Star Wars: Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu by L. Neil Smith

Title: Lando Calrissian and the Mindharp of Sharu (Star Wars: The Lando Calrissian Adventures, #1) by L. Neil Smith

Description:

Star Wars fans know Lando Calrissian as the crafty ally of Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia and Han Solo in their struggle against the evil Galactic Empire. But before he threw in with the Rebellion, Lando was an interstellar adventurer, con-artist and gambler of some repute. As we join him, he's just won the Millennium Falcon in a game of sabacc, along with a robot he must collect on the planet of Rafa IV.

The Rafa system functions as a sort of penal colony, where unfortunate convicts are forced to harvest the priceless, transparent "life-crystals" that grow nowhere else. While the crystals extend the lives of those fortunate enough to own them, the trees they grow on drain the minds of the harvesters. When Lando arrives there, he picks up his robot, a five-limbed, Class Two Multiphasic named Vuffi Raa. But before he can track down the local sabacc game, Lando is arrested and hauled before the colony's thoroughly crooked governor, Duttes Mer. Mer and his cohort, Rokur Gepta, an evil Sorcerer of Tund, will let Lando keep his ship, his libertyand his lifeprovided he finds and brings to them the coveted Mindharp, the legendary legacy of the mysteriously vanished Sharu civilization that once populated Rafa.

Lando has no choiceand ahead lies a treacherous, intrigued-filled adventure across strange orchards of life-crystals, through vast underground labyrinths, and, ultimately, into the heart of Sharu's bizarre secret...