Everyone knows that R2D2 and C-3PO had lives, so to speak, before the original Star Wars film, The stories in this book are set five years before "A New Hope" and feature the two most famous Droids in history. Unlike some stories about them, these don't feature them as comic relief or figures of fun (well, maybe Threepio does, but then, he invites it with his attitude), but features stories in which the Droids are main figures in the action, not sidekicks or bystanders in the background.
They also point out how droids, in the Star Wars Universe, are treated like slaves, a point which I had to concede. The bar proprietor in the first movie, in this light, comes off looking like one of those "no coloreds allowed" people in the Deep South during the 1950's. And let's not forget how their memory can be conveniently wiped at any time...
These stories start with Artoo and Threepio being shipped to the Kalarba system along with a load of other droids, including the Assassin Droid IG-88. When it breaks loose from its tethers and attacks Olag Grek, the man who brought it to Kalabra in the first place. Artoo is forced into helping IG-88 escape, and Threepio into looking for the both of them by Grek. In the end, after IG-88 makes his escape in a stolen spaceship, Threepio and Artoo fall into an escape pod and eject it, landing on the planet Kalarba, where they are rescued by the Pitareeze family, who use the two droids as babysitters for the youngest boy, Nak.
And he;s quite a handful, playing nasty tricks on both droids. But when Olag Grek needs a special engine made by Nak's grandfather, Baron, Nak decides to improve his family's fortunes by selling the engine to Olag Grek, who used to be a partner with his grandfather... until he stole a design from Baron Pitareeze and passed it off as his own. But the design also needed the special Pitareeze engine to work, so when Grek found his ships failing, he told the buyers that it was due to sabotage by none other than... Baron Pitareeze! Rather than fight back, Pitareeze simply stopped making spaceships because his reputation was damaged. Nak offers Grek the engine for a large sum of money, but Grek has no intentions of paying. So it is Threepio and Artoo to the rescue, after which, Nak becomes much nicer to them.
On their next adventure, the tour of Kalarbra they are offering is attacked by pirates, but very unusual pirates who used to be chefs. When they find Nak's mother making exceptionally good Stenness Pie, they decide not to rob the guests, but to take the pie... and Threepio and Artoo! The Pirate/Chefs are also victims of Oleg Grek, who has captured Nak and shown him a cave full of treasure... but he needs the chef/pirate vehicles to get it out of there. Once again Threepio and Artoo must bring down Grek and help the former chefs regain their lives as chefs.
Next, Threepio is taken for an assassin droid and forced to fight in the arena... against Artoo in powered armor! Then Captain Forno, a former associate of Grek's, hires Threepio and Artoo to retrieve clusters of crystals from an alien planet. But the planet's rock people take badly to that idea, leaving Artoo and the Pitareezes to retrieve Threepio and defend the planet against Forno's ideas of theft! On a visit to a local village, Threepio and Nak find some nearly obsolete E-units who have been forced into making guns for the local junkman, and must find a new body for their friend U-E while bringing the villain to justice.
Then, Artoo is left behind by Baron Pitareeze and Threepio to guard their landspeeder while they have a business meeting. Artoo is abducted to Work in the Spice Mines of Kessel, but manages to escape and get back to the Speeder just as Threepio and Baron Pitareeze emerge. And when Baron takes them to Hosk station for another trade meeting, someone has booby-trapped the station to blow up. To evacuate all the people Baron offers his ship, but two people must be left behind, and Threepio and Artoo volunteer to be those left behind, only to find that Olag Grek is behind it all, allowing him to steal a valuable shipment on the station. Threepio and Artoo must help save the station along with the robots who call it home and keep it clean and running. After the station is saved, the head of the cleaning robots, who was actually a security droid, takes Artoo and Threepio to track down Olag Grek and return him to Kalarbra for justice. In doing so, the security droid is destroyed, and another droid helps them escape, only to turn Threepio into a revolutionary againsta Hutt named Boonda... and the droid turns out to be carrying the brain of a former human inside it. A human named Movo Brattakin!
Escaping from there, Threepio and Artoo end up working on an Ithorian Herd Ship. The captain, Zorneth, is also carrying people who suffer an affliction, and they are collectively known as "Smilers". One of the other robots explains that Smilers come from ingestion of a herb called Savorium, so delicious that organic beings find it puts them in a state of complete bliss. The human who developed the herb realized how injurious it could be to society, so destroyed the herb and burned his notes. But now someone wants the secret of the Savorium and is willing to attack the smilers to try and find it. Can Threepio and Artoo help Zorneth keep the Smilers, and the secret, safe from those of the galaxy who would use it to enslave others?
And finally, Artoo and Threepio are assigned to a diplomatic mission between he people of Tahlboor, the Troobs and the Hobors. To keep them from falling to war between themselves is the mission of Threepio's owner and his son. But when the Ambassador loses Threepio in a gambling game, it is up to the son, Jake, to see the mission through. But someone wants a war and is willing to kill to get it. Can Threepio and Artoo find the truth in time to save the planet?
These were an enjoyable set of stories to read, as Threepio and Artoo, an unlikely set of heroes, manage to win in the end against all sorts of foes, in all sorts of unlikely and amusing ways. But while the stories are amusing, the droids themselves are treated as seriously as any heroes, while it is the living creatures who are the more horrible and corrupt and usually serve as foes to our heroes.
Many writers approached for these stories had ideas about the droids that were wrong: things they would never do, or things Threepio would never say. The last story in the collection, with the Troobs and and the Hobors, has dialogue for Threepio written by Anthony Daniels, the actor who played Threepio in the movies, and his story pretty much nails how Threepio talks, and is one of the best stories in the book, with a Romeo and Juliet-style love story, murder mystery and hidden conspirator all rolled into one.
If you can find it, I definitely recommend this huge graphic novel, full of stories to make you laugh or bring a smile to your face. I only wish the series had gone on longer, and there were more stories to tell, the best sign of a really good book!
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