Honor Among Thieves

Executive Summary: This is a short but fun book that has finally given me the itch to read Star Wars Books.Audio book: The audiobook is awesome. The End. I'm told the sound effects and the music are normal for Star Wars books. It seems well done here and not overused/distracting. Marc Thompson is an awesome narrator. He does voices for all the characters, including Chewbacca. What's better than reading about a singing Wookie? Hearing it! His Han Solo does remind me a bit of Peter Griffin for some reason, but overall it reminds me more of Harrison Ford's performance. His voices for Hunter Maas is probably my favorite. I think this will be my preferred way to read more Star Wars in the future, especially if Mr. Thompson is the reader.Full ReviewSo let's set the stage for my review a bit: I'm a casual Star Wars fan. I like Star Trek just as much as if not more than Star Wars (ducks). I love the original trilogy (4-6) and I don't really care for the prequel trilogy. Jar Jar can go die in a fire. And this is my very first Star Wars book.So why start here? My friend loves Star Wars books. I think he's read most of them. He's been telling me to read them for years. Shouldn't I have read Thrawn Trilogy by now at least? I guess so, but there are just so many other books to get to.For me the final push was the author. I just did the Expanse books earlier this year and I really like [a:James S.A. Corey 4192148 James S.A. Corey https://www.goodreads.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-d9f6a4a5badfda0f69e70cc94d962125.png]. The other thing is that despite this being book 2 of a series. It's really just a stand alone as far as I can tell. It's easy to just read this without committing myself to reading more books.What you have here is a short and interesting tale focused around Han Solo and Chewbacca with smaller appearances of some of the others (Luke, Leia, R2D2, C3PO). So if you're looking for light saber battles and the force, you probably want to pick another book (just don't ask me which one).There isn't some real deep plot or major revelations here. There can't be really. The book is set between episode 4 and 5. You know that none of the main characters are ever in real danger of dying because they are around in episode 5. Original characters are fair game though.The original characters (or at least ones I've never heard of before) are all pretty good. The other main character of this is Scarlet Hark a rebel spy who needs extraction from the center of imperial space. And guess who has to go get her? I also particularly enjoy Hunter Maas.The real winner here is the dialogue though. Maybe it has extra pop for me since I listened to it rather than reading it, but they seem to really capture the mannerisms of the characters that I remember and love from the movies. Han especially. The interactions between him and Leia are really good. There is even a “Han Shot First” joke in there.So if your a Star Wars noob like me, should you start here? I'm not sure. It seemed to work for me though and now I'm excited to check out some more books later this year. Even if you're a bigger fan, I think there is a lot to like here, especially if you go the audio book route.