Status Updates From Star Wars: The Hutt Gambit ...

Boba Fett injects Han with a mind control drug. Lando comes out of nowhere, sneaks up on Fett, manages to shove his blaster under Fett's helmet and stuns him. Then they give Han the antidote and use the mind control drug on Fett, forcing him to leave the moon. Then Lando immediately shows Han the Falcon and Han instantly falls in love with it, instantly resolving to own it himself. This is all so fucking stupid!

A mind control poison? Fucking seriously? Come on. That's so goddamn stupid. It would make more sense to just be a paralytic agent. And Han came to the conclusion that Fett was 'clever and dangerous' with literally zero basis. He doesn't even know who he is. Yes, the reader knows who Boba Fett is, but Han does not at this point in time. The writing has never been great but it has become absolute garbage.

This is one of the laziest setups for a relationship I've ever seen. Han saw a magician's performance, and decided he NEEDED to get to know her. And she was totally receptive of this, conveniently. 'It was hard to get her to open up, but Han kept trying.' But don't show us any of that. Just tell us about it. So stupid. Not to mention she is several years older than her, and has a dead husband and children. Awful!

That conversation between Han, Jabba, and Jiliac was one of the worst written dialogue scenes I've read in quite some time. Holy hell that was so bad. 2/3 characters have solidly established tones from the movies, and she utterly failed on all counts. The crunch schedule shines through.
This is only 9 years before RotJ. Why is Jabba not in charge? 9 years is not a long time for a Hutt. He should be in charge already.

The structure of this book doesn't make much sense. Han got the recommendation from Tagta, but then 5 months passed, then another 2 weeks, and only now he is cashing in the recommendation. Why did he wait over 5 months to use it? A recommendation made over 5 months ago surely would be irrelevant by now.

Yeah yeah, gotta get in all your Kessel Run references and explanations. Classic EU overexplanation of a movie thing.
It's not just Han she has shitty writing with. This Kid DXo'ln guy is constantly addressing Han as 'Solo' every few sentences.
So, all of these characters we're meeting are from The New Rebellion, a book that was published 1 year prior but set in 17 ABY. Haven't read that one yet so I didn't know.

STOP FUCKING SAYING PAL ALL THE GODDAMN TIME. My god. This book is going to fucking kill me. No one has ever said pal this goddamn much in the history of the world and all of its fiction.
While we're on the subject of overused words, she uses sentients too much. Nothing wrong with that term, but it seems to be the ONLY way she knows how to refer to a mixed group of aliens. Throw some 'beings' in there for a change.

Why would Teroenza automatically assume that Han Solo is Han's real name? He was using the name Vykk Draygo before. It's perfectly plausible that Han Solo would just be the next fake name he's using. It's an unwarranted leap in logic. But I guess it's a distinction without a difference as far as the story is concerned.
Why does Crispin keep mentioning 'pleasure houses' in these books? It's fucking weird.

Once again, she demonstrates it was a mistake to have the first book's plot span only 5 months. Han and Bria weren't together for that entire time, so their relationship was 3-4 months. It's now been 5 whole YEARS since then. You would have gotten over it by now. Period. This is dumb.
Oh god, now Han is calling Chewie pal every other sentence like he did Muuurgh. Did Crispin even watch the movies? He doesn't do that!

Ugh. I was hoping that Bria wasn't going to be a character anymore, or at least would be absent for longer. Nope, diving right back in. Grrreat.

Wow. She just glosses over how Han saved Chewbacca in expositional recap dialogue. That's so fucking lame. That should be THE point of this whole damn trilogy! But it's entirely possible she was given strict guidelines to follow. Lucasfilm was very weird with their rules about the EU sometimes.

Hoping this one is a little more interesting.
Forgot I noticed this before and never commented on it - of the 5 SW authors I've read in the past year, 3 of them are dead (Allston, Wolverton, Crispin) and they weren't that old when they died. That is a very strange coincidence. Do all baby boomer nerds have terribly poor health?