September book report

Tales of the Bounty Hunters

This book has been out for some time now. I forgot all about it and yet here it appeared in a used book store. This is a series of short stories dealing with the bounty hunters from Empire Strikes Back. I can get some totally cool background or adventures with Bossk, IG-88, Dengar, 4-Lom, Zuckuss and Boba Fett!

How cool is that?

The answer is completely not cool.

The stories in here are just crap. IG-88 becomes Skynet. Dengar is like an emotionless bad-ass cyborg who falls in love? Zuckuss and 4-Lom are friends of the Rebellion? Bossk is hunting Wookies instead of Han and dealing with a double double cross with another set of bounty hunters? Boba Fett is old and still hunting people and still has an axe to grind with Han Solo.  Han is in this story and having a minor mid-life crisis as well. Which leads to a terrible cliffhanger like ending that is beyond pointless.

What the frak is going on with these guys?!

These guys do anything but actively hunt for Han and Chewie after Vader talks to them. Yet they all seem to have beef to squash with Han or have minor encounters with him/ the rebels too. What? These stories are all tedious and bad. Damn it! I had real hope for this and what a colossal disappointment.



Yarrick: The Pyres of Armageddon

Well after being a bit underwhelmed with the first Yarrick novel I didn’t think I’d dive back into another one. Well then this showed up at the book store.

If there is one bit of 40K lore I am truly a sucker for it is the wars on the planet Armageddon. Especially, the ones involving the orks. Sure that demon invasion was neat, but it doesn’t compare to the craziness of the ork invasions. It must be the Mad max quality of the planet and ork army that I find so fun to read about.

Here we have an older Yarrick sent to Armageddon to retire. Well what better place than to a polluted manufacturing planet to be put out to pasture. Well along comes a giant ork WAAAGH! This is led by the warlord Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka that we all know and love. Now the beleaguered planet must survive the ork invasion along with a horribly run bureaucracy that is doing nothing to help the war effort.

Yarrick must fight from hive city to hive city against the orks and fight against an inept planetary government. It all makes for typical 40K stuff with the action, the Emperor protecting, explosions and the like. Better than the previous Yarrick novel for sure.