and Weequay actually stands for Follow of the Quay that's the kind of interesting lore I like in Star Wars and it was a fascinating read and one of my favourite ones in the book I would say that and the Mara Jade one.
However apart from those 4 stories (Boba Fett, Mara Jade, Rancor Keeper and the Weequay stories) the rest of them aren't anything special and most of them in my opinion are rather boring and don't add to Star Wars for me personally.
I also feel like most of them are just the same story just from different characters points of view all leading to the point in ROTJ where Luke shows up.
It's interesting but just feels lazy and I wanted more about the history of Jabbas Palace and more about Bomarr Monks and what came before which would have been so much better in my opinion.
Verdict ⭐ ⭐ ⭐ a fun read for star wars fans just nothing special in my personal opinion and I won't be in a rush to read anymore of these Tales From books as this was a little underwhelming for me
June 30, 2022
Stars: 3
Re-read? Leaning towards yes but it's low on the list of what I'll read again.
Recommend to: The more hardcore Star Wars fans.
The stories were interesting enough to keep me going, but only a few stand out in my memory as being truly engaging. Shockingly, I thought the best story was the one about the fat dancing lady by A.C. Crispin (which maybe shouldn't be surprising since she wrote the really good Han Solo trilogy).
There was some good and some bad.
My favorite part of the book was how brutal the authors were to the actors who played the roles in the movie. These are mostly really small time actors who got a role in one of the biggest movies in history. If it were me, I'd be pretty excited to read about my character in a book. Then, you open it up to the story about you and read this: "His paunch had grown large from the good eating he enjoyed as the star of Circus Horrificus, his face was stretched and ugly, his eyes wide and round like full moons. But Malakili care little for his personal appearance. He was out to impress no one. As long as the monsters held him in respect, he asked for nothing else." A paragraph later: "...his voice gruff, his fists planted squarely on his ample hips." I was like, dang, Kevin J. Anderson is savage.
Re-read? Leaning towards yes but it's low on the list of what I'll read again.
Recommend to: The more hardcore Star Wars fans.
The stories were interesting enough to keep me going, but only a few stand out in my memory as being truly engaging. Shockingly, I thought the best story was the one about the fat dancing lady by A.C. Crispin (which maybe shouldn't be surprising since she wrote the really good Han Solo trilogy).
There was some good and some bad.
My favorite part of the book was how brutal the authors were to the actors who played the roles in the movie. These are mostly really small time actors who got a role in one of the biggest movies in history. If it were me, I'd be pretty excited to read about my character in a book. Then, you open it up to the story about you and read this: "His paunch had grown large from the good eating he enjoyed as the star of Circus Horrificus, his face was stretched and ugly, his eyes wide and round like full moons. But Malakili care little for his personal appearance. He was out to impress no one. As long as the monsters held him in respect, he asked for nothing else." A paragraph later: "...his voice gruff, his fists planted squarely on his ample hips." I was like, dang, Kevin J. Anderson is savage.
June 8, 2022
For the most part, I was fairly disappointed in this book. I was hoping it would shed some more insight about the characters and their lives prior to RotJ and there was some of that, but most of the stories involved the same structure: characters' lives in the days leading up to Jabba's ultimate demise. Because of this, most of the stories really started to blur together.
There were some exceptions, namely: Boba Fett's story, Mara Jade's, Malikili's, and the Gamorrean Guard.
Boba Fett's was interesting just because as a child, I always wanted to know if he survived the Sarlacc Pit and if so, how. Now, with the Book of Boba Fett, we have a canon answer, but I found this story to be a little more satisfying.
Mara Jade's story was also interesting but that's mostly because she's an interesting character. Otherwise, it kind of felt like it was mostly just a way to retcon her into the story without having her do anything of note.
Malikili's was somewhat heartwarming in a way. His brief scene mourning the Rancor in RotJ says a lot about the character, so it was cool to see how he came to care for such a monstrous animal..
Finally, there is the Gamorrean Guard. That was such a fun take on the neo-noir detective story. Him using his (dim) wits to try to figure out how everyone around him was dying was funny and endearing. I really enjoyed this book.
I will say as a final note that I did find the writing to be good in most of the stories. It just felt like maybe editorial wanted the writers to tie everything in with RotJ and the stories themselves a little too tightly and because of that, they suffered.
There were some exceptions, namely: Boba Fett's story, Mara Jade's, Malikili's, and the Gamorrean Guard.
Boba Fett's was interesting just because as a child, I always wanted to know if he survived the Sarlacc Pit and if so, how. Now, with the Book of Boba Fett, we have a canon answer, but I found this story to be a little more satisfying.
Mara Jade's story was also interesting but that's mostly because she's an interesting character. Otherwise, it kind of felt like it was mostly just a way to retcon her into the story without having her do anything of note.
Malikili's was somewhat heartwarming in a way. His brief scene mourning the Rancor in RotJ says a lot about the character, so it was cool to see how he came to care for such a monstrous animal..
Finally, there is the Gamorrean Guard. That was such a fun take on the neo-noir detective story. Him using his (dim) wits to try to figure out how everyone around him was dying was funny and endearing. I really enjoyed this book.
I will say as a final note that I did find the writing to be good in most of the stories. It just felt like maybe editorial wanted the writers to tie everything in with RotJ and the stories themselves a little too tightly and because of that, they suffered.
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