Maybe - was a pretty solid story.

Bink - quite spunky!

Excellent job by Marc. Voices were spot on - and felt like you were listening to the audio of the actual actors.

I listened while in the car and at the gym - as often as I could - it did keep me coming back.

Overall - a solid story. Felt a lot like Ocean's 11 with Han playing Danny Ocean - and so forth. Parts were predictable - and parts were not - all in all - solid!

I did enjoy listening to this book, but it took a bit of getting used to. More on that below.

If you like The Great Train Robbery, Ocean's 11, and similar heist stories, this one is pretty good.

There were Star Wars sound effects and background noise throughout the narration. I get that it'd nice to create a real sense of ambiance, but it's tough listening to the book while listening to the whine of an airspeeder in the background, or hearing the same narrator play five characters in one conversation and then suddenly having Chewbacca growl loudly into your ears.

For the most part. This is not Timothy Zahn's best work -- it's a unique departure from usual Star Wars literature, and if you can get over the overt background effects and noise, it's a good read.

Best to listen to a sample first to ensure that you can actually live with the sound effects -- it's very distracting and probably ruined the first few hours that I listened to it.

Not sure if this is a common practice with Star Wars audiobooks as a whole, though.

Han Solo's Eleven

Mark Thompson does an excellent performance on all his characters, but my favourite was Lando Calrissian, as he sounded 100% like Carl Weathers including the accent and everything.

An excellent and exciting story full of twists! I think I'm going to listen to it a 3rd time as well. :-)

Fun, exciting, action packed

Marc is the voice that brings a book to life and paints a piece of Art

Laughed

You just cannot go wrong with Zahn

I was born in 1977, the year of Star Wars. Empire Strikes Back was the first movie I saw in theaters, and I’ve been a would-be Jedi ever since. When Timothy Zahn’s Heir to the Empire series came out, I ate up every page of those books, and I read many of the subsequent books. But around the time the New Jedi Order came out, I got burned out on the Expanded Universe books.

Fast forward to Disney buying Lucasfilm, and (completely coincidentally) Zahn writing a standalone Han Solo’s 11 novel. I’d read exactly one SW book in the past decade (the ridiculously fun Death Troopers), so as soon as I heard about this one, I wanted to check it out. I thought it’d be the perfect book to get back into SW – one that wouldn’t be overly bogged down by the Expanded Universe continuity, and that would be good old comfort food.

It wasn’t bogged down with continuity, but it wasn’t too much fun, either. Scoundrels is a “Heist” novel, starring our favorite rogues from the SW galaxy: in particular Han Solo, Chewie, and Lando Calrissian. This is the biggest problem with the book: there are too many players, and not enough of our favorite scoundresl. Han Solo is the mastermind of the heist, and thus – he oversees it all and doesn’t do as much as the rest of the players until the very end. Chewie does even less. As the frontman Lando’s part is thankfully bigger, but most of the rest of the action falls to characters Zahn created for this book (and a couple pre-existing EU characters), which is a shame. In a book with Han, Chewie, and Lando in an Imperial line-up on the cover, you want Chewie, Lando, and especially Han to steal the show, if not the prize.

My suspension of disbelief was blown pretty early on (and yes, it was set to Anakin midichlorian levels of “High” to begin with) when the characters didn’t ask some basic questions about their marks or the job itself, I was disappointed. It might have been forgivable if the pace of the book didn’t feel so slow. Perhaps it’s my own nostalgia speaking, but it just didn’t work as well as Zahn’s other Star Wars books. It took too long, and I didn’t find a lot of the rest of the team to be very entertaining or developed considering how much time we spent in their heads.

There is some entertainment value – Zahn introduces Han in a scene where someone else shoots first, and Han and Chewie turn the tables. There are some fun twists (especially at the end). And once the action does pick up (about halfway through the book), things become more fun. It just took so long to get to that point – I was literally looking up Star Wars fanfic waiting for the good stuff to kick in. But it takes a looooooong time, and Han Solo just doesn’t do enough.

Marc Thompson has a knack for narrating Star Wars, apparently. His Han Solo is flawless, which is a necessity for a book that’s supposedly about him, and his Lando is pretty good too. (His Chewabacca is INCREDIBLE. (What? It was soundbytes from the movies? NO, SIR, I REFUSE TO BELIEVE IT.) The production is punctuated by sound effects and the occasional John Williams score, which was much more distracting than the other SW book I’d listened to. Thompson sometimes overplays his line-to-line delivery as well, but I’m not sure I can really fault him for the pace.

I probably will go back and revisit Heir to the Empire at some point, as well as A.C. Crispin’s Han Solo trilogy (oh, for an UNABRIDGED AUDIO VERSION!), but overall, it felt like the only thing heisted was my time.

(Originally published at the AudioBookaneers)

Marc Thompson!! He always brings the Star Wars universe to life with his narration. The story was great as well. Think of it as Oceans 11 meets Star Wars.

Spoiler!!!

I liked the scene when the safe was rolling through the streets.

His first person voice impersonations are spot on! Especially when it comes to Han and Lando.

I wouldn't say that the book moved me.

Great book for Star Wars fans. As with many of the Star Wars books, there are great sound effects and music to provide the listener with a more cinematic experience.

If you've read any other of Zahn's books, this is pretty comparable. The Thrawn Trilogy and Outbound flight are still my favorites by him, but if you enjoyed other things by him, you'll enjoy this.

The voices are pretty well done - especially Han and Winter. He's very understandable and has a good cadence.

This book takes place in between episode 4 and episode 5. Zahn does a good job of writing within the restriction of keeping previous plots in tact, while keeping the story suspenseful.

I loved the Thrawn books and the Hand of Thrawn books and every other Zahn book this one was just bizarre and had no connection with any of his prior books I was very disappointed it felt like a bad RP game

yes everything else he has written in the universe was great

all of the m Marc Thompson is the best narrator ever for star wars

NNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

Zahn please go back to what you do best not a one trick pony of a story

I found the "Ocean's 11"-style story to be an interesting direction for some of my favorite Star Wars characters. Unfortunately the book gets bogged down in way too much minutiae and spends an inordinate amount of time developing a cast of secondary characters that are no where near as interesting as the main characters that drove me to the book in the first place.

In the Star Wars series my next book will be John Jackson Miller's Kenobi.

He develops nuanced personalities beyond the printed page. He also brings the characters from the movies to life in surprising ways. If I didn't know any better I would have sworn that Audible hired Billy Dee Williams and Harrison Ford to reprise their roles.

Absolutely not and further more if they did I wouldn't be inclined to watch it.

I'm a fan of Timothy Zahn's writing, both Star Wars and his own original material. This unfortunately was not representative of his better work. For his better work I would recommend any of his Thrawn books or his Conqueror's trilogy.

I would definitely listen to it again. This was my first audio book and I was impressed by the quality. I wasn't expecting the sound effects, music and voice acting (impressive that it was all done by one person.)

I am however a big fan of Timothy Zahn having read many, if not all his star wars books.

The story was great, very entertaining from start to finish. The last 1 minute of the story was awesome, I didn't expect it. It gives the excitement that comes from seeing different parts of the star wars universe come together.

Again, my first audio book; I thought his performance was awesome.

They are going All In.

lol, probably could come up with something better

Get it, it's worth it.