Lando Calrissian and the Starcave of ThonBoka by L. Neil Smith (1983)

First let me get the petty gripes out of the way: the title of this book, like the other books, is terrible. But it's more terribler in a different way because according to the story, "Thonboka" means "starcave." My other petty gripe is that L. Neil Smith is a libertarian but that doesn't have anything to do with this book (unlike the last one which was all about how Lando couldn't get rich not because he was terrible at business but because taxes and government fees kept bankrupting him).

Now let me get to the petty gripes about myself: I know I read this book but I'm not sure I actually read this book. I was so not interested in reading this book that I thought about a lot of other stuff while reading it which isn't conducive to retaining and comprehending what's being read. I especially did this on the chapters about the bad guys because they were boring. And when have bad guys ever been boring in an adventure novel?! They're usually the most entertaining aspect of the book! Which probably explains why this book received two stars.

I understand that when writing a trilogy and after creating a super awesome bad guy in the first book (not my opinion; I'm putting myself in Smith's place), I would totally want to use that bad guy in the subsequent books. But also Lando's adventures take place in space which is a really big place. So you'd think that maybe he wouldn't run into the same guy three separate times. And also he wouldn't run into the new "bad guy" who is trying to kill his droid friend two times. But of course there are plot reasons why this happens and I will explain them in a new paragraph because I think it's time for a new paragraph? How do paragraphs work? Do you just think, "That's enough words all clumped together for now. Let's start a new clump"?

The plot reasons for Lando running into Rokur Gepta over and over again are that Rokur Gepta gets so butt hurt by Lando defeating his plans in the first book that he can't stop hunting Lando. Think about how pathetic that is. Rokur Gepta is thousands and thousands of years old and space is like almost as big as thousands and thousands of years but in parsecs (maybe bigger?). Why can't this super powerful being just be all, "Well, that one didn't work out. Guess I'll start a new super duper plan to take over the galaxy"? I guess the reason is that he's a gigantic immature baby jerk? What Lando does in the first book to this nearly immortal ancient being is the equivalent of an ant causing me to twist my ankle simply because I noticed it for a split second and tried not to step on it.

No wait. That's not a good example because if an ant did that to me, I would totally hunt it down and make its life miserable for two more books. Stupid ant. How dare it!

I would think up a new analogy but you probably get the point and I'm too lazy to come up with a new analogy. Also I want to spoil the end of this book now (and I haven't even discussed the space manta rays with microwave telepathy who shit illusory images of themselves and can sprint through hyperspace or Vuffi Ra's ancestors who are sentient space ships): Rokur Gepta is a gothic gerbil pretending to be a man. And Lando only defeats him by accident when a piece of space debris knocks him sideways and he accidentally shoots Rokur Gepta in the ankle which is the only place in the "human suit" where Rokur Gepta actually was. Is that a twist ending or is that an unsatisfying conclusion where Lando doesn't really solve his problems so much as have his problem solved for him? It's probably one of those and since I rated this book two stars, you know which one it is, right?

These books were supposed to be palette cleansers after spending nearly a year reading Alan Moore's Jerusalem. But, and this is another stupid analogy, instead of being palette cleansers, they were just a big bag of sour gummy candies of which I ate too much and now my stomach hurts and I feel terrible and I desperately need a salad. And by salad I mean a Thomas Pynchon novel.

Lando Calrissian and the Flamewind of Oseon by L. Neil Smith (1983)

I joked about not liking the first Lando book after discovering that L. Neal Smith was known as a libertarian science fiction writer. But that was a joke! I actually did like the first book! Not in the way I like a John Barth book, of course! I'm not a simpleton! I'm just an honest book reviewer who uses way too many exclamation points! But sticking with that honesty, I have to say this second Lando book was terrible. I used a period there to represent the gravitas I feel for having to report that a book I read and stuck with until the end wasn't worth reading nor sticking with to the end. It is a sadness which I will feel until the day I die (especially on the day I die because I'll be thinking of all the cool things I could have done instead of reading this book).

I can be absolutely sure that I wouldn't have enjoyed this book if I hadn't read that L. Neal Smith was a libertarian but I definitely wouldn't have found a number of passages as grating as I did knowing that he was. At the end of the last book, Lando Calrissian found himself a wealthy man. But when this book starts, he's practically a pauper because of taxes and government regulations and corrupt politicians. Sure, there's some hint that maybe he's not a great businessman. But there's an even larger winking suggestion that nobody can really be a great businessman with all of these gosh-darned government regulations and taxes! By gum, poor Lando couldn't even make it in business while starting out with a huge cash advantage. I guess the only thing he can do is go back to gambling because it's sort of illegal which means if he isn't caught, the government can't stop him from making a living at it! What a hero!

In the end though, we discover that the villain, Rokur Gepta (or whatever. I don't care enough to remember his actual name or, if I did get it right, care enough that I still remember it. Either way, I'll be haunted by it on my deathbed) was causing a lot of these financial problems for Lando. He was lowering market prices on fishing rods when Lando wanted to sell fishing rods. Or he was informing hangars that Lando was a smuggler so Lando would get hit with lots of petty surcharges. Or he was manipulating entire economies so that Lando would get the worst return on his investments.

In other words, Rokur Gepta is the most boring villain to ever be imagined by a libertarian science fiction writer. Lando was basically in a life and death struggle with a petty bureaucrat.

Luckily Lando's droid had once committed genocide on some backwater planet and the survivors of that genocide were hunting him down. I say luckily because that vendetta is the only reason there is any action at all in this book other than Lando cursing having to pay another docking fee for the Falcon.

In the end, Rokur disguises himself as an obese drug-addled bajillionaire (I use that word because the man is suspected to be the richest man in the galaxy. But he's dead now because Rokur killed him to pretend to be him so he could create a really elaborate ploy to get Lando into his grasp). He causes all sorts of chaos and murders dozens if not hundreds of people and ruins many of the lives of those left living, just to strap Lando onto a picnic table so he can get into Lando's head to try to make him cry. It works a little bit but Lando still gets away by sticking a chopstick in Rokur's eye. That leaves Rokur even more angry for a third book!

Look, I'm already going to regret so much wasted time when I find myself dying that I can't be too hard on myself that I'm going to read the last book of the trilogy. Maybe things will pick up!

P.S. You might be wondering why I gave this two stars instead of one. Well, I'm not sure I've read a one star book to the end yet! I mean, maybe Catcher in the Rye. But I'll have to reread that one to make sure!

Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu by L. Neil Smith (1983)

Lando Calrissian is much cooler than Han Solo. It's obvious the first moment you see him onscreen in Empire. I remember as a young eight year old, sitting in the dark theater with a couple of friends (Empire came out in an era when eight year olds could go to movies without parental supervision. I think. Who can remember? That was so long ago and I'm not even sure my parents were my real parents and not kidnappers who snatched me when I was wandering the streets as a four year old. Things were so lax in the 70s!), thinking, "This Han Solo is the coolest mambo jambo in the entire world!" And then this guy in a cape...a frickin' cape!...appears and I was all, "Han Solo is a dumb jerk! This guy rules!" It was obvious to me that after Leia said "I love you" and then Han said "I know," Leia should have replied, "I was talking to Lando."

Some people don't think Lando was cooler than Han and I don't understand those people. But I have to admit, I thought the Lando books would be a cheap imitation of the Han books because Han was in three of the original Star Wars movies while Lando was only in two of them. I was happy to be wrong. This book was much more entertaining than the Han books even though it has a terrible title. Also, the chapters are only six to ten pages long which really improves the reading experience! It made me feel like I was reading at a 12th grade level!

I just Googled L. Neil Smith to see if he was still alive and he's apparently known as a "libertarian science fiction writer." So I want to change my review of this book. I hate it now. Although it was actually kind of entertaining. Except now that I think about it and having nothing to do with discovering that Smith was a libertarian at all, the parts where Lando and the robot grow and shrink was stupid. What was that about?! Maybe it was a metaphor for government out of control and political correctness gone mad?!

In summation, the book was entertaining but I can't recommend it now that I know that L. Neil Smith is one of those people who demand that other people think they (the Libertarians) are rational but who aren't actually rational at all. Unless I've been mistaken all this time and what they want me to think they are is selfish. Because they are certainly that.

I'm still going to reread the next two books though. Especially since they were written in 1983 and nobody knew how to be an awful Libertarian back then. They were just terrible in a different way and liked to use phrases like "trickle down" and "Reaganomics." I hope the next two books aren't full of Reagan-era dog whistles!