Haaass! Haaass! The sound of Blorg’s stertorous breathing drowned out the gentle hum of the levitator that took him down to the city beneath the surface of dead Flaigon. Dwarfing the humanoid equerries who escorted him to the Forbidden City, the reptiloid lord stared vacantly at the door-panel in front of him. Since, for some unknown reason, the Dark Emperor had not probed his consciousness once he touched-down on the black planet’s surface, the lord of the Yss allowed himself the luxury of brooding over his recent misfortunes.
Not only had the mighty star-armada been demolished, thereby disrupting his plans for the conquest of the Primula galaxy, but that bearded man-ape, Rian, that hairy and disgusting piece of humanoid trash, had actually bested him in deep space combat. And the worst was yet to come: he must now answer for his disgrace and defeat to Ylang-Ylang, the only thing he feared in this life. It was a dark day for Lord Blorg and, as he left the levitator and strode through the eerie and self-illuminated corridors of black rock that led to the lair, the weight of fear lay on his body with the pressure of several dense atmospheres.
Lord Blorg. Dann Oryzon. Mr. Purpur. Villains and heroes in a galaxy some distance off, in a time uncertain, with questionable copyright status. Author Robert E. Mills dashed off a whole trilogy of sci-fi schlock in 1978 based on the success of Star Wars, and, in keeping with George Lucas' own style, we're diving in with book two of that trilogy - Haaaaas! Haaaaas!
Most of the fun here is comparing how Mills - not usually an SF writer, by the way - borrows from Lucas and how he brings in his own original ideas. The uncredited cover artist made some interesting choices as well, what with the Rebel trooper helmet. The best characters are undoubtedly Lord Blorg and the Dark Emperor Ylang-Ylang, who spend most of their page counts reveling in evil for the sake of it. Blorg is a four armed reptiloid Ysss from planet Sserp while Ylang-Ylang is a disembodied energy being of pure, you guessed it, evil. Ylang-Ylang wants to revive the ancient, evil Mordlings, of which he was one before ascending to his current state of pure energy evilness.
Mills manages some decent pulp SF scale with Ylang-Ylang's immortal quest for universal domination, even if he does seem to mix up galaxies and solar systems - our heroes are constantly liberating this or that galaxy named for single inhabited planets like Primula and Aquaea.
Those heroes are pretty much a bunch of dorks, if you couldn't guess. Luke Skywalker is kind of a dork himself, so Dann Oryzon makes a fine young padawan in that mold, but space pirate Red Rian doesn't have half of Harrison Ford's swagger and sleazy charisma, and since this trilogy was written before The Empire Strikes Back and its shocking reveals (dig the back cover tagline though!) Leia character Lady Nila spends this entry dithering between Dann and Rian's love. Mr. Purpur, meanwhile, is an 8 foot tall cat person who (like poor Chewbacca in the classic Star Wars expanded universe novels of the '90s) mostly growls in agreement with his captain Rian. He definitely licks Rians more than Chewbacca ever licked Han, though.
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| Ween Leever, pride of Red Rian. Ween's middle name is Nerdeen. |
