Old Video Games: Flight of the Amazon Queen

Since I'm on a point-and-click adventure kick, let's discuss another forgotten title from the 90s.

1995's Flight of the Amazon Queen is a LucasArts style adventure game released for MS-DOS and the Amiga not made by LucasArts. Instead, this was the product of a small Australian studio called Interactive Binary Illusions. Their previous game was 1993's well regarded action platformer Halloween Harry (later renamed to Alien Carnage) co-developed with SubZero Software and published by Apogee back in the Duke Nukum (not a typo) 1 & 2 days. Led by by John Passfield and Steve Stamatiadis and released by British publisher Renegade Software, Amazon Queen was Interactive Binary Illusions' second, and final game.

It was not the end for Passfield and Stamatiadis, who would form Gee Whiz! Entertainment in 1996 and produced two games, Zombie Wars (a sequel to Alien Carnage) and Mike Stewart's Pro Bodyboarding (a sports game about bodyboarding. Professionally) before the studio joined with Robert Walsh to form Krome Studios Pty Ltd. In 1999.

Crikey!

Krome would release a number of licensed titles during the PS2/GameCube/Xbox era, but also handled the first 2 games of the Spyro the Dragon reboot and developed an original mascot platformer of their own: Ty the Tasmanian Tiger. In 2006, Krome acquired Melbourne House Studio, which had once been prolific 8- and 16-bit console game developer Beam Software, and renamed the studio to Krome Studios Melbourne.

Financial troubles shut down Krome Melbourne in 2010, but Krome revived in 2012 with new games in the Ty the Tasmanian Tiger series (and subsequent remasters), and recently handled remaster duties for The Bard's Tale Trilogy and Wasteland Remastered, both for inXile Entertainment. Passfield left the company in 2005, but Stamatiadis is still with Krome, as far as I can tell.

The reason for the history lesson is because 1) its neat, and 2) it means Flight of the Amazon Queen is an early step in a lengthy and respectable career for the Aussie developers, who are still kicking around.

As for Amazon Queen itself, the game's prologue starts at the 11^th hour of 1949 and clicks over to 1950. WWII has been over for a while, and dashing pilot-for-hire Joe King has a gig to fly blonde film star Faye Russel into the jungle for a photo shoot. Misfortune strikes and his plane, The Amazon Queen, crashes in the jungle, and Joe finds himself swept up in the schemes of Floda, a lederhosen company that's a front for the totally-not-a-Nazi-scientist-hiding-in-Brazil Dr. Frank Ironstein, who's mad goal is to transform Amazon warrior women into dinosaurs so he can take over the world. To do that, he needs to rescue Azura, the beautiful princess of the Amazons.

I say “LucasArts style” because the comedy runs deep in this game and there are no dead end fail states like the “Sierra style.” The adventure itself is inspired heavily by Indiana Jones, with Joe as a fast talking, baseball loving chad of an adventurer with a mechanic sidekick named sparky. There's also jet packs, dinosaurs, the Grim Reaper, zombies, an Abbott & Costello reference, a gorilla who shouldn't be in South America and he knows it, and a crystal skull plot macguffin 13 years before Indiana Jones touched on the same concept. This is a game set in the Pulp era and embraces it wholeheartedly, and the pulp elements aren't played for laughs, either. The amazon princess is even a redhead, as is traditional for the pulps.

The interface is fairly standard for adventure games of the era, with context buttons and a mildly annoying inventory. The puzzles aren't too squirrelly by 90's adventure game standards, and the trial and error system is pretty forgiving. There is a little too much going back and forth, and some of the screens only have one or two things to interact with.

Contemporary reviews were hard on the graphics, calling them dated, which I don't agree with. They might not be as strong as contemporaries like King's Quest VII or Full Throttle, but the art is clean, the backgrounds are great, and there are some really nice animations. The lighting on Joe even changes as he walks under trees, which is a great touch.

The audio stands out even better. The main theme is really solid, but its the voice cast that really shines. A glance at IMDB shows a list of professional actors with solid careers as secondary and character actors. The biggest name of the cast is William Hootkins, who played Jek Porkins in Star Wars (and had a long career in voice work as well). The cast is fantastic. They've got the right balance of self-aware camp and earnest Gee Whiz attitude for a story about a German scientist turning women into dinosaurs.

I can't say enough nice things about Flight of the Amazon Queen. It's solid pulpy fun with an earnest sense of humor that clearly loves its source inspirations and doesn't overstay its welcome. I liked Lure of the Temptress, but I loved my time with Amazon Queen.

The game was released as freeware in 2004 and runs just fine in the ScummVM emulator, so you have absolutely no excuse to play it. Because if you don't want to see the hero kiss an amazon princess on an airship flight into the sunset after watching a giant crystal skull powered robot punch a giant dinosaur man in the face, then Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is over thataway.

Enthusiastically recommended.

Pulp Review: Tarzan of the Apes

A Princess of Mars put Edgar Rice Burroughs on the map, but it was the second story he published in 1912, Tarzan of the Apes, that solidified him has an adventure story writer. Tarzan was also serialized in the All-Story, then later published as a novel in 1914. It was a smash, and Burroughs would go on to write over twenty novels in the series. 1918 would see the first two silent movie adaptations of the character, and Tarzan movies would appear in every single decade since up to now. (It makes sense. For Tarzan all you need is a muscular guy on a jungle set instead of the special effects bonanza that is Barsoom)

The story begins with an Englishman, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, sent to Africa in the 1880s to investigate claims of abuse of black natives by another European colonial power. Accompanied by his wife, Alice, the humanitarian mission never begins, since a mutiny on their ship leads to the couple being marooned on the western coast of Africa. Eking out a living, they give birth to a son, but tragedy takes both parents away. As fate would have it, the baby, also named John, would be adopted by Kala, a she-ape of the tribe who's chief, Kerchak, killed the elder Greystoke. They're not gorillas. The book makes it clear that they're more of a missing link species that has developed its own rudimentary language.

Named Tarzan by his adopted tribe, the boy grows up to become an apex predator. Weaker than the apes, but stronger than any normal man, Tarzan's greatest weapon is his clever mind and the eventual discovery of his parents' beach hut, where he slowly begins to learn using tools and even teaches himself to read English.

A tribe of cannibals, driven deeper into the jungle by colonialist firepower, settle near the area and one of their hunters kills Kala. Tarzan avenges her and begins to raid their village from time to time for supplies and pranks, as they think he's some kind of jungle spirit.

As he grows to maturity, another group of explorers is marooned at the same beach. A professor Archimedes Q. Porter has led an expedition to discover lost gold, succeeded, and the crew turned pirate on him and his family. Among the marooned are Jane Porter, the professor's lovely daughter, and William Cecil Clayton, Tarzan's cousin and heir to the Greystoke estate. Stunned at seeing other people that look like him, Tarzan's attraction to Jane draws him away from his simple jungle life and into the affairs of mankind.

There is a LOT going on under what is, on the surface, a straightforward tale of jungle adventure. The beginning taps into the same vein of classic adventure stories like The Swiss Family Robinson, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, and Captains Courageous. As Tarzan grows, Burroughs frequently meditates on nature vs nurture themes, and how even removed from any human contact or experience, Tarzan's human qualities set him apart from everything around him. He is the noble savage; clear of mind and decisive, clever but needlessly cruel, a peak physical specimen, uncorrupted by the needless complications of civilization.

As for the topic of race, Tarzan's antagonism toward the cannibal tribe comes from a personal place: they killed his adopted mother. Esmeralda, Jane's black servant, frequently falls into “Lawdy lawdy” stereotypes, but she's also one of the few who understands the danger of the situation. Professor Porter and his colleague Samuel T. Philander are even worse stereotypes: the bumbling academics who are too stupid and oblivious to function in real danger. The two of them wander off into the jungle one night, get hopelessly lost, and argue about the merits of Moorish civilization while a lion patiently follows them around until Tarzan rescues them. Its played for laughs, but hammers home their uselessness. 

William Clayton isn't a bad man, but he's something of a fop and a soft fellow who wilts when real pressure arises. Civilization has made him weak. The only people, white or black, who aren't treated as weak or villainous are Tarzan, his dead parents, Jane Porter, and Lieutenant D'Arnot, a French officer who shows up later in the book to help Tarzan enter into Western Civilization.

Action sequences remain a highlight of Burroughs' style, with a believable escalation from Tarzan killing a gorilla with a rusty knife at the age of 10 to driving a car and swinging around Wisconsin in the middle of a forest fire. That happens, and the road to how Tarzan gets from point a to point b is a roaring good time, and it ends on one hell of a cliffhanger.

If it were just a solid action-adventure story, it would be worth it, but Burroughs works in some deep thinking as well that adds another dimension to the story.

Absolutely recommended.

That glorious Neal Adams cover art from the 70s deserves its own showcase. Wowza.

Pulp Review: The Planet of Peril

It is a weird coincidence that many of the stories I've read on my journey into pulp literature were published in the pages of Argosy. True, much of it comes from the fact that I've been reading a lot of Burroughs & Merritt over the last year (who are giants of the era), but when it comes to discussion of pulp magazines themselves, Argosy in the 10s and 20s doesn't get as much mention in my Pulp Revolution running crew as Weird Tales or Astounding, or even the later Analog and Planet Stories. I'd guess because it lacks a strong editorial personality like Farnsworth Wright, Hugo Gernsback or John W. Campbell. Just an observation.

Otis Adelbert Kline (1891-1946) was a pulp author closely associated with Weird Tales, with his first published story appearing in that magazine's first issue in 1923. An assistant editor and regular story contributor to Weird Tales, he would also find success with Argosy before becoming a literary agent. His most famous client? Robert E. Howard.

The Planet of Peril is the first of Kline's Venus stories, planetary romance swashbucklers in the same vein as Edgar Rice Burroughs' Barsoom series. It was first serialized in Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1929 and published as a novel that same year. Here, Robert Grandon is a WWI veteran who's bored with the modern world when he's approached by a Dr. Morgan who offers him a route to adventure and excitement. Grandon agrees and through a process of hypnosis Dr. Morgan sends Grandon's mind across space and time to Venus, where he mentally swaps places with the lost Prince of Uxpo. Awakening as a slave of the fearsome kingdom of Reabon, Grandon wastes no time in leading a prisoners' revolt and running into the deadly jungles of Zarovia (the locals' name for Venus).

Through various happenstances, he rescues Queen Vernia of Reabon, a commanding woman of action who was responsible for imprisoning Grandon's body before he arrived. Proud,haughty and beautiful, Grandon naturally falls in love with her, and the two travel across Venus to get her back to Reabon within a year or else her political rivals will usurp her throne because of byzantine Zarovian laws.

This is an obvious imitation of John Carter, aimed at fans of that series (which is probably why Argosy picked it up. Burroughs got his start in their pages with A Princess of Mars and Tarzan). The story moves at a fast clip. Perhaps too fast, at times. When Grandon rescues Vernia from a giant monster threatening to eat her, its built up as a great threat, and Grandon quickly dispatches it. This happens semi-regularly throughout the book. The sabit sequence is satisfying because it takes a little more time, starting with the horrors of people being forced into communal living conditions (even being unable to choose who they mate with) against their will and ending in a titanic battle where thousands of the giant ants are killed in the revolt.

Its got action, adventure, and romance aplenty, though the quality isn't as high as Burroughs. There's a few pieces of convenient deus ex machina plot resolutions here and there, but even so, its great fun when carnivorous bird-men are being gunned down from an airship over a lake made of lava. Vernia is an amazingly strong female character, just a few steps shy of Dejah Thoris. I do recommend it, though in a “If you enjoyed A Princess of Mars, then you'll enjoy this” sort of way.

Pulp Review: The Skylark of Space

Star Wars casts a long shadow across science fiction and fantasy. For most people in living memory, it is THE example of the power of Space Opera on audiences. But George Lucas stands on the shoulders of another giant: Alex Raymond, the creator of Flash Gordon, and Raymond stands on the biggest shoulders in all of Space Opera, a humble food engineer specializing in donut mixes from Sheboygan, Michigan, named Edward Elmer “Doc” Smith (1890-1965).

Living in Washington DC after graduating college in 1914 with two chemical engineering degrees, he began writing what would become the very first Space Opera story in 1915, initially co-writing it with Lee Hawkins Garby, the wife of one of his college friends, who agreed to help write some of the romance plot. Working on-and-off on it while he pursued his doctorate, he would finish The Skylark of Space in 1920. After submitting it to various publications for eight years, editor Hugo Gernsback eventually bought the story and began serializing it in the August 1928 issue of Amazing Stories. It was a success, which would spawn three sequels and a hardcover edition (that was significantly edited from the serial) being published in1946.

The Skylark of Space begins innocently enough as an example of the older Victorian “Edisonade” story, where a brilliant and brave young inventor uses his discovery to save the day. Richard “Dick” Seaton is the heroic inventor in question, and on the very first page he discovers that a newly discovered metal (named X), when electrolyzed with copper, releases tremendous energy, which can either be explosive or propulsive. Seaton, along with his best friend Martin Crane (who is a less brilliant scientist, but has more money and business sense) and Seaton's fiance Dorothy Vaneman, experiment with what they can do with the metal, first building a flight harness, and then a spaceship.

Catching wind of them is Marc “Blackie” DuQuesne, a ruthless, but equally brilliant scientific mind in the employ of the sinister World Steel Corporation, a gigantic globalist company infamous for criminal activity that can never be proven in a court of law. DuQuesne steals a sample of X, which begins a quiet arms race that turns into a space race. DuQuesne ends up kidnapping Dorothy, and in the ensuing struggle, she kicks a lever and DuQuesne's prototype ship is launched into deep space.

Seaton and Crane immediately take off after in their own ship, the Skylark, and then it gets nuts.

Suffice it to say that there's another of DuQuesne's kidnapping victims, Margaret Spencer, that Crane gets to fall in love with, and a showdown on a Barsoom-like alien world where the Skylark is ramming through enemy airships like a giant pinball as the wild wonders of Space Opera take swashbuckling shape.

Solution X is pure bullshit, of course, but Smith's scientific background helps the verisimilitude immensely. The protagonists are all scientists or in relationships with scientists. They approach problems like scientists do, and conduct numerous trial-and-error experiments before finding solutions. It just so happens that sometimes the solution is gunning down a bunch of hostile aliens with a weird Darwinian religion that are trying to destroy your ship. Goes with the territory.

DuQuesne is a remarkable villain, and easily one of the best in the history of science fiction. Charismatic, darkly handsome, and brutally honest about his methods and aims, he is clearly a villain, but also a man of reason. He's the farthest thing from stupid, and completely willing to team up with his enemies in order to survive. Doctor Doom written at his best reflects more than a bit of Blackie DuQuesne.

Come to think of it, the “quartet of scientists exploring bizarre worlds” comes back in two major Jack Kirby co-creations, DC's The Challengers of the Unknown, and Marvel's The Fantastic Four. I have no idea what kind of influence Doc Smith might have had on Kirby, but the comics legend was around 11 years old when Skylark was first published, which puts him in the right era to be exposed to it. But that's just speculation.

Smith's real brilliance lies in escalation. The story consistently and satisfyingly ratchets up in tension and scale of conflict in a way where the characters are running for their lives from giant not-dinosaurs on a savage planet because they needed to dig up some X so they wouldn't run out of fuel, and it makes perfect sense why they're there.

“Escalation” is the word that applies to Doc Smith. The Skylark sequels grow in increasingly big directions. His other major series, Lensman, would go even bigger, to the point of weaponizing objects so large that Emperor Palpatine would blush.

But all of that would start here, in The Skylark of Space. Its important as an important work in the evolution of science fiction, but even more importantly, its damn good fun. 

Recommended.

Legends Never Die: Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka

In the Fall of 1983, Del Rey published the last of the Lando Calrissian Adventures, Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka. Like the rest of L. Neil Smith's trilogy, it mixes gambling, comedy, Lando trying to find peaceful solutions to problems, Libertarian themes, and a hefty dose of weirdness.

This time, Lando and his astrogator/flight instructor Vuffi Raa meet and befriend a giant space manta that can naturally fly through hyperspace. His name is Lehesu and he's an Oswaft. Lehesu wanders innocently through the Centrality sector, but in doing so he draws the attention of the Centrality and Imperial Navies, who follow him to his home nebula of ThonBoka (literally “Starcave” in their language) and blockade it, slowly starving the Oswaft.

Deciding to help them, Lando runs food through the blockade by conning and gambling his way through the fleet, and plot threads draw to a conclusion. The strange renegades with a grudge against Vuffi Raa are fully explained, Rokur Gepta's origins and the fate of the Sorcerers of Tund are revealed, and we finally get to meet Vuffi Raa's parents. All this, and Lando teaches space mantas how to play Sabacc.

Its a weird, wild ride that takes place almost exclusively in space. There's a brief side trip to Tund, but that's a dead world thanks to Rokur Gepta. Lando is either onboard spaceships or is floating around in a space suit. The banter between Lando & Vuffi Raa remains a huge part of the series' charm and even their goodbye is handled with bittersweet wit.

Much like Han Solo and the Lost Legacy, there's a melancholy edge to this story. Lando's adventures in the Centrality are coming to an end, and he's going to go off with enough treasure to buy himself a city and an urge to settle down and become a legitimate businessman. The party's over and Lando needs to return to the Galaxy at large for the movies to take their course.

Its a satisfying conclusion to a fun ride. Not quite as quick-paced as The Han Solo Adventures, but Lando's a different kind of scoundrel. Han's general solution to problems is to shoot his way out, and Lando only kills two people in this entire trilogy. Instead, this trilogy hammers home the theme that Lando is a weirdness magnet, which would carry through into later stories.

I recommend it, but its not essential tier like Daley's Han Solo trilogy or Zahn's Thrawn Trilogy. In the 90s this trilogy was also reprinted as an omnibus, which is a good way to get it.

Appendix N Review: The Face in the Abyss

Back to Abraham Merritt, because mind-blowing forgotten fiction is good for you.

Today it's The Face in the Abyss, which is a fix-up novel published in 1931 and based off two novelettes: The Face in the Abyss published in Argosy All-Story Weekly in 1923 and The Snake Mother published in Argosy in 1930, seven years later.

If you're keeping track, its technically his fifth novel, but only because it took so long between parts. The Metal Monster was 1920 and The Ship of Ishtar was 1924.

The story considers one Nick Graydon, an American mining engineer recruited for an adventure in South America in search of lost Incan treasure. The three other men are Starrett, a rough and tumble drunk, Soames, a lanky New Englander, and Dancret, a small, quiet Frenchman. They get lost deep in the jungle and tensions, already high, erupt when a beautiful young woman named Suarra is caught by Starrett around their camp. Graydon knocks out Starrett in a fit of berserker rage (the first of many he will experience over the course of the adventure) and learns the woman, Suarra, speaks a local language. The attraction between the two is immediate, and Graydon lets Suarra go, and she promises to bring back treasure to get the other men to leave the valley they're in.

It doesn't go well. Graydon's companions think he's ratting them out and their greed gets the better of them. They finagle their way into having Suarra take them to the source of the treasure, and so she does. A hidden valley where powerful men ride dinosaurs, and a giant obsidian face sweats gold out of its eyes and mouth.

Then it gets wild. Dinosaur arena fights, lizardmen, winged messenger snakes, advanced ancient technology, refugees from a lost civilization from now-frozen Antarctica called Yu-Atlanchi (and sharing common elements with the Atlantis myth), the shadowy Nimir LORD OF EVIL, creepy but friendly red spider-men called weavers and their leader Kon, and a mysterious and beautiful Snake Mother named Adana, who has powers beyond what the city itself has.

Graydon is a solid protagonist. Intelligent but quick to action, even when it gets him in trouble. Strong-willed and prone to the red mist rage when his sense of honor is thoroughly offended, he's a better hero than the bland crew from The Metal Monster but not quite on the level of John Kenton or (especially) Larry O'Keefe. Graydon's also an expert shot with a rifle.

Its also clear that Merritt's cast of stock characters is in full effect. Kon is the misshapen but strong and loyal friend, Regor is the battle-scarred big guy, and so on. Shockingly enough, the love interest Suarra ISN'T a redhead but a brunette.

The real star is the mysterious Adana. Upper-body of a beautiful woman, lower body of a snake, and ALL monstergirl, she's not the villain. Far from it, she's one of the most altruistic characters in the book. Which is funny when she's discussing melancholic matters with Graydon and then pausing to examine how she looks in a mirror. She feels like a real person with quirks and vanities, and a snake body.

Like all of the other Merritt books I've read so far, he just throws out one wild idea after another at the audience and keeps everything tied together and building until an explosive finale. Really solid stuff. I'm not going anywhere near spoilers, but I'll say this: it reads like one of those weird high-concept AD&D 1^st Edition adventure modules. In a good way.

Absolutely recommended. Merritt is a goldmine.

Its also interesting to note that in my online wanderings, I found a set of photos from the 1980 Westercon on the Los Angeles Science Fantasy Society website. Aside from being an amusing time capsule of hideous wallpaper and some very excellent early cosplay work, one of the guests was dressed up as Adana the Snake Mother. Which means Merritt was relevant as late as the 80s to inspire detailed (and bold) costume work.

Appendix N Review: Three Hearts and Three Lions

Where, oh where, to begin with this one? There's so much packed into Poul Anderson's 1961 novel Three Hearts and Three Lions that a thorough review would go deep into spoiler territory. And its only about 200 pages.

Okay. First, the plot. Holger Carlsen is a Danish-born engineer and former college athlete living in Pre-WWII America. When the war breaks out, he returns to Denmark and hooks up with the Danish Resistance and during a desperate mission to extract a scientist to Sweden, a bullet grazes his head and he passes out.

Waking up, he discovers himself naked in a forest with a horse waiting nearby with a set of clothes, weapons and armor. As you do.

The horse's name is Papillon (French for “butterfly”) and with the stallion, he rides to a cottage and gets advice from an old witch who sets him up with a dwarf guide named Hugi. Holger wants to know two things: How to get home, and who is this famous knight with a shield with three hearts and three lions that he's supposed to be.

He encounters a young swanmay named Alianora. She's a human girl who was gifted a cloak that allows her to change into a swan. She, like most of the other people in this world, speak in a stylized dialect meant to sound archaic that takes some getting used to on the page.

After barely evading entrapment by the Elven King Alfric of Faerie, Holger has a run-in with Morgan Le Fay, who knows him from his forgotten past, and he and Alianora begin to fall in love, though his desire to return to the Earth that he knows prevents him from acting on his feelings for her.

Holger finds himself swept up in a grander cosmic conflict as a champion of Law against the fickle and deadly Faerie armies of Chaos. Werewolves! Magic Swords! Dragons! Riddling Giants! Trolls! Heroic Saracens! Comic Relief Wizards! Throwing an Elf into another Elf! True Love!

Much has already been said about how much this story in particular has had an influence on the development of Dungeons & Dragons. Law and Chaos are foundational for the alignment system. The rapidly regenerating troll at the end that can only be permanently harmed by fire is translated directly into the Monster Manual instead of the traditional Scandinavian rock troll (though the fight with this troll is far more hardcore than anything I've seen presented in other stories). Swanmays, Nixies, Unicorns, all have their folkloric predecessors, but again, they are translated almost directly into D&D creatures from this book.

The Paladin, though, is one of the most famous/infamous D&D classes, and it comes from this book. Everything the Paladin class does in Advanced Dungeons & Dragons is done in this story. Detect Evil? Yep. Character is bonded to a special mount? Yes. Immune to fear? Yes (though in Holger's case, much of it comes from being a man of action and an engineer trying to figure out practical reasons for why magic is happening around him) Laying hands on the sick to heal them? Symbolically, yes. Losing certain protections and bonuses when he begins to have impure thoughts? Yes.

Its all there. This book is the bridge between Charlemagne's heroic knightly warriors and Gygax's knights in heavenly armor. I knew that going in, and it still blew my mind to see it in action. (Incidentally, I recommend reading The Song of Roland, where Charlemagne's paladin Roland gets his famous last stand. Badass action and Charlemagne pulling on his beard in grief abounds)

The key to Holger's powers is faith. True faith. Cold Iron, the Cross, and sincere invocations of Jesus Christ all cause physical harm to the forces of Faerie, who are frequently described as having no souls. The tangible power of faith on this strange world shifts Holger from being a modern agnostic to someone who converts to Catholicism by the end (Anderson himself was apparently agnostic with a favorable attitude toward Christianity)

The book features a lot of lighthearted comedy. Holger's no idiot, but he can be a blockhead, especially around pretty ladies. The book takes frequent pauses to think up scientific reasonings for things, like how a dragon would work, or the principles behind a dagger that can be lit on fire. These excursions never get too long, but occasionally they get close.

Then, when the book gets serious, it fully commits. When Holger is presented with the challenge of identifying a werewolf that is terrorizing a town, he gets put into an emotionally difficult situation. Without spoiling it, he has to choose between two grim options, and in true Paladin form, chooses a third.

This book is nothing like the deconstructionist cynicism clogging modern bookshelves. Over and over and over, Holger Carlsen proves himself to be a true-blue White Hat style hero without ever becoming boring. Human and flawed, Holger's a dope with the ladies and a hearty drinker, but at every turn he tries to do good, and in return, becomes a better person and betters the world around him. This is the kind of heroism I've been starved for, and here it is, fully realized by a Grandmaster of Science Fiction.

I can't recommend this book enough. Read it, if for no other reason than to understand how Paladin characters are meant to be played.

Gorgeous Darrell K. Sweet cover for the Baen edition

“And some say he waits in timeless Avalon until France the fair is in danger, and some say he sleeps beneath Kronborg Castle and wakens in the hour of Denmark's need, but none remember that he is and has always been a man, with the humble needs and loves of a man; to all, he is merely the Defender.

“He rode out on the wold, and it was as if dawn rode with him.”

Legends Never Die: Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu

The Lando Calrissian Adventures are a fascinating slice of Star Wars history. It was 1983 and Return of the Jedi had just hit theaters. Star Wars novelizations had taken a break after The Han Solo Adventures and the only consistent inter-movie tie-ins were the Marvel Comics ongoing series.

All of a sudden, a new trilogy of pre-movie adventures hits, centering around dashing gambler, future Baron-Administrator of Cloud City, and Colt 45 spokesman, Lando Calrissian.

Tasked with writing them was L. Neil Smith (the L stands for Lester). Smith was an early adopter of Libertarianism, joining the party in 1972 and becoming very active in it and running, unsuccessfully, for office several times. This includes an awkward run for President in the 2000 election where he was only on the ballot in Arizona thanks to a dispute with the leading national Libertarian candidate, Harry Browne.

Failed presidential bids aside, his first published sci-fi novel was The Probability Broach in 1979-1980, an alternate history story in his North American Confederacy series. After four of those, Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu was his fourth novel.

The book features a young, fresh-faced Lando as the new owner of a beat up transport named the Millennium Falcon. He doesn't really know how to fly. He doesn't even have his signature moustache yet. What he does have is exceptional skill at the game of sabacc. Lando wins a droid from an academic during one such game, but he has to travel to the Rafa system to claim it.

Once there, the droid turns out to be the chipper, helpful, oddly starfish-shaped Vuffi Raa. Lando also runs afoul of the local governor, Duttes Mer, who strongarms him into searching for a lost artifact, the Mindharp, which once belonged to the long-lost Sharu race that populated the system. Supervising Mer is the sinister robed figure of Rokur Gepta, the last Sorcerer of Tund, a Dark Side Force tradition that I can best describe as “flamboyant insane space wizard” and I love it.

After a few misadventures, run-ins, and a psychedelic trip through space and time inside an ancient pyramid, Lando finally finds the Mindharp and, naturally, its more than it seems.

A couple observations. The Libertarianism really shows. Lando is a freewheeling adventurer with no patience for the government or taxation. Lando also doesn't kill anybody, which contrasts him nicely with the Han Solo Adventures where Han & Chewie solved most problems guns blazing. Lando's a talker, Han's a fighter. While the Han Solo Adventures had their share of comedy, here, Lando is frequently the one cracking jokes, usually in sardonic response to something Vuffi Raa says.

Lando without his moustache is just...wrong

Not that there aren't action sequences. Even the sabacc game at the beginning is written as exciting as a made-up card game with constantly changing cards can be.

It also sets a precedent that would carry through with Lando throughout the Expanded Universe. Since Lando's more of a face than a brawler, he always seems to end up in weird situations where shooting his way out is impossible, or at least, not ideal.

Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu is an oddball story that doesn't have the pulpy action movie heritage of the Han Solo Adventures, but works as a slower burn of weirdness. I liked it, because a) I really like Lando, and b) its really funny, but I can see why not everyone would be into it. That said, I do recommend it as Expanded Universe reading material. 

Legends Never Die: Han Solo and the Lost Legacy

Han Solo and the Lost Legacy caps off Brian Daley's Han Solo trilogy, and was published four months after The Empire Strikes Back was released.

Frozen in carbonite, book trilogy ended. 1980 was a rough year to be Han Solo.

After making haste out of the Corporate Sector, Han, Chewie, Bollux and Blue Max are bumming around a backwater sector called the Tion Hegemony doing odd jobs like working for a flying circus.

Adventure comes calling in the form of one of Han's old academy instructors turned treasure hunter: Trooper Badure. Badure's recruits Han to get to the planet Dellalt to find a long-lost treasure ship, The Queen of Ranroon. The ship belonged to a fabled pre-Old Republic conqueror, Xim the Despot, and is said to be guarded by a legion of his deadly war robots. The ship has been the stuff of spacer legends for generations.

After a high-speed chase across a university, Han agrees and meets the rest of Badure's team: Hasti, a miner who's sister discovered the clue to the treasure's location and was killed for it, and Skynx, an eager Ruurian historian who's just about the most adorable fuzzy caterpillar person in the galaxy.

Dellalt proves to be a dangerous world, with a criminal mining operation, a reclusive group of deadly cultists in the mountains, and centuries-old war robots that are just as deadly as their reputation.

And then Gallandro shows up with a grudge against Solo for being humiliated in Han Solo's Revenge.

Considering Raiders of the Lost Ark came out a year later in 1981, the comparisons are inescapable. A character played by Harrison Ford goes on a hunt for ancient treasure and has to deal with angry natives and hostile armies. Probably coincidental, but the pulp element convergence here is striking.

Gallandro himself works as a stand-in for the sinister Setenza from The Good, The Band and the Ugly. His moustache is a little more flamboyant, but there's a lot of Lee Van Cleef in the character. He is one of the few people in the galaxy that Han is legitimately frightened of.

Like the rest of the trilogy, Daley's action sequences are fast-paced and exciting. The aforementioned university chase (which itself has a lot of similarities to one of the few bright spots in Kingdom of the Crystal Skull), then there's a mountain chase on a giant metal disc, and a large-scale battle at the climax where everyone's fighting everyone as the war robots advance.

This time, though, there's a tinge of melancholy throughout. Its been a fun ride, but the party's coming to a close. Han makes more mistakes. Hasti, the potential love interest, rejects his advances, saying she wants something real and not a love-em-and-leave-em type. The ancient labor droid Bollux has a touching conversation about obsolescence and free will with the war robot commander. Skynx the academic is rushing to get as much adventure and knowledge into his life before he matures to a full adult and turns into a near-mindless butterfly. Bollux and Blue max have to leave Han by the end because they're not in the movies.

The passage of time undercuts everything in this book, and by the end, Han & Chewie have managed to piss off everyone important in the Corporate Sector and Tion Hegemony, so they bounce around the idea of doing a simple spice run for Jabba the Hutt.

The Han Solo Adventures are a blast to read and can be found individually or in omnibus formats. If you're of a tabletop persuasion, its essential reading for a Scum & Villainy type of game. Highly recommended and essential Expanded Universe reading.

Brian Daley would continue on with a few Star Wars projects, but not more novels. He wrote the script adaptations for the Star Wars Radio dramas (1981, 1983 and 1996, respectively). The audio dramas are really quite good, by the way, and expanded on a few themes that weren't in the movies.

Daley himself died in 1996 of pancreatic cancer shortly after recording of the Return of the Jedi radio drama wrapped. According to his official website, which is still up as a memorial to him, some of his ashes were to be scattered at the Little Big Horn Spirit Gate memorial to help defend it from inter-dimensional threats. 

Legends Never Die: Han Solo's Revenge

Han Solo at Stars' End was published in early 1979. The sequel, Han Solo's Revenge followed in late 1979. Whereas Stars' End ended up a prison break story, this turns into almost a James Bond style adventure/mystery.

It begins with Han and Chewie (and the droids Bollux and Blue Max) operating a movie theater on a desert planet for easy credits. Unbeknownst to them, they've accidentally created a religious experience for the desert natives by showing a documentary of a water world. The scheme ends in a hurry when they try to show a different movie and they're back in space, desperate for cash.

The solution comes in a simple, lucrative smuggling operation. One catch: Han finds out it involves running slaves. Han & Chewie are rogues, but they absolutely refuse to get involved with any slavers. The immediate situation resolved, an angry Han Solo sets out to find the slavers and get the money they still owe him.

To that end, Han runs into one Fiolla of Llord, a beautiful, idealistic and resourceful woman who's also a Corporate Sector Assistant Auditor-General trying to track down the very same slaving ring. Meanwhile Chewie has his hands full dealing with a persistent skip tracer named Spray, who shoves his way onto the Falcon, intending to repossess it once all the shooting stops.

Shootouts on a luxury spaceliner, planet hopping, a bomb on the Millennium Falcon, a high speed swoop bike chase scene five years before the speeder bikes of Return of the Jedi, and an encounter with Gallandro, the deadliest gunslinger in the Corporate Sector, if not the entire Galaxy.

Much like Stars' End, Revenge runs at a rapid clip of action sequences, betrayals and more action sequences. Comic relief is also strong, as Bollux and Blue Max continue to provide their mix of competence and comedy, while Spray becomes an amusing foil for Chewie.

The real standout is Fiolla, one of the first genuinely memorable Expanded Universe female protagonists and love interests for Han. (Jessa from Stars' End counts too, but she's only there at the beginning and end of that story). Resourceful, witty, and occasionally naive in contrast to Han's practical cynicism, she's great. If one were feeling woke, it could be pointed out that she is a non-Caucasian female hero in a Star Wars story from 1979 and it was no big deal because the franchise was always diverse, but that would shatter the narrative.

She's also a genuinely good cop, which makes a strong contrast to the hard edge the Corporate Sector Authority had in the first book. Tyrants like Viceprex Hirken aren't the only employees in the Authority, which adds a nice layer of nuance.

I absolutely recommend Han Solo's Revenge for fast-paced scum and villainy action, adventure and romance.