The liar

During some school holidays, one of my favourite cousins would stay with us for a week, or I'd be foisted on their family for a similar period.

My uncle was an engineer and for a while they lived in what I'd call a factory town. Not much there except the large plant of a multinational corporation and the homes of its workers. (I don't remember if the schools were in a neighbouring town. It wasn't an issue in holiday time.)

Anyway, the impression I got was that the place attracted folks from all over - including other countries. Like the American kid my cousin told me about, who claimed to own "the nine 'Star Wars' books".

This was the mid-'80s. "A New Hope" had changed the world in 1977, "The Empire Strikes Back" had done the impossible in 1980 and improved on it in every way, and "Return Of The Jedi" had provided a truly wonderful conclusion to the series in 1983.

"He's lying," I told my cuz, who wasn't devoted to the franchise like I was.

I explained that there were only the novelisations of the three movies, plus a weird book titled "Splinter Of The Mind's Eye" that arguably didn't count.

I theorised that the kid might have the adult, young-readers and storybook versions of each film adaptation, which would make nine. However, the way he'd described it to my cousin, they were separate "Star Wars" stories.

"He's lying," I insisted.

It was only MANY years later that I'd discover the Han Solo trilogy, published in 1979, 1979 and 1980. And the Lando Calrissian trilogy, all released in 1983. Novels which an American kid could pretty easily have gotten his hands on before moving to Australia.

So my cousin's classmate probably wasn't a liar. But neither was I. Or at least not intentionally. I was just an obnoxious know-it-all from a galactic backwater. Kinda like Luke Skywalker :-)