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rogue_leader's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
4.0
jaredkwheeler's review against another edition
3.0
Star Wars Legends Project #289
Background: Tales from Jabba's Palace was edited by [a:Kevin J. Anderson|4845|Kevin J. Anderson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1215310030p2/4845.jpg] 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 [a:Kevin J. Anderson|4845|Kevin J. Anderson|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1215310030p2/4845.jpg] 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+
twilliamson's review against another edition
3.0
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.
camsullivan's review against another edition
4.0
Unlike the other “Tales From” anthologies, every story here is connected. As usual, some were better than others but this would be on my essential Star Wars legends reading list.
mickb's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
geraldine's review against another edition
4.0
iconic, iconic book
jizz music. ladies with six boobs. boba fett gets vored
what else can i say
(how am i supposed to remember how many times I read this and when. it was at least five times fully)
jizz music. ladies with six boobs. boba fett gets vored
what else can i say
(how am i supposed to remember how many times I read this and when. it was at least five times fully)
ofclumsywords's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
A very strange collection of stories. Some are good, a lot are not, and a select few were amazing.
grayreader's review against another edition
4.0
Honestly, this is one of my favorite books. All the stories intersect to make a complete, familiar scene, and each story has its own unique flavor. Each character- some better known than others- lends a distinct perspective. Perhaps only enjoyable for Star Wars fans- Perhaps. Slight nostalgia factors involved, sure, but an impressive example of collaboration regardless. Mostly, though, it's just a lot of fun to read.
srreid's review against another edition
3.0
The first few stories in this were a little on the dull side (for me anyway) so i sort of put this book aside for a while, but when i picked it back up again i finished it off in just a few sittings as the stories got much better. Still has that element of repetition where almost every story had to include the scene with Luke and the Rancor, although this petered out towards the end and moved more towards the Sarlac. Good intermixing of stories where events in one are mentioned or have consequences in another. The more interesting stories are the ones that seemed to move further away from the scenes we are all familiar with from the films. Especially interesting to read how Boba Fett escaped from the Sarlac.