Skip to main content

Star War Books, The Staggering Quantity Walter Kraatz

    Almost 43 years ago a space opera was released in theaters and quickly became one of the highest grossing films of all time. The success of Star Wars spawned eight additional films, ten television series, and a thriving fan-art community, but one of the most impressive results of Star Wars' success is the hundreds of books that have been published. The first publication of the Star Wars franchise predates the movie and was released as a novelization of the film over a six months before the film was in theaters.   

    Star Wars has both a Canon and an Extended Universe (Legends). Both Canon and Legends consist of many different forms of media, but for the sake of simplicity this post will focus on the print aspect of it. Legends consists mainly of pre2014 books that were released under license as well as a few books released after Star Wars was  purchased by Disney. The hundreds of legends novels that were published show not only merit the respect of Lucasfilm for allowing the publication of what is essentially fan-fiction but also the ability of the sequel and prequel trilogy to inspire such a massive quantity of stories. 

    After the purchase of Star Wars in 2014 almost all of the novels are considered part of the Canon and as such are more restrictive in their world building as many of them are published for the express purpose of accompanying a film, however I still believe that some of the books are incredibly well written and still show how after almost four and half decades Star Wars is still inspiring work that has all spawned from a story of a magic farm boy and a smuggler blowing up a planet killing space station.  

Comments

  1. TaehanJanuary 27, 2021 at 12:27 PM

    Wow, I have never really thought of Star Wars beyond the movies. This is definitely interesting. I've heard about the Canon and Legends thing but this was definitely a lot more detailed. I definitely would be interested in some Star Wars books as I am a fan.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Zhaoxin SunFebruary 1, 2021 at 2:42 PM

    I was always super confused when my friends who were Star Wars fans talked about Legend and stuff. Honestly I still don't really get it because I'm not really into Star Wars, but this was an interesting topic nonetheless. Nice post!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Gabe DavisFebruary 4, 2021 at 9:48 AM

    Strange that so much came out of star wars. I rewatched "A New Hope" last week, and it was a much different experience than I remembered. Even though the first movie is a classic, it really isn't that good of a movie.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yan LFebruary 4, 2021 at 6:22 PM

    Though my love for Star Wars has died down quite a bit, I'll always have a fond memory of watching some of the movies and reading the books. Also there's not just books. As one of the highest grossing films of all time, there was videogames, toys, statues, and even Jar-jar's tongue as a push-pop.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Marco L.February 7, 2021 at 11:37 AM

    It is my (entirely correct) opinion that the classic Legends books were the height of Star Wars media. The Clone Wars? Derivative tripe. The Mandalorian? I've heard it's good, but the people who told me it was good weren't me, so they were probably wrong. I feel that the old books captured the campy, old-school feeling of the original trilogy, and the sheer variety brings out the vastness of the Star Wars universe.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Boy in Striped Pajamas – A Unique Perspective

               The Boy in Striped Pajamas , by John Boyne, is a historical fiction book that takes place in Germany during WWII. The book is about a boy named Bruno and his family’s life from Berlin to a concentration camp he calls “Out-with.” He becomes friends with a boy who lives in the camp which leads to Bruno learning about the true nature of it. The Boy in Striped Pajamas is not a long novel, but despite that it still provides an interesting perspective of the time period and status of the characters. Bruno’s father works for the Fury, also known as Hitler, and Bruno does not quite understand what happens in the camp or what kind of work his father does. Bruno is a young boy and the book is written in a way where the reader’s perspective feels like Bruno’s, naïve. For example, the camp “Out-with” is Auschwitz but because Bruno pronounces it as “Out-with”, the true name is never explicitly stated in the book. People often look back a...
9 comments
Read more

A Review of "Art of Magic: The Gathering--Innistrad"

              “Art of Magic: The Gathering—Innistrad” by James Wyatt tells the story of Innistrad, a plane (world) in the Magic: The Gathering multiverse. You may think that Magic is just some card game and this book won’t be very interesting. If you think this, then you are wrong. “Art of Magic: The Gathering” is an excellent book for anyone who likes the fantasy and horror genres, even if they don’t play Magic.             Innistrad is a plane where humans are slain by vampires, slaughtered by werewolves, and haunted by the spirits of the dead. Ghoulcallers reanimate corpses to do their bidding, and skaberen stitch the limbs of dead humans into artificial lifeforms called skaabs. Humans depend greatly on Avacyn, an angel who was created to protect them from these horrors. Avacyn has an entire religion created around her. Her high church is in the city Thraban. Her angel...
Post a Comment
Read more

Empire of Dust (Blood of Gods and Royalsl #2) Book Review

Empire of Dust is the second book in the Blood of Gods and Royals series. The series continues the story of Alexander and his journey in becoming the new ruler for the kingdom as he starts to make bigger decisions. Hephaestion is rejected by Alex because he kills the wrong person, a vital part of his original plan. He then finds a secret prophecy that he must conceal from Katerina as they are sent on a dangerous mission. Jacob, Kat's ex-lover, tries to discard his emotions and rid of the blood magics. Lastly, Princess Zofia tries to find the Spirit Eaters in order to change her fate so that she can be with the one she loves.  I reviewed the first book, and although I didn't like it that much, the world intrigued me and I decided to try and read the second book. In my opinion, I thought that this book was much worse because it made me really frustrated as I read it.  The perspective changes between the seven characters were more annoying than in the first book. It was hard for...
4 comments
Read more