Tales from Jabba’s Palace

Hey everybody,
My Star Wars nostalgia trip for 2024 isn’t showing any signs of stopping right now! Following hot on the heels of the Tales from the Mos Eisley Cantina, we’re headed straight for that other hive of scum and villainy on Tatooine, with Tales from Jabba’s Palace! The original follow-up anthology (I think Tales of the Bounty Hunters came later), the stories in this book feel like they were a bit more tied together, as the subplots of threats against Jabba’s life were woven through each one. As we saw with the earlier anthology, the same story beats are covered off here as well, with Leia as Boushh coming in, with Luke coming in, the rancor pit fight, etc, etc. Added to this, though, we’ve got the plot threads of Tessek the Quarren (affectionately known as Squid-face in the early lore) plotting to overthrow Jabba, and Ree-Yees (Three-Eyes) as his henchman; we’ve got bombs being planted all over the place, which somewhat explains why Jabba’s sail barge goes up in such spectacular fashion when Luke fires the gun into the deck, and so on. 

Overall, it feels a lot tighter than the Mos Eisley book, which I do appreciate. Of course, there is still an unevenness to it because of the variety of authors involved. Some stories feel a bit bland whereas others are quite good. We’ve got some of the established Star Wars writers from the Bantam era providing some, such as Dave Wolverton writing Tessek’s story, Barbara Hambly writing the tale of Porcellus the chef, and Kevin J Anderson himself providing Malakili’s tale. Then we have some of the authors who seem to have contributed a lot to things like the Star Wars Adventure Journal, I think that seemed to be a thing back in the early 90s? At any rate, some of these aren’t too bad, some of them veer more into the realms of being a bit silly, like the Gamorrean Guard’s tale where he’s carrying around desiccating corpses. 

We also have the Tale of Mara Jade, by Timothy Zahn. I’m singling this one out because it is fairly important in the lore – the Legends lore, I know, but even so. Since Heir to the Empire hit back in 1990 and revitalised the Star Wars universe, we’ve known that Mara Jade had infiltrated Jabba’s Palace with the intent of killing Luke, but was somehow prevented from travelling on the sail barge and so failed in that mission. It’s a compelling tale, and I think in some ways seems to have paved the way for these types of stories, where important characters might just be off-screen, or whatever. I do like this one, not just for the fact that it gives us just a bit more in terms of that backstory, but Zahn also manages to weave in a possible reference to Heater, the original retcon of Jabba the Hutt being a human during filming of A New Hope.

There always seems to be a story in these anthologies that I never expect to enjoy, but end up doing so. In the Mos Eisley Cantina, it was the moisture farmer’s tale; here, it’s the fat dancer. Written by AC Crispin, we get more lore on this character than perhaps would ever have been thought possible. She also manages to pair the dancer with the guy in the black helmet that Chewie cuffs on his way down the stairs, as both characters escape from Jabba’s palace following the battle out in the Dune Sea. It’s interesting, because it’s always cool to have these background characters expanded upon as being more mundane, perhaps, but it’s also nice to see some of the aftermath of Jabba’s fall.

All in all, it’s a fairly decent book. I think I enjoy this more than the Mos Eisley anthology, of course, but with it being an anthology, there is always going to be something to enjoy among the pickings.