"Boba Fett has escaped from the Sarlacc's belly that he fell into in The Return of the Jedi and lies near death in the desert of Tatooine. He is found by one of Jabba the Hutt's former dancing girls who has had her memory wiped but feels that somehow Boba Fett knows about her past and that she must save his life in order to find out who she is. She places the stricken bounty hunter in a location where he is found by another less-skilled bounty hunter named Dengar. Dengar agrees to join Boba Fett in a partnership so he can make one big score, get out of the bounty hunter trade and marry his fiancé. The dancing girl, whom the author makes clear is really descended from a nobility line of some unknown place, tags along with the new partners to find her missing past.
While Boba Fett is healing from the Sarlacc's digestive juices, the book flashes back to just after Luke Skywalker destroys the Death Star in the first movie. Prince Xizor, advisor to Emperor Palapatine, and secretly head of the ultra secretive criminal organization Black Sun hires Boba Fett to break up the Bounty Hunter's Guild to in a scheme to hoodwink the Emperor and gain more power. He hires Boba Fett through an intermediary known as the Assembler, who, unknown to Xizor has schemes of his own. While breaking up the Guild, Boba Fett humiliates the heir to the leadership of the guild and destroys his inheritance. Bossk, as he is called, vows to kill Boba Fett and take the title of ‘Most Feared Bounty Hunter' to himself.
The book is the first in a series of three, and while the jumping from now to the past is an interesting idea, which I assume that the author will connect at the end of the series, it leaves the reader with basically two unrelated stories. The subplots, such as the missions that Boba Fett goes on, were neither deep nor captivating. Further, the author kept repeating details the he had previously explained. Finally, the thought processes of the characters, while interesting at some levels, were overdone.
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Jonathan Guymon, Resident Scholar
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