The alternative title for this post was going to be “everybody loves love.”
What am I talking about? Apparently one of the top two selling books of the Star Wars franchise of all time, even after all these years… is The Courtship of Princess Leia (Star Wars)
According to Wikipedia (yes that’s right–this book has it’s own Wikipedia page), this book was a New York TImes bestseller in both hardback and paperback. My pocket sized paperback copy has a very different cover. You can see that the newer ones have the “Legends” branding for these Star Wars novels.
The story opens with Han Solo as a General in the New Republic. Princess Leia is now an ambassador and though Darth Vader and the Emperor are dead, the remnants of the Empire still lurk out there. True to form, their romance is not going smoothly. Solo has been away battling warlords and is missing his girl. Ambassador Leia Organa has been negotiating for allies and support in their ongoing efforts to clean up the galaxy. A powerful potential ally takes a shine to Leia and offers up her son in marriage to seal the deal. You can imagine how well Solo takes it.
Luke and R2D2 also make an appearance in this story and it’s a pleasure to read this rather zany addition to the Star Wars universe. I don’t believe it’s part of the “cannon” but it’s enjoyable and familiar. There are many, many, books in the Star Wars franchise and my theory on why this one has outsold the rest of them is because it’s a love story.
The reader gets a look into Han Solo’s heart and has an opportunity to witness his depth of feeling for Leia. That’s something that we can only speculate about when watching the movies, and the writer, Dave Wolverton gives us all that rich inner life of Han Solo in this book.
Lucky for me, I met the talented author, Dave Wolverton. Here is the dapper gent signing my copy of the book.
Dave Wolverton
Has he written anything else, you ask? Why yes he has. Under his pen name David Farland, he is the wildly successful author of The Runelords
The first installment is nearly 700 pages, so you get really immersive experience.
An interesting book, thanks for bringing it to my attention!