Legends Never Die: Lando Calrissian and the StarCave of ThonBoka

In the Fall of 1983, Del Rey published the last of the Lando Calrissian Adventures, Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka. Like the rest of L. Neil Smith's trilogy, it mixes gambling, comedy, Lando trying to find peaceful solutions to problems, Libertarian themes, and a hefty dose of weirdness.

This time, Lando and his astrogator/flight instructor Vuffi Raa meet and befriend a giant space manta that can naturally fly through hyperspace. His name is Lehesu and he's an Oswaft. Lehesu wanders innocently through the Centrality sector, but in doing so he draws the attention of the Centrality and Imperial Navies, who follow him to his home nebula of ThonBoka (literally “Starcave” in their language) and blockade it, slowly starving the Oswaft.

Deciding to help them, Lando runs food through the blockade by conning and gambling his way through the fleet, and plot threads draw to a conclusion. The strange renegades with a grudge against Vuffi Raa are fully explained, Rokur Gepta's origins and the fate of the Sorcerers of Tund are revealed, and we finally get to meet Vuffi Raa's parents. All this, and Lando teaches space mantas how to play Sabacc.

Its a weird, wild ride that takes place almost exclusively in space. There's a brief side trip to Tund, but that's a dead world thanks to Rokur Gepta. Lando is either onboard spaceships or is floating around in a space suit. The banter between Lando & Vuffi Raa remains a huge part of the series' charm and even their goodbye is handled with bittersweet wit.

Much like Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, there's a melancholy edge to this story. Lando's adventures in the Centrality are coming to an end, and he's going to go off with enough treasure to buy himself a city and an urge to settle down and become a legitimate businessman. The party's over and Lando needs to return to the Galaxy at large for the movies to take their course.

Its a satisfying conclusion to a fun ride. Not quite as quick-paced as The Han Solo Adventures, but Lando's a different kind of scoundrel. Han's general solution to problems is to shoot his way out, and Lando only kills two people in this entire trilogy. Instead, this trilogy hammers home the theme that Lando is a weirdness magnet, which would carry through into later stories.

I recommend it, but its not essential tier like Daley's Han Solo Adventures or Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy. In the 90s this trilogy was also reprinted as an omnibus, which is a good way to get it.

Legends Never Die: Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon

Published in late 1983, Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon, was the second in the Lando trilogy.

Following the Rafa adventure, Lando, now with moustache, finds himself with a hold full of valuable life crystals, but finds himself unsuited to the life of an honest merchant. Forms, fees, pirate attacks, repairs and unfavorable prices have depleted his wealth. Plus, someone is very clearly trying to kill him with sabotage, so he turns back to his primary moneymaking skill: gambling.

He arrives in the Oseon system, which is made of two things: mining asteroids and pleasure asteroids. After a successful night at the Sabacc tables, he's attacked by a strange old man and kills him in self-defense (Lando's first kill in the trilogy). The local governor is sympathetic to the self-defense claim, but Oseon has a strict no guns policy among civilians, and the penalty is death. He offers a deal: Lando will ferry a local police officer (no nonsense cop Bassi Vobah) and an Imperial narcotics agent (the flustered avian Waywa Fybot) to an asteroid of “the single richest being in the galaxy” Bohhuah Mutdah. Mutdah has apparently been buying the highly illegal drug lesai and having it shipped during the Flamewind, a regular seasonal flare of solar radiation that drew millions to the system to see the pretty lights but also made navigation almost impossible.

Fortunately, Lando and Vuffi Raa are able to get through (the little starfish-shaped droid turns out to be an excellent flight instructor), and the following string of betrayals and deceptions leads to the revelation that the architect of it all was the Sorcerer of Tund, Rokur Gepta, who is really, really mad at Lando for fouling up his plans in the last book.

This is probably the most Libertarian book in the series. Lando's distaste for government and law enforcement shines through, so much that Lando never once entertains the idea of charming Bassi, the local cop sent with him. Even the sympathetic governor is presented as well-meaning but largely impotent compared to his orders. Waywa Fybot, the Imperial Narc, is treated as a joke at first, seeing as he's a two and a half meter tall yellow birdman.

Sabacc remains important, but takes a back seat to the intrigue. Lando and Vuffi Raa's relationship has settled into an amiable partnership, with “And don't call me master” becoming Lando's de facto catchphrase of the trilogy.

The jokes keep flying fast, including the mention of a constellation called the Silly Rabbit, but its gets serious when it needs to, and the climax shows just how petty and dangerous Rokur Gepta can be.

Probably my personal favorite of the Lando Calrissian Adventures, I definitely recommend it for fans of smooth-talking gamblers who keep ending up in bizarre situations. 

Legends Never Die: Lando Calrissian and the MindHarp of Sharu

The Lando Calrissian Adventures are a fascinating slice of Star Wars history. It was 1983 and Return of the Jedi had just hit theaters. Star Wars novelizations had taken a break after The Han Solo Adventures and the only consistent inter-movie tie-ins were the Marvel Comics ongoing series.

All of a sudden, a new trilogy of pre-movie adventures hits, centering around dashing gambler, future Baron-Administrator of Cloud City, and Colt 45 spokesman, Lando Calrissian.

Tasked with writing them was L. Neil Smith (the L stands for Lester). Smith was an early adopter of Libertarianism, joining the party in 1972 and becoming very active in it and running, unsuccessfully, for office several times. This includes an awkward run for President in the 2000 election where he was only on the ballot in Arizona thanks to a dispute with the leading national Libertarian candidate, Harry Browne.

Failed presidential bids aside, his first published sci-fi novel was The Probability Broach in 1979-1980, an alternate history story in his North American Confederacy series. After four of those, Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu was his fourth novel.

The book features a young, fresh-faced Lando as the new owner of a beat up transport named the Millennium Falcon. He doesn't really know how to fly. He doesn't even have his signature moustache yet. What he does have is exceptional skill at the game of sabacc. Lando wins a droid from an academic during one such game, but he has to travel to the Rafa system to claim it.

Once there, the droid turns out to be the chipper, helpful, oddly starfish-shaped Vuffi Raa. Lando also runs afoul of the local governor, Duttes Mer, who strongarms him into searching for a lost artifact, the Mindharp, which once belonged to the long-lost Sharu race that populated the system. Supervising Mer is the sinister robed figure of Rokur Gepta, the last Sorcerer of Tund, a Dark Side Force tradition that I can best describe as “flamboyant insane space wizard” and I love it.

After a few misadventures, run-ins, and a psychedelic trip through space and time inside an ancient pyramid, Lando finally finds the Mindharp and, naturally, its more than it seems.

A couple observations. The Libertarianism really shows. Lando is a freewheeling adventurer with no patience for the government or taxation. Lando also doesn't kill anybody, which contrasts him nicely with the Han Solo Adventures where Han & Chewie solved most problems guns blazing. Lando's a talker, Han's a fighter. While the Han Solo Adventures had their share of comedy, here, Lando is frequently the one cracking jokes, usually in sardonic response to something Vuffi Raa says.

Lando without his moustache is just...wrong

Not that there aren't action sequences. Even the sabacc game at the beginning is written as exciting as a made-up card game with constantly changing cards can be.

It also sets a precedent that would carry through with Lando throughout the Expanded Universe. Since Lando's more of a face than a brawler, he always seems to end up in weird situations where shooting his way out is impossible, or at least, not ideal.

Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu is an oddball story that doesn't have the pulpy action movie heritage of the Han Solo Adventures, but works as a slower burn of weirdness. I liked it, because a) I really like Lando, and b) its really funny, but I can see why not everyone would be into it. That said, I do recommend it as Expanded Universe reading material.