The Mighty Chewbacca in the Forest of Fear! is a middle grade Star Wars Expanded Universe book, written by Tom Angleberger (Origami Yoda, From a Certain Point of View).
After the events of Solo, when Chewbacca finds out that a job he thought was just ferrying tooka cats is actually much more, he's excited to have something to do! But when he, a young bounty hunter and librarian named Mayv Trillick, and a droll cargo droid — who, unbeknownst to the others is rebel spy droid K-2SO — land in the middle of a blue forest that emits a fear-causing mist, Chewie realizes the job may be too dangerous for his liking. He and his companions will have to fight off snarlers, sniffers, and their own fears as they try to recover a sacred book—and rescue Han Solo in the process!
It was released on May 25th, 2018, to tie in with the release of Solo.
Tropes in this book include:
- Anti-Magic: Since he's a droid, K2 is immune to the forest's fear properties and the book's.
- Artifact of Doom: What Chewie and Mayv were actually sent after, a book of Dark Side teachings so evil Mayv and Chewie can barely stand to be near it.
- Badass Bookworm: Mayv, a librarian who has taken up bounty hunting to find rare books in the information-suppressed galaxy.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": Noted In-Universe by the Lemony Narrator: the trees on the planet aren't technically trees, more like some type of huge fungi, but he doesn't want to get into the semantics so he just calls them trees.
- Continuity Nod:
- Chewie recalls when he worked with the Jedi during the Clone Wars, including Ahsoka, Luminara, and Yoda.
- Chewie thinks of his son, Lumpawaroo, at one point.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Vathyr, an immense Dark Side creature that lives at the bottom of the chasm and feeds on the Force using many partially-sentient tongues from thousands of mouths. It was responsible for killing most of the planet's inhabitants.
- Eldritch Location: The planet has a unique relationship with the Force, with the Dark Side being in the ground and the Light Side emanating from the trees. Some time ago, a great chasm broke open and a mist of fear started pouring from it.
- Facial Markings: Mayv frequently paints and repaints her forehead with several golden symbols that have symbolic meanings to the Oktarians, her people. The one she's wearing on the cover is the symbol for courage.
- Family-Unfriendly Violence: At one point a Vathyr tongue grabs Chewbacca's arm and when Chewie frees himself it strips him to the bone.
- MacGuffin: Turns out Mayv is in this to recover her people's sacred book.
- Lemony Narrator: The author often comments on the characters, their language, the backstory, and the story structure itself.
- Narrative Profanity Filter: The narrator often translates the Shyriiwook of Chewbacca or the Oktarian of Mayv, but in certain cases simply refuses."WGHYAARRRRR!" As you can see, he was becoming increasingly frustrated with the controls. "NYARRR RYARRRR WHRRRG!" Oh dear, I hope none of you do know Shyriiwook, because that was quite rude.
- One Degree of Separation: Chewbacca meets K-2SO, meaning one of the heroes of the Original Trilogy got to meet one of the heroes of Rogue One, in addition to all the people he met in the films and in Clone Wars. Chewie didn't meet as many named people as C-3PO and R2-D2, but he's still pretty damn close behind them. Cassian also shows up near the end.
- Sequel Hook: K2 says that odds are good that Mayv will join the Rebellion in future, if she doesn't die first, and at the end she has reclaimed her people's traditional book with the intent to use it to fight back against her homeworld's oppression.
- Team Pet: Goldie the tooka, who takes a particular liking to Chewbacca. She's mostly emotional support but sometimes proves useful.
