Monday, August 26, 2019

Star Wars: Han Solo and the Lost Hungarian Legacy

Welcome back to THE SITH ARCHIVES OF DARTH FANDOM....

While doing some research across the web, I came across the “Hungarian Han Solo Books” section on Joe Bongiorno’s Expanded Universe website. The stories were published by “Valhalla Páholy” in the early nineteen-nineties. I do not speak the Hungarian language, so the only words I could understand were “Han” and “Solo,” with some other words kind of easy to understand. I have not properly read through any of the books, although I was quite astounded by the copyright section. It appeared that the stories had previously been published as English books, except I didn’t know why a publisher would place an exclamation mark after the “All Rights Reserved” text....

I began to wonder if these were truly official Lucasfilm stories, so I started looking for answers, when I came across Withnail Books’ article on “Han Solo and the Lost Hungarian Legacy.” (The link to this article is: http://www.withnailbooks.com/2015/01/han-solo-and-lost-hungarian-legacy.html) It explains how one day, a book entitled “Erőpróba” was spotted in Budapest. The tale was a story centred on Luke Skywalker, and was written by Alan Dean Foster, with cover art picturing Luke with a shoulder-holster. It was later found out that the story was Splinter of the Mind’s Eye, although the title translated as “Showdown.” A few weeks later, books entitled “Han Solo Hadjárata,” “Han Solo Bosszúja,” and “Han Solo Küldetése” were found, and soon revealed to be Brian Daley’s classic Han Solo trilogy ( Han Solo at Stars’ End, Han Solo’s Revenge, Han Solo and the Lost Legacy ). Another book, known as “Han Solo Legendája,” was also found, and is actually a Hungarian reprint of Brian Daley’s The Han Solo Adventures, which collects all three of his books. All the covers were unusual, such as Han Solo in a literal space-suit, further questioning the fact that these were authorized.

Valhalla, the publisher of these books, were actually producing fakery, and later tried their hand at creating their own novels in the Star Wars Expanded Universe timeline. They produced four novels, which were:
·         Han Solo nomádjai (Han Solo at Doomsday’s Edge)
·         Han Solo a birodalmi ügynök (Han Solo’s Gambit)
·         Han Solo és a fejvadászok (Han Solo and the Bounty Hunters)
·         Han Solo háborúja (Han Solo’s War)


The English translations (which are in brackets above), were proved to also be fake (even though it did make the publication more authentic)! As for the writers, Dale Avery, who wrote the majority of the books, was actually just Hungarian author Zsolt Nyulászi, while Ed Fisher was the name of Carrie Fisher (Princess Leia)’s dad! Lucasfilm later found out about these books, and forced Valhalla to cease these books to exist, except that didn’t matter to “Dale Avery.” He went on to create Császári Vér, which was now his fourth (fifth, if he created “Ed Fisher’s” novel) Han Solo knock-off novel! Even the cover (which pictures a Romulan Warbird from Star Trek, even though the story had nothing to do with that sci-fi series) was a rip-off!



The Lost Hungarian Legacy of Han Solo still remains quite a mystery to the galaxy, but hopefully it will soon be translated by somebody and be able to be read by eager Star Wars fans! See you soon! 


Above: Splinter of the Mind's Eye Hungarian novel.

Above: Han Solo at Stars' End Hungarian novel.

Above: Han Solo's Revenge Hungarian novel.

Above: Han Solo and the Lost Legacy Hungarian novel.

Above: The Han Solo Adventures Hungarian novel.





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