Customer Reviews

The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons (Star Wars)

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Essential Guide to Planets and Moons is definitely the least essential and worst of all of the guides. Instead of going into the culture and ecology of the planets like it should have, it simply tells us the story of whatever adventure our heroes had there. We get that from reading the novels! This book would have been so much neater if it had told us something at all about life on these planets.

We don't even get a neat map of the planets -- instead, a tiny black and white globe that isn't helpful, with a 1"x3" little inset map of the area we have heard most about in the books. Beneath that is a little illustration of a couple of people from that planet, most of them pretty bad and unhelpful. And then we get some more bad pictures of some native flora and fauna and some corny captions beneath them.

This book is quite a waste of time and money!

This book can be helpful to hard core fans, but it is woefully incomplete and I was not impressed with the tiny artwork. One reviewer here hit it spot on when they said that this book should have focused more on what the planets were like (climate, ecology, civilizations,cultures, mini-history) rather than rehashing the stories from those worlds. It would have been nice if they had explained the meaning of "Agriworlds" And "Industrial Worlds" and their roles in the SW Galaxy. It would have been nice if they'd done the obvious and updated the book to include the Prequel worlds too. And while they were at it, some of the more intrieguing worlds from the obscure corners of the universe like Togoria, Renastasia, Dellallt, Grizmallt,Taris, Or Malachor V.(Heck- since they could included Rafa IV, they could have included some of these) Of corse if they expanded this in the way I'd like to see, it would be a huge richly illustrated tome indeed. But I'd buy it.

This book was great it had alot of information on each of the planets and moons. It was a little disapointing when I didn't find any information on a planet I was looking for, but it's still a good book.

This book is good but it doesn't say enough about the planets. Most of it is about their involvement in Star Wars

From Alderain to Dathmorir, from Kashyyk to Mrlsst, this book has them all. It tells you the species, language, system, and points of interest on a given planet.(Except Earth)

This is probably the worst of the whole essential guide series, specifically because it does not so much focus on the Planets themselves but specifically history involving main characters and the alien species which dwell on these worlds, both of which can be read about in Guide to Chronology and Guide to Alien Species. The art style is a little too cartoony for my tastes as well considering some of the artwork which has been presented in other books of the series this is dissapointing. It does have some interesting info but in my opinion if you want a good in depth look into the Star Wars galaxy and the planets within you are better off skipping this one and buying the newer Star Wars the Essential Atlas.

Published in 1998, this book doesn't include any of the prequel information or planets. It does, however, have some extended universe stuff. Also, most of the "see also" books listed in the front are out of print now. This book is nothing but a summary of events and where they take place--you won't find anything new or interesting here.

The information on websites such as Wookiepedia is much better. It dosn't go in depth, and right now is quite outdated. I was expected maps of the galaxy and planets, but there were none, just a very small section of the planet. I would wait until the Star Wars Atlas (Which I'm extremely excited for) comes out.

Although it is not officially a supplement, I found this book indispensable for gamemastering in the Star Wars Roleplaying Game. The fact is, there really isn't a better resource for finding new places to visit in the Star Wars Universe. Even if you're not into the RPG scene, however, this member of the 'Essential Guide' series is an excellent read.

For some of those, namely the hardcore fans that have read every single Star Wars thing ever published (I cannot claim this title, as I've only read about half of it all) this book might seem a bit redundant. All of the locations are taken from either film or literature, so if you've read all the literature it follows that you'll have seen all of the 100 worlds depicted here at least once. Nevertheless, it is useful to have all of this information in one place, in case you forgot just which world the Ugnaughts come from (Umgul) or how to spell "Mrlsst." The Star Wars Encyclopedia and Guide to the SW Universe have all of this information as well... somewhere. The problem is you have to remember what you were looking for to find it. This book simplifies matters if you just have to know, but can't recall any of it.

For those who are NOT hardcore fans or could care less that Wild Boetays can be found on Garos IV, you probably won't find this guide more than moderately amusing. The other ones in the series (Characters, Vehicles and Vessels, and Weapons and Tech, to name a few) might be more diverting. But for those who are serious about Star Wars (you know who you are) the Guide to Planets and Moons is a really cheap thrill.

This book is helpful for those who haven't read a certain Star Wars book, but come across one of the planets in that book mentioned in some other book. However, with all the new books coming out right now, you'll find that this book is pretty useless for them.