Ultimate Star Wars by Ryder Windham, Adam Bray, Daniel Wallace, & Tricia Barr
By Elaine Tveit
A Star Wars guidebook is hitting store shelves today that promises to be the current most comprehensive authority on all things in that galaxy far, far away.
Here’s the summary for Ultimate Star Wars by Ryder Windham, Adam Bray, Daniel Wallace, and Tricia Barr from the publisher on Amazon:
Image from amazon.com
"Ultimate Star Wars is a comprehensive, wonderfully detailed encyclopedia of the entire Star Wars galaxy that explores characters, creatures, locations, vehicles, technology, and more. Reflecting the saga’s epic scope, Ultimate Star Wars is structured chronologically from Episode I: The Phantom Menace to Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, including Star Wars: The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. This book also highlights key events from the saga and provides fascinating insights into the making of the Star Wars movies."
The book begins with a foreword by Star Wars film legend, C-3PO himself, Anthony Daniels, while the meat of the guidebook is written by Windham, Bray, Wallace, and Barr. Windham and Wallace have collaborated on other Star Wars reference books, such as The Bounty Hunter Code, while Adam Bray compiled the first official Star Wars Rebels Visual Guide. Tricia Barr can hardly be called a newcomer to the Star Wars universe, although this is the first time her name has been on an official work. She is the founder of the FANgirl blog and co-host of the Fangirls Going Rogue podcast.
As with Lords of the Sith (also releasing today), I’ve gathered reviews from across the web to give you an idea of what to expect from this guidebook.
From Skuldren from fan blog Roqoo Depot:
"“In comparison to all of the guide books that have come before it, Ultimate Star Wars has a rich field of competition. Visually, it’s hard to beat the Star Wars: The Complete Visual Dictionary as the layout of that book puts all the cool visual elements right next to each other for easy reference. However, it does combine everything into one book, which is very handy. Need to look up a blaster? The name of an Ewok? Or do you need to know what sector Cato Neimodia is in? Now you can get all those answers in one book without pulling up Wookieepedia and wondering if this is canon or Legends. In the end, that is the big draw of the book. This is the first guide to canon. Our knowledge is now limited to the first six films, Star Wars: The Clone Wars, Star Wars Rebels, and a small but growing handful of books and comics. At the kickoff point, this is a good book to get everyone started on the same page.”"
Rebels Report felt it was a home run:
"“Ultimate Star Wars is a gorgeous book, pulling images from the films, television shows, still photography and images of props and models it is a feast for the eyes that you soon realize is only an appetizer for the main course of Star Wars knowledge that you can gorge yourself on.I consider myself a pretty well read and knowledgeable Star Wars fan, but in this new canon reality in which we live there is much that I have learned that I need to unlearn. So I was excited to dig into this book to see what it had to offer. I was pleasantly surprised to find that this book had a bunch of information that was new to me. This is a pretty big feat for a Star Wars reference book to accomplish.”"
Finally, from the Star Wars Kidscast blog:
"“No single book could cover everything there is to know about the Star Wars galaxy but for die-hard fans of any age looking for a beautiful reference book – or for new and returning fans excited by the upcoming movies – Ultimate Star Wars is a must-have!”"
There were only two criticisms that I noticed that some of these reviewers had: 1) The book doesn’t always give quite enough information, and 2) there are a few mistakes. As Skuldren points out in Roqoo Depot’s review, “Even Piell is accidentally listed as a Zabrak from Nar Shaddaa, the clone trooper’s affiliation is Separatists, and Savage Opress species is Dathomirian. What’s more interesting,” Skuldren adds, however, “are the things that are left unstated. For example, the book does not say that Boba Fett died in the sarlacc. Perhaps a hint that we may be seeing the armored bounty hunter once again?”
Ultimate Star Wars sounds like an invaluable addition to the canon universe. It may have a couple of issues, but all in all, those who received advanced copies seem very satisfied.
So what are you waiting for? Go purchase it from Amazon for $26.49, or pick it up from your local bookstore TODAY!