Long before he gut-shot Greedo in a dimly lit bar and tossed a few credits to the owner to apologize for the mess, Han Solo was a young thief on the streets of Corellia. “The Paradise Snare” is his origin story — or, at least, it was. Then Disney acquired Star Wars and tossed everything from the Extended Universe into the Sarlacc pit. But never mind.
We open with Han planning his escape from Garris Shrike, a Fagin-like crime lord who presses young orphans into service as grifters and pickpockets. Han has been scamming Corellian noblemen under Shrike’s orders for years. But he aspires to a life where he isn’t forced to commit crimes to make a living. He dreams of joining the Imperial Academy to become a real pilot. Yet he’s already an accomplished racer on his home world, and he masters any spacecraft he’s given with a deft hand. What’s left for him to learn? Is he looking to pad his resume?
To pay his tuition, he needs to earn some money that doesn’t end up in Shrike’s pocket. So he stows away aboard a shuttle and travels to the planet Ylesia, run by a secretive religious sect in desperate need of pilots. The sect fills their coffers by selling black market spice and conscripting their pilgrims to mine it. While touring the facility, Han meets and falls for a beautiful young pilgrim. We imagine this will end poorly, since the girl is not mentioned in the movies. But how will it happen and how will this mold him into the character we know? The mystery holds our interest, but it’s not hard to guess.
Meanwhile, the priests saddle Han with a bodyguard. It becomes apparent that he is really just there to keep an eye on Solo. Han knows he can earn the money he needs honestly (or as honestly as one can while smuggling drugs), but he could speed up the process by slipping his hand into the till. It raises the question: Does he really want to go straight? Old habits die hard. Eventually, Han discovers that the religious colony is a front for the Hutts, and he comes up with a plan to rob them and escape with the girl.
Prequels are a hard thing to get right. The audience already knows where the story ends up, so it is up to the author to make the journey worth the trip. When done right, a prequel can cast the original stories in a new light, providing nuance and context to reshape the scenes we already know. “The Paradise Snare” fails at this. Han Solo arrives at the story fully-formed as the character we know—just younger and a bit naive. He hasn’t been struck by life’s great disappointments yet. There are no missing puzzle pieces that unlock a greater understanding of his character.
Instead, we get a few glimmers into the events that harden Solo’s heart. There’s the death of Dewlanna, a kindly Wookiee and cook to Shrike’s crew who takes Solo under her wing. There’s no indication that she cares about the other children. But, again, never mind. We also get a brief flashback to the time Han ran away to find out what happened to his parents. The episode plays out far differently than we might expect.
We only get a few brief asides about Solo’s childhood. I was left wondering if we’d be better served going deeper into the past. Dewlanna’s death and Solo’s hatred of Shrike are good ideas that end up carrying little weight because the characters are introduced and disappear in the first chapter. Seeing him develop from a poor street kid into a charming swindler and how his relationship develops with two vastly different parental figures would’ve made this story far more emotionally resonant.
Instead, “The Paradise Snare” suffers from the same problem that plagues all tie-in fiction: Nothing of great importance can happen, so the story feels like glorified fan-fic. I enjoyed the novel, but it isn’t essential. There’s little here that couldn’t be inferred from reading between the lines in the original films.
That said, the author tells a decent story that avoids all the rebel vs. empire, light vs. dark side tropes that mire the rest of the series. It feels like a small miracle that no one shows up to wave a lightsaber around. It also manages to fill in the blanks without being trite and asking questions nobody cares about, like “Solo: A Star Wars Story” did (Why is he called Solo? Because he tells an Imperial officer he is alone).
The book also sticks the landing with a wonderful ending. For Han, it’s a personal triumph. But knowing, as we do, what Han’s future holds, it’s a poignant and bittersweet note.
Joe Johnson Writer 