Star Wars: Honor Among Thieves (2014) Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. So I'm back with another book review. This time I'm reviewing the last novel to be published in the original Star Wars expanded universe before the current Disney canon began, 2014's Honor Among Thieves by James S.A. Corey. Like with my Kenobi review from the other day, this is my first time reading this book so I wanted to get my initial thoughts about it out there before I really delve into it later on down the line in whatever form I end up doing the Star Wars Expanded Universe/Legends reviews in. I have ideas on that, but I'm not ready to talk about it yet. So that means there won't be any spoilers in this review. That'll come later when I revisit the book down the line. With that out of the way, let's get into it.

Released on March 4th, 2014, Honor Among Thieves was the final book published that was set in the Legends continuity. Though I don't think anybody knew it was going to be the last Legends novel to be published as the Lucasfilm Story Group didn't announce that decision until April 25th, 2014, more than a month after this book was published. Also the new character, Scarlet Hark, the Alliance spy that Han is sent to recover, feels like someone who was meant to show up in more books, almost like Del Rey was trying to duplicate the success that they'd had with Mara Jade in the '90s and early 2000s, after the release of Heir to the Empire in 1991. But with this ending up being the final book in Legends, that never happened as she wasn't transferred over to the Canon continuity. 

The paperback was published on February 24th, 2015, only six days shy of the first anniversary of the hardcover's release. This edition, which includes the Legends banner across the top, came out around the time that several of the Bantam era novels from the '90s were re-released with the Legends banner across the top of the front covers. This is the edition that I have in my collection. It includes an excerpt preview of the Canon novel, Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp, as well as the short story "Silver and Scarlet", which was the introduction of Scarlet Hark, and was published in Star Wars Insider #148, only a week after it was originally published in the hardcover of this novel. I'll talk about that a little later though.

I had such a good time reading Honor Among Thieves. It was fun, funny, and exciting all at once. Honestly, it felt like a throwback to the Bantam era novels from the '90s. The pacing was similar, the humour felt like the type of humour that Aaron Allston had in his entries in the Star Wars: X-Wing novel series, and the action was pretty great too. 

Something that I've found with alot of Star Wars novels that have come out since The New Jedi Order started in 1999 is that they've gotten alot heavier in terms of the aspects of the Star Wars Universe they explore. Some are darker than others, but they overall became alot more introspective and more character focused. And I think that's because the franchise started evolving and moving in that direction with the Prequel Trilogy. And by the time books like the Fate of the Jedi series started coming out in 2009 and 2010, we were already getting fairly heavy character pieces in the Clone Wars TV series, under the watchful eye of Dave Filoni. So the novels and comics were reflecting those changes that the movies and TV show were making. And because the novels are more dense, they take longer to read than the Bantam era novels do. So it was nice to read a more modern Star Wars novel, which is only a little over a month away from being nine years old now, that is lighter and fast to read. I started it on Monday night after I'd finished the Kenobi review, and finished it just before bed last night. That's how quick of a read it is. 

Unlike with Kenobi, Wookieepedia has nothing on the development of this book and no behind the scenes info on it either. It was written by James S.A. Corey, who is a pseudonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck, and are the authors, under that pen name, of the Sci-Fi book series, The Expanse, which is what the TV show of the same name is adapted from. But, having never read the The Expanse novels, and having never read anything else by these authors, I don't know if I should be surprised that they wrote a light-hearted Star Wars novel or not. My buddy Aaron, who is a fan of The Expanse, told me that while humour is in The Expanse, it's not anywhere near as light-hearted as this book is. So that's interesting.

This is also a Han Solo focused novel. Which isn't all that surprising since Han did get shafted in the Original Trilogy, but I think that's simply due to the fact that Harrison Ford was only involved on a movie by movie basis, so after the first movie came out in 1977, George didn't write a whole lot for Han to do in each subsequent movie knowing that Ford might not be available for the next movies. And of course we know what would happen to him in the Sequel Trilogy, so I don't blame authors for wanting to tell more stories with Han being the focus. It's just interesting that this book came out 14 months after the last Legends novel written by Timothy Zahn, Scoundrels, came out, and was also a Han focused novel. Though in that case it was a Han and Lando focused novel. It's also interesting that both novels take place at some point during the three years between A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back (1980). 

The short story, "Silver and Scarlet" is okay. Like I said with the short story in the paperback for Kenobi, there isn't a whole lot to say about it. It was a decent introduction to Scarlet Hark. But that's it.

Overall this was an awesome book and a great way to end off the Legends continuity. I highly recommend reading it if you can get your hands on it. Like I said earlier, I will be revisiting this book at some point during my Star Wars Legends review series that I'll be doing later on down the line. There are a few other novels that I want to get to before that though.

That's going to be it for me for today. I will be back soon with my review of Stargirl season 2. I'm aiming for either Friday or Saturday, leaning more towards Saturday, because of when I decide to watch the show. So until then have a great evening and I will talk to you all later. Take care.