Pirate's Price: Novel Review

The Flight of the Falcon series continues with Pirate's Price, another novel for young readers. This time written by Lou Anders. The series has been told in both books and comics at this point with the Star Wars Adventures tittle and Lando's Luck which I already burned through in a couple of days.

Just like Lando's Luck the story is bookended by Bazine Netal's effort to get intel on the Millennium Falcon. This time her journey brings her to Hondo Ohnaka, the Weequay pirate who has made several appearances in The Clone Wars and Rebels. Hondo has his own Millennium Falcon stories, and he tells a handful of stories about the Falcon that stretch over the years. Beginning prior to A New Hope and then the last story actually takes place following The Force Awakens and Han Solo's death.

In a rare move for a Star Wars book the story is told mostly from Hondo's perspective. Star Wars novels are generally written in third person. It follows Lando's Luck since Han Solo and Chewbacca are now in possession of the Millennium Falcon.

Since I've only watched a handful of episodes from the animated shows this was probably my best look at Hondo. The book really does belong to him and I found him to be a very interesting character. He won't think twice about being double crossed, but also doesn't take it personally when he gets a taste of his own medicine. I got a bit of a kick of Han Solo and Hondo trying to get the best of each other. Han may not really like Hondo, but I think after all their encounters that he probably had some respect for him. Maz Kanata makes a relatively small appearance as well and I'm always glad to see her show up so she becomes more locked into Star Wars history.

The first story takes up the bulk of the novel, but there are really a handful of stories that involve Hondo and the Millennium Falcon. The stakes are low, but the story is quite enjoyable whether you want to read it yourself of read it to your children. I'm not sure if there are more Flight of the Falcon books planned, but I'd happily read a third book.