Hard Merchandise (Book 3 of The Bounty Hunter Wars)
by K.W. Jeter, with help from Timothy Zahn

If you read my review of the first two books of this series, you'll know I found them tedious in the extreme. Despite this, I harbored a smidgen of hope that Jeter would somehow pull off a miracle and wrap the story up with a halfway interesting ending. Unfortunately the third and final book in the series is even more tedious, boring, and implausible than the first two.

I heard a rumor that Zahn was called in to help Jeter, presumably to correct all the continuity errors and inconsistencies in characterization. Unfortunately, it appears the first few chapters serve little purpose other than to accomplish this -- not very well, I might add -- and the events have nothing to do with the story at hand.

Although I usually frown upon reviewers who reveal the entire plot of a book, I am going to make an exception here, so that those who were bamboozled into reading the first two books might be spared the expense of purchasing Hard Merchandise just to find out what happens. You can find the complete plot summary here, but beware of major spoilers.

Let me get into specifics about why I hate this guy's writing so much. My examples contain minor spoilers, so if you insist on actually reading this book, be warned.

• Shockingly bad dialogue/stupid expressions. Figh stroked the stiff whiskers of his pointed snout. "So not matter of mere emotion, your grudge against Boba Fett. More important. Squatting aquatic avian, until proved that killer stuff in you. Somebody get, sooner, later. Too bad. Only way to get respect of others back, plus keep skin intact, take down Boba Fett. Nothing else do." ["Squatting aquatic avian" is even more ridiculous than "keep your vocal apparatus muted" from a previous book. Has this author no shame? no taste? no measurable neural activity?]
• Scenes told in retrospect, off camera. Chapter 10 is a great example of this "technique," wherein an entire conversation plus a scene where the characters arrive at the web, brace it up with supports, and set up a neural stimulation apparatus, are given to us as verbose reminiscences inside the mind of Dengar, thus sapping them of any drama or suspense. [Writing 101, Jeter: "Show, don't tell"] Here's a small sampling to give you the idea: Fett had explained it all to them. How it was going to work, the only way it could: if the past held the key to the present, then the past had to be broken into and ransacked, the same way the high walls of some rich creature's palace on a fortified planet would be breached. You found a crack in the wall and widened it enough to enter, then went in and got what you wanted. Simple in the concept; difficult -- and dangerous, it seemed to Dengar -- in the execution. / The crack in the wall of the past was represented by the memory of the once-living, now-dead arachnoid assembler, Kud'ar Mub'at. Great, Dengar had said to Boba Fett. That ends it right there, doesn't it? . . . [snip page of plot summary catching us up on previous events just in case we forgot] . . . Dengar had gotten used to surprises from his Bounty Hunter partner, but the next revelation from Boba Fett had exceeded all that had gone before. / Bringing Kud'ar Mub'at back from the dead, Fett had explained, isn't impossible. . . . In the cockpit of the Hound, Fett had related to Dengar and Neelah the results of his previous investigations into the nature of such assembler creatures. [I can't go on; I'm getting queasy.]
• Wordiness, padding, and needless repetition (not to mention repetitive redundancy). Let's get into the head of Neelah a few times to see what she's thinking: (p. 46) Maybe I should have killed [Fett] then, thought Neelah. Or at least tried to. Her finger tightened upon the weapon's trigger. All she had to do was raise the weapon, aim -- hardly difficult at this minimal distance -- and fire. (p. 49) Neelah spoke through gritted teeth, her hand straying toward the blaster pistol she had tucked inside her belt. (p. 52) Neelah's hand had strayed to the butt of the blaster pistol at her side, resting there as though only another thought, and another decision, were all that stood between her and testing the advice that both Boba Fett and her own remaining caution had given her. / One shot was all that it would take; one fiery bolt from the blaster. The weapon grew warm within her grasp. (p. 53) Neelah pulled the blaster from her belt -- the weapon seemed to rise of its own accord, as though directed by some intelligence wired into its intricate circuitry -- and pointed it straight at Boba Fett's chest. Her finger made closer contact with the trigger, the small bit of metal sensed by and made one with the twitching filament at the end of her nervous system, that then ran directly into the churning storm of thoughts and desires caught inside her skull. With her arm held out, unmoving, she gazed over the blaster's sights at the cold, dark visage that mirrored her own face . . . And that's just from a single, not-too-illuminating conversation! There are countless more examples like this, such as Neelah's thoughts concerning her loss of memory, or Dengar's longings for his lady-love Manaroo. I swear, if you cut all the internal whinings of these two characters alone, the book would be reduced in size by half.
• The wrong viewpoint. This is a series about Boba Fett. So why is it that we get inside everyone's head except Boba Fett's? Instead, he's reduced to explaining his actions at length in dialogue, making his character appear far more chatty than the Fett from the films. Which brings me to . . .
• Uncharacteristic characterizations. I touched upon Jeter's appallingly bad characterizations in my last review; they haven't improved. Fett is still letting people get the jump on him, vowing revenge and then not taking it, and generally allowing creatures to walk all over him. Dengar (the emotionless cyborg assassin!) is still pining away after his girlfriend. And Bossk, who has sworn blood vengeance on Boba Fett, instead has a nice little haggling session with him in the Mos Eisley cantina which Bossk wins. Come on! The Bossk we know and love would have killed Boba Fett on sight. What else could give the Trandoshan more satisfaction, not to mention instant prestige?
• Nothing happens. The characters meet, talk, reminisce, argue, wave weapons around. People shoot at each others ships (always managing not to kill anyone, of course). Other people speak obliquely of conspiracy. Finally, around page 307, a bomb goes off, and the story gets interesting for half a page. Then Jeter ruins it by pulling a laughably improbable ending out of his posterior.

This is by far the worst book I have read since being forced to wade through Moby Dick in high school. (Save the flames; you can't convince me Emperor Melville ain't buck naked.) I sympathize with one online reviewer (tefkani@earthlink.net) at amazon.com: "There were so many holes in the story, I thought a few more couldn't hurt, so I took the book down to the firing range and ventilated it repeatedly with a .40 caliber semi-automatic pistol. The shower of confetti was amusing, but that was the only entertainment value I got out of this book."

(Toryn Farr knew everything about Star Wars back in 1977 thanks to Starlog Magazine. She's been trying to keep her know-it-all reputation ever since. During the 90 minutes per day her three-year-old is napping, Toryn attempts to run an internet design business and write fantasy fiction.)

Return to Index