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Rebel Dawn would deserve ★★★★� stars for the clever and entertaining way A.C. Crispin works us to the moment when Han meets Luke & Obi-Wan, if only ...

Rebel Dawn would deserve ★★★★ stars had it not claimed to be a Han Solo book. The interesting part of the story, what actually drives the tale along, is the fascinating battle between Jabba's Desilijic clan and Durga's Besadii clan. For the bulk of this book, Jabba and Durga appear to be protagonist and antagonist. This book would have been really good, if only ...

Rebel Dawn would deserve ★★� stars as a romance. The love story of Bria Tharen (rich girl turned religious junky turned Rebel leader) and Han Solo is okay, probably more than okay if you're into grocery store romances, especially if one ignores what it does to Han's growth as a character in Episodes IV & V. There's tension, there's betrayal, there's stupidity (and not on the side of Han, which is refreshing), and there's some love too. This would have been an interesting tale, if only ...

Rebel Dawn really wouldn't deserve ★★ stars under any circumstances (well ... I suppose if I had just finished a nice bottle of red wine after a yummy meal I could muster that extra star). Aaaah, if only ...

If only A.C. Crispin had left Brian Daley's Han Solo Adventures alone. But she didn't. For a bizarre ninety-nine pages, over a quarter of this book, Han Solo is nowhere to be seen because he is off in the Corporate Sector and Tion Hegemony having genuine Han Solo (and Indiana Jones) adventures.

For three chapters, Crispin turns her final Han Solo novel into a Lando Calrissian-Bria Theran-Boba Fett-Jabba the Hutt-fest, and the only glimpse we get of Han is a crappy, italicized encapsulation of Daley's novels (okay, we do get a glimpse of Han in those ninety-nine pages). That's not what I signed up for, and it pissed me off.

And it wasn't necessary. There must have been a way to work it so that her timeline would not interfere with the timeline of the Han Solo Adventures. Surely she could have written her adventures so Daley's fit between her books. The big problem, though, is that Daley's books are BETTER. They are more fun. They are better representations of the Han Solo that I love rather than the Han Solo of Lucas' "fixes." And they are actually about Han Solo rather than all the people he will meet in the movies.

But Crispin forces the juxtaposition between her books and Daley's. Her interjections of Daley's plots pushed me to interrupt my reading of her books and read his instead. And every time I finished one of his books, I hated this final Crispin book more and more. � star is all this is worth now. No matter how good some parts of this novel were, Crispin damaged my enjoyment too deeply by begging me to compare her to Daley. Bad call, Crispin. I'd like to think it wasn't yours, that you were forced into it by Uncle George. It wouldn't surprise me, but it wouldn't make a difference to my rating either.