Star Wars: Last Shot

I wanted to love this book. Daniel José Older's short story and narration was the standout for me in “A Certain Point of View” and I really hoped he could do a lot with Lando especially in this novel.

Unfortunately, Last Shot is okay to good, not great. While he Older had me at “Ewok Slicer” it just feels like the book dragged on throughout. You could almost ditch part I completely for example and give us even more Lando & L3. It takes a while but the plot does get going eventually and it's a nice smuggler anthology in a way.

One thing is clear though: Lando > Han in almost every respect. I think part of this is that canon really hems Han in now with both Solo and the OT+Force Awakens movies. Stuff happens to Han whereas Lando is still an intriguing mover and shaker who's allowed to develop outside movie canon. This may be what contributes to the sense of a lost opportunity to do even more with the two scoundrels than Older was allowed to.

As an aside, the audiobook itself is great. Three narrators, including Older himself and they all do a very good good job. I just love how you can practically feel Older grinning through the spoken word and it went a long way towards enjoying the overall story.