I will admit wholeheartedly that I am the biggest Star Wars geek out there. Between thousands and thousands of action figures (I even own an entire legion of stormtrooper action figures....Caldor's had gone out of business and I hit every single one in the region to buy them up.), more displays than a girl should rightly own and more than my fair share of battle scars from attempting to build a Death Star out of junkyard scraps, I've still got time to read the hundreds of Star Wars novels out there.

I've read this particular series once before...But, after experiencing another surge in interest with Boba Fett, I had to pick them up again. Jeter is probably my least favourite Star Wars author....He repeatedly uses words and phrases that don't quite fit to the character who's uttering them (and the repeated use of the word "barve" just makes me want to scream) and he seems to take personalities as things you can just throw around from character to character...

But, despite all of that, I enjoy the basic storyline in the book. I can manage to get around the various nuances that irritate me by retelling it in my head as I go along, but other Star Wars "purists" may not be able to handle it. Either way - it's still a fun read. And even brings Xizor back into action for a while. ( )

The Mandalorian Armor is the first book in the Bounty Hunter Wars series. The key focuses of this first novel are; the background of Boba Fett, the events that led to the dissolution of the Bounty Hunter's Guild, certain aspects of the Imperial Court. As the title might suggest, this book focuses more heavily on the Bounty Hunters than other conventional Star Wars novels might.

There are discrepancies in the characterisations and the back story of certain characters, Prince Xixor is more hot blooded, Dengar is less of the Imperial Super-Soldier that he was described as in other works, Boba Fett is more talkative than he's ever been. There are other divergences as well, but all are forgiveable as quirks of writing style, a failing of a character's memory, odd behaviour can be attributed to stress or emotion.

It's a good enough book, the stories it tells from the character's pasts are entertaining, the look inside the Imperial Court is interesting; I just wouldn't recommend it for any other than true fans of Star Wars, as other than that it's a decidedly average work of Science Fiction. ( )

The Bounty Hunter Wars, Book One: The Mandalorian Armor (1998)
("Star Wars" novel)
K.W. Jeter

Book one of "Bounty Hunter Wars" trilogy. Focuses on Boba Fett and other bounty hunters, many of whom were first seen briefly in The Empire Strikes Back (including Bossk, Dengar, Zuckuss, and IG-88). Story switches back and forth between the present day (events occurring "during" Return of the Jedi, but after the Boba Fett's falling into the Sarlacc creature during the big "rescue of Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt" scene early in the film) and several years in the past ("just after the events of Star Wars: A New Hope"). In the present, Boba Fett is barely alive after his encounter with the Sarlacc (having literally blown his way out of the creature's stomach). He is found dying in the desert by Dengar. With the aid of two wandering medical droids, formerly part of Jabba's large assortment, he tries to save Boba Fett (and to keep those who would prefer Fett dead from killing him) for his own reasons. They are also joined by Neelah, a former slave dancing girl of Jabba's with only a partial memory. All she knows is that she had a past before winding up in Jabba's palace and that Boba Fett knows something about it. In the past scenes, Boba Fett is hired to infiltrate the Bounty Hunter's Guild and to destroy it from within by turning the forces within it against each other. He is hired by Prince Xizor (who was introduced in the novel Shadows of the Empire) as part of plan to benefit the Emperor (and, secretly, Xizor himself), while a skeptical Darth Vader watches on but has to focus most of his attention on tracking down and destroying the Rebel Alliance (the Emperor and Vader appear in only chapter of this novel, however it is lengthy and quite singificant to the story). The Bounty Hunter's Guild is led by the elder Trandosian, Cradossk, father of Bossk. Already rivals, Bossk comes to hate Boba Fett even more for what he ends up doing to the Guild, which plays out many years later in the "present day" scenes of this trilogy of novels.

While I probably wouldn't count this novel as one of my favorite Star Wars novels, it did succeed in holding my interest. Jeter does a pretty good job of depicting the various bounty hunters and their different personalities. He does an especially good job with Fett himself (remember, this novel trilogy was written prior to Star Wars: Episode Two - Attack of the Clones, which introduced us to Boba Fett's father, Jango Fett, and showed us Boba Fett as the cloned child of Jango). The focus of this trilogy is very much on the "bad guys". Indeed, outside of a few brief references (and one key tantalizing mystery pointing back to the murder of Luke Skywalker's aunt and uncle at the hands of the stormtroopers in A New Hope), the regular principle Star Wars characters (Luke, Han, Leia, etc.) don't appear at all. Instead, our primary characters are Boba Fett, Dengar, and Neelah. Therefore, at times I did have a bit of a hard time bringing myself to care too much as to what happened to these characters (as none of them are "good guys" in the typical sense). But, like I said, Jeter did a good enough job with the various personalities and his weaving of the various elements of the Star Wars mythos to keep my attention for the most part. About the only character I had a hard time reading about for very long was a new spider like character named Kud'ar Mub'at, the "middle man" of sorts between Fett and Xizor. An extrememly bizarre creature, it would take me way too long to go into very much detail about him, here. For more information on him, see this site. (Finished reading 5/15/07) ( )

Average Star Wars story ( )