Ambush at Corellia by Roger Macbride Allen (Star Wars: The Corellian Trilogy: Book 1)

6/10

Set: 18 ABY

A trade summit on Corellia brings Han Solo back to the home world he left many years before. Arriving on the distant planet with Leia, their children and Chewbacca, Han finds Corellia overrun with agents of the New Republic Intelligence and finds himself part of a deceptive plan whose aim not even he understands. One thing is clear: the five inhabited worlds of the sector are on the brink of civil war and the once peaceful coexistence of the three leading races -- human, Selonian, and Drallan -- has come to an end.

I started out reading this book really enjoying the way it was written. Author Roger Macbride Allen seemed to have a really impressive way of spinning a tale and bringing me in. The Organa-Solo children were written really well.

Why? Because Macbride Allen is first and foremost a young adult author and the rest of the book read that way.

It isn’t necessarily a bad thing; let’s get that straight from the top. But ‘Ambush at Corellia’ also isn’t a book to go up against any of the Thrawn, Allston or Stackpole books.

This book was, maybe, the best of the three books in the Corellian Trilogy, because it wasn’t split up as much between the characters. It was only at the end of the book that everyone went off in their own direction. Stuck on a planet that he thought he knew, Han quickly finds himself out of place and it’s interesting watching that happen. The introduction of a New Republic security agent, Belindi Kalenda, was another nice part of this book.

The one major disappointment was the contrived storyline of Lando going wife-hunting. I found myself skipping large portions of that storyline early on so as to avoid any embarrassing moments.

Ambush at Corellia, and its subsequent books in the trilogy, is a simple story that is worth it if you haven’t got anything better to read and don’t have to pay too much for the books. Good for those in their tweens and teens, definitely, but a little too good for them to be of much enjoyment beyond those age groups.