Star Wars Read-Through Part 22: Young Boba Fett

Last post I explained that not all Clone Wars stories feature Jedi heroism and then went on to cover the first three Republic Commando novels as well as the video game that started that franchise. This next post does something similar.

In Episode II: Attack of the Clones, we meet the bounty hunter Jango Fett, who featured in comics and a game in the pre-Clone Wars period, which we looked at in Part 13. In that second prequel film, Jango Fett is identified as the template for the Republic's clone troopers, as well as being in the employ of Count Dooku aka Lord Tyranus, leader of the Separatists. As part of his payment for his services to the clone army, he was provided with a clone son, Boba Fett, whom we will know as the bounty hunter hired by Darth Vader to track down the Millennium Falcon in Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.

Young Boba Fett grew up on Kamino with his father, the Kaminoan cloners, a variety of other bounty hunters, and hundreds of thousands of clone troopers. He knew that one day he would become a bounty hunter in his own right, but at the time of Episode II, he is only around ten years old. In the arena on Geonosis, he witnesses the death of his father at the hands of Jedi Master Mace Windu, which begins his very own story.

In the years between the release of Episode II and Episode III, a total of six books were released covering these early years of the bounty hunter Boba Fett. These books were written for an audience aged 9-12 years old. Originally, the first four were meant to take place in the first few weeks after Episode II and the final two books three years later, in the weeks before Episode III. This has changed somewhat with the release of Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which condensed the Legends timeline. However, it still works, and I'll explain why shortly.

For this post, I read the following stories: 

• Boba Fett: The Fight to Survive (young reader novel by Terry Bisson, 2002)
• Boba Fett: Crossfire (young reader novel by Terry Bisson, 2002)
• Boba Fett: Maze of Deception (young reader novel by Elizabeth Hand, 2003)
• Boba Fett: Hunted (young reader novel by Elizabeth Hand, 2003)
• Boba Fett: A New Threat (young reader novel by Elizabeth Hand, 2004)
• Boba Fett: Pursuit (young reader novel by Elizabeth Hand, 2004)

I read the paperback versions of all six of these books.

Thoughts:

In broad strokes, these books tell the story of how ten-year-old Boba Fett begins his career as a bounty hunter. He makes many bad mistakes along the way, including antagonizing other bounty hunters seen at that time in Legends, including Aurra Sing and Durge. He is tricked and swindled, but eventually he, equipped with the Mandalorian armor worn by his father (repainted) and his ship, the Slave I, he comes into the employ of Jabba the Hutt. He also has an opportunity to strike at Mace Windu in revenge for his father's death, and reveals to Palpatine that he knows the clone army was a trap. 

It's a fun story of action and adventure and the mistakes you can make when you don't know all you need to know. 

Continuity wise, the books overlap neatly with other stories. The Battle of Raxus Prime from the video game The Clone Wars is depicted from Boba's perspective.

The television series The Clone Wars slightly complicates continuity, but not in a way that is unresolvable. In the episodes in which Boba Fett seeks to kill Mace Windu, the Jedi Master is one of few people to know that Jango Fett had a son. He is not surprised by the attempt at revenge. In Boba Fett: Pursuit, ostensibly set at the end of the war, Mace Windu does not know about Boba. But if we are compressing the timeline as we did for other novels, and setting all six books in the first six weeks or so of the war, then Boba might encounter Windu as the book describes on Coruscant before the events of those first Boba Fett episodes in season 2. This also fixes a continuity error in which Asajj Ventress is depicted, despite her leaving the Separatist cause near the end of the war (old Legends) or the middle of it (The Clone Wars TV series). 

Overall, I think this was a fun series. Kids will like it. 

Next: 

The next batch of Star Wars Legends stories to consume are the novels, comics, and games that tie into the Star Wars: The Clone Wars, which did not follow the TV series into New Canon. 

I am also likely reformatting how I divide stories later in the Clone Wars time period after this, as I believe I am missing out by reading the comics in a disjointed way. I'm likely to re-read the entire Clone Wars comic run in one go and keep novels together separately.