Customer Reviews

Shimmering Sword: Samurai, Western, and Star Wars Sword Fighting

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At first glance Shimmering Sword may seem like a book that simply analyzes swordplay and its relation to the Star Wars universe. Reading the book reveals so much more. The book teaches the reader a great deal about the history and nature of sword fighting, from its roots in the creation of hunting weapons, to its advancement through the middle ages as the primary weapon of the soldier and finally to its symbolic representation as a symbol still worn by soldiers today.

Shimmering Sword explains a great deal about the nature of the sword and the culture that surrounds it. Jamilla, who has studied fencing and kendo for some twenty years combines this passion and knowledge of swordsmanship with his abilities as a teacher to dive deep into an explanation of how swords have shaped our world and culture as well as that of a galaxy far, far away.

This book does not romanticize the violent history and nature of the sword. Complete in this text are gruesome explanations of why swords developed the way they have and how they are used in battle to maim and kill one's enemies effectively.

This book works excellently on two levels: For someone looking to learn of the history of the sword, it is an excellent starting point and wonderfully informative. For the fan of Star Wars, this book will help the reader to understand the history and nature of the Jedi. How Jamilla accomplishes this explanation of the Jedi is through his historical examples of various orders of knighthood, the samurai and the warrior monks of China and Japan. The Jedi order, as Jamilla shows us, is an intricate blend of these groups or historical warriors and swordsmen.

The book also delves into the Master/Apprentice relationship and development. As a student in Japan, Jamilla has an amazing history as an apprentice in kendo, learning from a master of the art. As a teacher of fencing himself, Jamilla can also lend an interesting perspective on that aspect of the relationship.

In closing, the book takes a critical examination of the lightsaber duels in Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and finally The Phantom Menace. This is, perhaps, the most accurate and well thought out observation of the movies' sword battles. Anyone who calls oneself a fan of Star Wars should consider reading this book for this chapter alone.

To anyone who makes a habit of reading critical analysis of the Star Wars films, this is a must read. Often books on this subject tend to build strongly on the opinions and ideas of others. This book takes a truly unique approach to a very specific portion of the films and explores it fully. It is a truly original and thoughtful work, much like the movies that inspired it.

As a martial artist myself for over 20 years, I found this book to be a bit obvious but written well enough that someone not initiated into the martial arts would probably find this very instructive. If one does not have a great deal of experience with the code of bushido (The Way of the Warrior) but love the Star Wars philosophy of the Force and the Jedi code of self-sacrifice and service to others, this book is a great introduction. I especially like the themes that run through its pages of asking what is the place of the warrior in a modern society and accepting the consequences of being a warrior who takes a stand that may be against the powers that be. All in all, a nice, quick read on warrior philosophy as portrayed in the movies.

A decent overview of the historical reference points that Lucas & Co. drew on as the basis of their Jedi Knights. There is also some educated discussion concerning technique and modus operandi of swordsmen throughout history.
However, the writing is often difficult to follow, and many passages are confusingly constructed. The book is poorly edited (if it was edited at all), which makes for a good many distractions, as one tries to figure out what the author is trying to say.

Kind of frightening that the author teaces grade school.

Worth a read, if you are a great fan of the Star Wars films, or want a brief history of swordsmanship.

While I found the book generally interesting, I was very distracted by the utter lack of copy editing. The book is riddled with what I can only call dumb mistakes, the kinds of goofs that a spell-checker wouldn't catch (such as "affect" and "effect" being used interchangeably, "too" being used instead of "to" and vice-versa, etc.).

These errors were made all the more glaring by the author's unnecessarily florid -- I would even say pretentious -- writing style. For me the poor writing undermined the content and made me question whether the author really knew what he was talking about.

In the end, the overall sloppiness of the writing made the whole book feel like a rather amateurish attempt to explore an intersting concept. It was the literary equivalent of a well-intentioned but shoddily executed Star Wars fan film.

I think the author would do well to have a professional editor review his manuscript and fix the mistakes, then reissue the book.

The author is obviously VERY knowledgeable about the subject. There are enough fragmented sentences to believe the editor was sober when he .

Cool!