Star Wars, Geek Culture, and Power Converters
Don’t forget, at 3PM EDT/12PM PST, author Star Wars Books will be holding a Facebook chat with Jason Fry to talk about the Essential Guide to Warfare. Want to know what went into the various character profiles and warship writeups? You can ask him yourself.
Just remember, this isn’t the chat to ask what’s coming after Fate of the Jedi or when Karen Traviss will come back to the Expanded Universe (she won’t). Your EG to Warfare questions are fair game, though!
Over on his blog, Jason Fry posted a set of endnotes from his latest Expanded Universe release, the Essential Guide to Warfare.
The book originally began with a transcript of a briefing featuring Admiral Motti, Bevel Lemelisk, a general from the Department of Military Research and Dr. Insmot Bowen, a pre-Republic specialist from the Obroan Institute. Dr. Bowen explained that some of the odd characteristics of the galaxy — including that barrier west of the Core — were the remnants of Celestial technology, and told the panel of an ancient war between the Celestials and the Rakata. (Motti, as you might imagine, wasn’t believing it.)
The section was fun, but my editor at Del Rey, Erich Schoeneweiss, felt it wasn’t the best beginning for the book. He felt we needed something that put the reader in a dynamic scene rather than a briefing room, and that had some actual warfare in it, instead of a discussion of it. I fumed about that for a bit, then fumed a lot more because I realized Erich was right.
I have to say, I’m glad Schoeneweiss suggested a different opening. The prologue was one of my favorite parts of the book and really helped set the stage for perhaps the best Essential Guide I’ve gotten my hands on.
For more interesting notes and tidbits from Jason Fry, head on over to his blog.
I’m a fleet junkie.
Sure, the lightsaber duels, the Jedi versus Sith battles, and political games were neat, but that wasn’t my favorite part of the Star Wars mythos growing up. It was the blaster fights. The showdowns between X-Wings and TIE Fighters. The sight of the Death Star looming in the distance. Military warfare in this universe has always held a special place in my heart, which is why Jason Fry and Paul R. Urquhart’s Essential Guide to Warfare was one of my most anticipated Expanded Universe titles of 2012*.
*Which isn’t to say that there’s nothing about the Jedi and Sith in this book. There are a great many words were written about them.
It’s worth pointing out that the creative staff could have simply compiled abridged Wookieepedia-type articles, slapped some new artwork on it and I would have been moderately happy. What we lucky readers got instead was a product that cleared that bar by a staggering margin. While I was mostly looking forward to the new artwork in the book (and that is more than enough to justify a purchase), it was the written content that pushed EG to Warfare over the top and elevated it to must-buy territory for casual to hardcore Star Wars fans alike.