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The Courtship of Princess Leia

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The Courtship of Princess Leia
Attribution
Author(s)

Dave Wolverton

Cover artist

Drew Struzan

Publication information
Publisher

Bantam Spectra

Release date

May 1, 1994

Media type

Hardcover

Pages

327

ISBN

0553089285

Chronology
Canon

C

Era

New Republic era

Timeline

8 ABY

Series

None (standalone novel)

Preceded by

X-wing: Solo Command

Followed by

A Forest Apart

[Source]

The Courtship of Princess Leia is a 1995 bestselling Star Wars novel by Dave Wolverton, published by Bantam Spectra. It continued the streak of New York Times Bestsellers, which started with Heir to the Empire. The Courtship of Princess Leia deals with the downfall of Warlord Zsinj and the circumstances leading to the marriage of Han Solo and Leia Organa. Narration for the audio version was performed by Anthony Heald.

Contents

[edit] Editions

[edit] American

[edit] Foreign

[edit] Publisher's Summary, Paperback

Though Darth Vader and the Emperor are dead, the Empire lives on and a weakened Alliance must find powerful new help if it is to survive. The answer could lie in the Hapes consortium, a cluster of sixty-three high-tech worlds. There is only one catch: Princess Leia must marry the Queen Mother's son, the dashing and wealthy Prince Isolder.

Han Solo reacts badly to the news. Tricking Leia, he flees with her to the beautiful but untamed planet of Dathomir, where he hopes to change her mind - and win her heart. Meanwhile, Luke Skywalker and Artoo form an unlikely partnership with the jilted prince to track down the runaways. But their mission is only the beginning of an adventure that will lead to the discovery of an awesome treasure, a group of Force-trained "witches," and a showdown with an invincible foe.

[edit] Plot

[edit] Background

Though the Battle of Endor resulted in the destruction of the Emperor and Darth Vader, along with the best of the Imperial Starfleet, the remnants of the Empire are still a danger. One of the recently-formed New Republic's direst foes is the splinter faction of the former Empire, led by Warlord Zsinj. Zsinj is a cunning strategist whose skills have earned him the allegiance of almost a full third of the entire galaxy. Both the Imperial Remnant and the New Republic have dedicated considerable forces to ending his reign. But Zsinj has possession of one of the few Super Star Destroyers left, and whenever nearly cornered, slipped away to a secret stronghold where the SSD Iron Fist is repaired.

[edit] Summary

At the opening of the novel, Han Solo, who from aboard the Mon Remonda had been prosecuting the search for this hidden fastness, wearily returned to the recently captured Coruscant expecting an end to the long separation between him and his beloved, Princess Leia, head of the New Republic. To his great surprise, when his vessel dropped out of hyperspace and into the Coruscant system, what appeared were a number of fearsome Imperial Star Destroyers, Hapan Battle Dragons, and Hapes Nova Class battle cruiser. Eventually, Han learned that the Hapes cluster had sent a delegation of some manner to the New Republic. He landed and entered the Imperial Palace, where, with the help of C-3PO, who translated and commented on the formal diplomatic reception, he watched the Hapes delegation present to Leia a number of stunning gifts; a dozen the Star Destroyers Han had seen, a Hapan gun of command, a small plant resembling a bonsai which promotes longevity and intelligence... and the hand of the Hapes cluster's ruler Ta'a Chume's son, Prince Isolder, in holy matrimony.

The effect was devastating; Leia nearly accepted, driving Han into a frenzy of fear and jealousy. Han eventually wandered into a dive of a cantina in the lower reaches of Coruscant, where he participates in a high-stakes sabacc game; one of his opponents ran out of liquid financial instruments, and instead proffers real estate—a deed to an entire habitable planet, Dathomir. Thinking he had found a gift which would prove his worthiness to Leia and compare favorably with the gifts of Isolder (providing a place to resettle the expatriates of Alderaan to boot), he immediately rushes to her side to present his winnings. When Leia examined his gift and pointed out that he had been conned (since Dathomir was in the section of the galaxy controlled by Zsinj), Han was devastated. When Isolder compounded insult with injury by denigrating the Falcon and offering him a Nova battle cruiser if he abandoned his quest to win Leia's heart, Han broke. He abducts her using the Gun of Command, and flees with her and Chewbacca aboard his recently refitted Millennium Falcon to Dathomir. Prince Isolder pursued him with his Hapan fleet; he arrived at Dathomir shortly after Solo despite Solo's head start (Isolder was aided by the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker who had returned from his mission to Toola where he found only a despoiled Jedi archive; Luke aided Isolder by using his Force powers to navigate a shorter (but still safe) path through hyperspace, shaving time off accepted conventional routes). There they both discovered that Zsinj had truly laid claim to Dathomir- in orbit around it was the Iron Fist, a number of other capital ships, and the complete orbital shipyard Han had hunted for so long.

The Millennium Falcon had been forced to land on Dathomir itself, where it was captured by the Imperial garrison Zsinj had marooned on the surface years ago. Isolder set out in his Miy'til fighter accompanied by Luke's X-wing while the Hapan fleet fought a covering action before it retreated into hyperspace to inform the New Republic, Imperial Remnant, and the Hapes Consortium of the whereabouts of Zsinj here-to-fore secret redoubt.

On the surface, Isolder and Luke discovered the remnants of the star-borne Jedi training academy, the Chu'unthor; Luke had seen recordings noting how Yoda and a number of other Jedi knights had failed to retrieve the library of the Chu'unthor, due to interference by the Witches of Dathomir—the best they had been able to do was seal the vessel thoroughly, so thoroughly that only centuries later the first intruder would need a lightsaber to break in. As they perused the vessel however, Isolder and Luke were captured by a Dathomiri witch, who enslaved them and took them back to her village.

Zsinj, who had learned about Han Solo's presence on the planet, had dictated a combination of ultimatum and deal with the head of the Nightsisters, Gethzerion: they would give him Solo to torture and execute as he liked, and he would give them an Imperial shuttle to pilot where they like. If they did not, he would keep his "Nightcloak" (an interconnected network of geostationary satellites, which reflected all solar emissions back into space) intact, which would slowly freeze Dathomir until no life could survive.

Eventually, they infiltrated the Imperial garrison and stole the Falcon, piloting it out into the ongoing Battle of Dathomir. Solo purposely allowed the Iron Fist to acquire the Falcon with a tractor beam; once he was within the deflector shields, he broke free of the beam lock, piloting his vessel over the superstructure of the gigantic vessel. Once he came upon the main bridge, he launched two concussion missiles, destroying the bridge, killing Zsinj, and knocking out the ventral shields. With Iron Fist so exposed, the Hapan Battle Dragons moved into position with their ion cannons, disabling Iron Fist. With this defeat, Zsinj's empire soon crumbled.

Solo and Organa's wedding ceremony.
Solo and Organa's wedding ceremony.

Shortly thereafter, Solo and Leia married, having realized during their intrepid journey together that they loved each other. Isolder did not go unrewarded for his good deeds as he had fallen in love with his captor, Teneniel Djo.

[edit] Trivia

  • The Courtship of Princess Leia continued the streak of New York Times Bestsellers, which started with Heir to the Empire.
  • Dave Wolverton had signed on to do a Star Wars novel trilogy, but it has been speculated that the deal fell through and the proposed trilogy was compressed into this novel.[1]
  • This novel had two main covers. The reason for the second cover is that sales were not as high as expected. It was thought this may have been due to the a misconception that it was a romance novel, rather than action. On this basis, a more action oriented cover was made.[2]
  • The descriptions of the old Jedi Order from the early chapters contain several pieces of information that fit almost perfectly with the later depictions of the Order from the prequel trilogy, namely:
    1. The Jedi are led by a high master based on Coruscant, which would mesh with the later concepts of the Grand Master and Jedi Temple. Other than Redemption, most other pre-The Phantom Menace depictions of the Old Jedi Order made them largely decentralized and based on such outlying worlds as Dantooine and Ossus.
    2. The Jedi headquarters on Coruscant contains the high master's throne room and an archive with a Jedi Master assigned to oversee it, which would mesh with the Jedi Council Chamber, Jedi Archives, and Jedi Librarian.
    3. In the "final hours" of the Old Republic, the Jedi headquarters on Coruscant was attacked by "invading Imperials" with only a few Jedi managing to escape, which would equate with Order 66 and Operation: Knightfall, as well as almost perfect timing concerning the Declaration of the New Order.

[edit] New continuity

[edit] New characters

[edit] New creatures

[edit] New droid models

[edit] New organizations

[edit] New planets and systems

[edit] New sentient species

[edit] New vehicles and vessels

[edit] Cover gallery

This is a gallery of the different cover variations of The Courtship of Princess Leia.

Hardcover

Paperback

Dutch - De beproeving van prinses Leia

German hardcover - Entführung nach Dathomir

German paperback

Polish - Ślub Księżniczki Leii

Russian - Выбор принцессы Лейи (Eksmo Publishing)

Russian - Выбор принцессы (Azbooka Publishing)

Spanish - El Cortejo de la Princesa Leia

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ Sue Rostoni (A.K.A. Eeusu Estornii) on the StarWars.com forums
Retrieved from "http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Courtship_of_Princess_Leia"
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