Chewbacca's Activity Book

Chewie gets some much needed attention in this third activity book from Random House. It's the usual blend of mazes, crosswords, magic tricks and recipes, all with a vague Wookiee slant.

The Wookiee Storybook

I've touched on the infamous Star Wars Holiday Special before and, apart from a never produced line of wookiee action figures by Kenner, there was never really any merchandise for it. Apart from this.

Random House did several kids books based on Star Wars including four activity books and a couple of stories - The Maverick Moon and The Rebellious Robot. This one is in a different format (hardcover) but the style is more or less the same. Tying in with what we saw of the Wookiees in the Holiday Special, Chewbacca's son Lumpy, heads down to the lower levels of the forest (against his mother's warnings) to collect wasaka-berries. Chewbacca is returning home after a three-year mission with Han Solo and there is to be a big celebration for his bicentennial. This word is mentioned quite a  lot throughout the book and the author was no doubt cashing in on the fresh memories of America's own bicentennial that was a big thing only a couple of years before this book was published. Needless to say, things don't go to plan and Lumpy finds himself lost and pursued by a series of frightening creatures on the forest floor.

Cue Han and Chewie! Now apparently adult Wookiees have the ability to think messages to each other (at least in this obscure book). This spiritual way of communication comes in handy right about now and Lumpy's mother (Malla) thinks a message to Chewie who is on board the Falcon. Arriving at Kashyyyk, Chewie takes the Falcon's 'explorer craft' down to the surface to look for his son. Take a look at that little craft exiting the Falcon!

Chewie of course rescues Lumpy and they all head home for a big party. Mission accomplished. Happy days. 

Han Solo's Revenge by Brian Daley

The second of Daley's Han Solo trilogy, this was published on Oct. 12 1979. This is the hardcover book club edition from that year.

Again, there is no Empire as the villains and the lack of Stormtroopers and TIE Fighters makes it all seem a bit 'un-Star Wars'. It opens with Han and Chewie hiding out on the planet Kamar and working some sort of sideshow racket; showing 'holodocumentaries' to the primitive natives. When that business venture goes awry they take on a job for a shady employer to ship an unknown cargo. That cargo turns out to be slaves and, not wanting any part of that, our heroes find themselves in a sticky situation as the slavers try to take command of the Falcon.  

Intervention on the parts of the Falcon's resident droids Blue Max and Bollux (yes, you read that right) enable Han and Chewie to defeat the slavers and make for the Planet Bonadan where their treacherous employers intended to meet their contact for payment. Han is up for revenge as the title suggests and along the way he gets caught up with a Corporate Sector Authority agent called Fiolla who is trying to break the slaving ring and Chewie has his paws full with a rodent-like debt collector trying to repossess the Falcon.

I'm continued to be surprised by the contributions Daley made to the Star Wars EU. In the previous novel I found out that Daley gave us Z95-Headhunters, vibroblades and Holocubes. In Han Solo's Revenge there is a thrilling 'swoop bike' chase. Different from the speeder bikes in Return of the Jedi, swoop bikes are more souped up and are essentially an engine with a seat. They crop up all over the place in the EU and off the top of my head I can remember a similar chase in Shadows of the Empire.

The Marvel Comics Illustrated Version of Star Wars

As well as releasing the first 6 issues of the comic in 2 collections (plus a single collection of issues 1-6), Marvel also did this trade-paperback style anthology published by Del Rey in November 1977. It's much smaller than the comic books so the artwork is a little squashed in there and its all in black and white as you can see in the images below. It also included an intro by Stan Lee who manfully owns that he initially turned down the idea of a Star Wars comic thinking that the world didn't really need another 'ray-gun space opera', but quickly changed his mind upon seeing an early cut of the movie. Then there's Roy Thomas's preface where he details the difficult task of producing a comic book with only movie stills to go on and the frustration at seeing scenes such as the Biggs Darklighter one being cut from the movie.

The issues are called 'chapters' and include the cover image for each issue as well as a nifty bit of closing artwork for each chapter. 

At the end of the book there's some neat pin-up art courtesy of Howard Chaykin and Ernie Chan.

Splinter of the Mind's Eye - 1978

Most people know the story behind this first ever Star Wars novel (besides the novelization) published in 1978, but here's the short version anyway. Alan Dean Foster (who ghost wrote Star Wars) was under contract to write a second novel which could be filmed as a low budget sequel should the movie not perform too well at the box office. This way 20th Century Fox could knock out a cheapie 'Star Wars 2' and recoup some of their losses on the first movie. Foster's story is set entirely on  a fog-shrouded planet and contains no space battles. Also noticeably absent is Han Solo as Harrison Ford (unlike his co-stars) had not signed a 3-picture deal and would not have been likely to return for round 2 if the first film bombed. But of course Star Wars stormed the box office and Lucas was able to go ahead with his more ambitious and expensive sequel The Empire Strikes Back, relegating Splinter of the Mind's Eye to an odd existence as 'Star Wars 1.5'. Nevertheless, the book came out and became the first entry in the now gargantuan entity of 'Expanded Universe' novels that exists today.  

It's fun to wonder what might have been. The book is very reminiscent of those low budget sword and sorcery flicks that were popular in the 80s; a hero and a princess gadding about a prehistoric location on some sort of quest, fending off rubbery swamp monsters and passing through shanty, underpopulated towns with some old timer handing out mystic advice. It could easily have been made into one of those kind of movies. The plot is simple; Luke and Leia (along with Artoo and Threepio) are en route to a secret meeting of rebel factions but crash land on a swampy planet called Mimban. There they discover a secret imperial mining operation and pose as miners to enter the town. Falling in with an old crone called Halla (who appears to have some minor control of the force) they learn of the Kaiburr crystal, a gemstone that magnifies the power of the force-user who wields it. They get into trouble with the local administrator, Grammel, and are thrown into a prison cell from which they promptly escape with the aid of two 'Yuzzems' (large hairy creatures not unlike Wookiees). What follows is a fairly routine planetary adventure across swamplands in a stolen imperial 'crawler', a fight with a giant worm, a descent into the subterranean caves and an encounter with the primitive race who dwell there. It is at this point that Vader shows up, also keen to get his hands on the crystal and it soon becomes a race against time to get to the forgotten jungle temple before he does. 

Being an early entry in the Star Wars canon, there are the occasional, inevitable inconsistencies. The budding romance or (dare I say it?) sexual tension between Luke and Leia may make a few readers cringe today now knowing that the pair are brother and sister and is perhaps the most irrefutable piece of evidence in the age old argument that Lucas was making this stuff up as he went along. Vader's saber is described as blue at one point (no doubt due to the paleness of the blades in the original cut of the movie) but that's nothing compared to the howler Foster makes when he has Vader accuse Luke of shooting down his TIE Fighter over the Death Star. Surely somebody must had picked up on that before the book went to print? 

It's an ok read and like a lot of this early stuff, it seems a bit obsolete in the shadow of what Star Wars has now become. But as with all things on this blog, it's the context of its time period that make it important. 'The Further Adventures of Luke Skywalker' must have been an irresistible tug on the young Star Wars fan in a time when there was just one movie and a handful of Marvel comic books to go on.      

Luke Skywalker's Activity Book

Another cute little entry in this series of things to do and make. 

The model instructions are by far the most impressive things about these books. 

The Novelization: Book Club Edition

Nowadays, when a book is published, the hardcover edition usually comes first and then the paperback. But back in 1976, the Star Wars novelization (by Alan Dean Foster but accredited to George Lucas) first appeared in paper back. Then, came the hardback version with the gold border but before that, the Science Fiction Book Club put out a version for it's members with different artwork and, according to the excellent A Universe of Star Wars Collectables by Stuart W. Wells III, is the earliest hardback edition of the book.  

As with other editions, the book comes with plenty of full color stills from the movie. I also enjoyed the blurb from the inside flaps, especially the bit about 'Chewbacca the Pirate and his human companion Han Solo'!

Also, check out that old school 'W' in the logo on the back cover! 

 

The Star Wars Album

In November 1977, Ballentine put out this 75 page Star Wars Album featuring tons of color and black and white photos from the movie and behind the scenes shots. The contents seems to fall into three sections, this first of which is a look at the influences on the movie. Everything from early sci-fi like H. G. Wells to Flash Gordon, robots in movies (i.e. Metropolis and Forbidden Planet), comedy duos like Laurel and Hardy, westerns that influenced the character of Han Solo and the whole cantina scene, monster movies and Errol Flynn swashbucklers are referenced. I like this bit as it's easy to think of Star Wars as its own entity nowadays rather than the throwback to old fashioned adventure serials it was originally intended to be.

The second section is a breakdown of the movie's plot accompanied by many pictures.

The final part of the book is devoted to behind the scenes stuff with articles, pictures and concept art.

Artoo Detoo's Activity Book

Random House put out a bunch of these activity books in 1979 filled with the usual word searches, puzzles as well as a few oddities like Star Wars based recipes and ideas for things to make. Although this one is called 'R2-D2's Activity book' it really belongs to C-3PO too and is mainly based around their Tatooine adventures.

Read Along Book and Record

I don't have a record player so I've no idea how this plays but the vinyl looks in pretty good shape. There were several Star Wars read along records (eventually re-released on cassette tapes of course) covering the movies and a couple of new stories in the kiddified wake of Return of the Jedi. This one is from 1979. I was planning to scan a few pages to give a taste of what the book is like but a quick Youtube search shows that some kind soul has gone that extra mile so we can all enjoy this product pretty much as it was intended complete with scratchy pops and crackles!




Those are some pretty nifty pictures for the young Star Wars fan in the days before home video entertainment and my copy of the book is pretty well-thumbed. With only a few pages to tell the entire story of the movie, there are naturally a couple of cheeky shortcuts, most notably the quick shift from Luke discovering Leia's message to going off to visit Ben Kenobi. There is no mention of R2 running away or of any Sandpeople.

None of the original actors reprised their roles for this despite authentic sounds and music from the movie. It's really odd hearing other people voice Luke, Han and the gang (most especially strange is Darth Vader). But Corey Burton, who voices Luke, does a pretty good job at capturing Hamill in my opinion. Little trivia fact; Burton is still working closely with the Star Wars franchise by voicing Count Dooku among others in the Clone Wars.

The Mystery of the Rebellious Robot

In 1979, Random House put out three storybooks aimed at younger readers. Here we have 'The Mystery of the Rebellious Robot' and it's a hoot. I absolutely adore the illustrations. They have a great 70's borderline-surreal charm to them and I've never seen anything like them in relation to Star Wars before.

That's one scary looking Chewbacca! He's an absolute monster in this book and I wouldn't be surprised if he gave a few kids reading this nightmares. Anyway, the story revolves around Han, Chewie and R2 aboard the Falcon, heading to Tatooine with some supplies for Luke who is leading a team of scientists to build 'super-vaporators' to combat the drought there. Chewie gives R2 some oil and the little droid promptly goes berserk and takes control of the Falcon.

Ha ha! Another great image of Chewie. He's certainly having a hair-raising experience here! Han sends a distress signal to Luke down on Tatooine and soon the Jedi-in-training sets off in his X-Wing (called simply a 'plane' here) to help.


Luke guides the Falcon down to the planet and reveals to Han that computers and machines have been breaking down all over the planet. Stuff's been going missing too and it looks like somebody is trying to sabotage the project. Whilst discussing this in the conference room, there is a tremendous explosion. Luckily nobody is injured but 3-PO is taken off to maintenance for some repairs. After an oil bath, 3-PO's systems shut down. A handy R5-unit discovers that contaminated oil it the problem.

It is discovered that the Jawas are at the bottom of all the trouble. They've been contaminating the oil in order to get their hands on droids and machinery. Chewie chases them around for a bit and catches them all up in one swoop.


Chewie finally gets his medal!

Han Solo at Stars' End by Brian Daley

Today, Star Wars novels number in the hundred's. But back in the late 70's there was Alan Dean Foster's Splinter of the Mind's Eye and the Han Solo adventures by Brian Daley, and that was it. Daley wrote three, beginning with the above, a tale of Han and Chewie before they met up with Luke, Ben and the Droids in the Mos Eisley Cantina and their lives (and ours) were forever changed.

Published on 1st April, 1979, Han Solo at Stars' End eschews the usual hordes of Stormtroopers, TIE Fighters and Imperial Cruisers that form the villains in most Star Wars works, and instead Daley creates the 'Corporate Sector Authority' (usually shortened to the 'Authority') as a foil for our heroes. This is my main disappointment in the novel. I like Stormtroopers. I like TIE Fighters. They're a huge part of Star Wars (especially in the early days of '79), and without them, the book feels a little like it's set somewhere else, like Han and Chewie have crossed over into a different Galaxy.

Anyway, the story begins with this all-powerful Authority trying to impound the Millennium Falcon, insisting that Han needs a special waiver to operate in its sector. So Han and Chewie bust out and jet off to find 'Doc' a shady technician that can do the job on the cheap. Upon arrival, they meet Doc's daughter, Jessa (an old flame of Han's, naturally) who tells them that her father has gone missing. She'll agree to do the job on the Falcon if they head off to Orron III and pick up a search party that has been looking for Doc and some other troublemakers who are believed to have been captured by the Authority.

Of course the mission goes totally balls-up with betrayal and murder in their midst and Chewbacca is captured and hauled off to Stars' End, the Authority's ultra-secure prison camp. Cue daring rescue with Han and his new found chums masquerading as an entertainment troupe to sneak in and bust everybody out.

Being a veteran EU reader from my teenage years, I noticed many terms in this book like 'vibroblades', 'holocubes' and 'Z-95 Headhunters' that later became EU staples. As they were never mentioned in the movie or novelisation, I am led to wonder if they were all inventions of Brian Daley and have since become regular pieces of the Star Wars universe. If so that's pretty impressive. One other thing that put a smile on my face is the name of one of the droids in the book. Now, maybe this is only funny to British people, but calling a character 'Bollux' is just asking for unintentional hilarity. I read somewhere that when the book was published in Britain, the name was changed to 'Zollux' to avoid testicular connections.

All in all, it's not a bad book. I honestly didn't know what to expect as some of this early EU stuff can be pretty bizarre. It's not nearly as off model as some of the Marvel comics. The plot is ok, nothing special, and the lack of pretty much all things Star Wars other than Han and Chewie just makes it all feel a bit mediocre. Being a first paperback edition, I bought it as a collectible, not for its reading value and I'll be picking the sequels up as and when they appear on ebay for reasonable prices.