Since it was a book designed to be a low-budget sequel to the original movie, where the author was asked to reuse props, not include Harrison Ford’s character, and cut out a space battle so they wouldn’t have to shoot additional miniatures in case they wanted to make it a movie. Yeah, it sucks.
I actually enjoyed it a lot except for a couple character deaths at the end. Vader’s way of dealing with an Imperial officer he felt had failed him makes all the Force choking in ESB tame by comparison.