Review By Dean Jennings
Publisher: TitanBooks
Author: Jason Fry and Paul R. Urquhart
StarWars: The Essential Guide to Warfare by Jason Fry and Paul R. Urquhart, is yet another book to expand the StarWars Universe, and I am going to go out on a limb here and say that this has to be one of the best StarWars book I have been lucky enough to read. I mean, I am a huge StarWars fan, but this book made me feel like a ‘noob’. When you get this book you are treated to a book cover that needs to be talked about, you have this iconic Storm Trooper helmet on the front, but a red filter has been added to give it a bit more of an edge. When you turn to the back cover of the book you have the normal write up about the book and a really nice picture filling the back cover of ATATs and Storm Troopers running into battle.
As I read through this book I realised how big the StarWars Universe is and what history it has. You will find it all in this book, it really goes into great detail of all manner of things. STWR: The Essential Guide encompasses all of the StarWars films, TV Series, Comics and books and brings them all together to give you what really is a time-line of war. It also goes into detail of the Ships that were used and weaponry. It really brings the whole setting to life and gives it weight, as if it needed any more. I was also surprised to see that even Star charts had found their way into the book, detailing how the space is broken up and who owns what. At some points I really felt like I was reading accounts from a real history, it really is that detailed and believable. It evens goes into detail about what was before the Emperor and the Republic which was an amazing read.
The art style of the book just adds to the overall believability and marries nicely to the information that is given in the book. You will be treated to full page star vistas of space, with huge ships firing at each other or down to a simple drawing of a droid. It’s all very high quality and glossy. You can tell a great deal of time and effort has gone into the design of this book. The illustrations alone, are worth buying this book for. The art work is what you would expect from of book such as this, as a piece of art it’s amazing.
Overall Starwars: The Essentail Guide To WarFare, is a StarWars geeks’ dream. It really gives you the specifics on battles that have happened in the StarWars Universe and even the tech that was used in that battle. This is definitely for people who like StarWars a lot, but even if you have a passing interest in it and like sci-fi, this is still a great book, and well worth the read.