Star Wars: The Essential Chronology

Star Wars: Essential Guides #6

by Kevin J. Anderson, Daniel Wallace

The latest "Star Wars( Essential Guide" chronicles the entire history of the "Star Wars" universe, based on the classic "Star Wars" movies, novels, and other adventures that began with "Star Wars: A New Hope" and starred Luke Skywalker, Han Solo, and Princess Leia. Illustrations.

Genres: Star Wars, Science Fiction, Reference, Fiction, Fantasy

208 pages, Paperback

First published August 5, 1999

About the author

Yes, I have a lot of books, and if this is your first visit to my amazon author page, it can be a little overwhelming. If you are new to my work, let me recommend a few titles as good places to start. I love my Dan Shamble, Zombie P.I. series, humorous horror/mysteries, which begin with DEATH WARMED OVER. My steampunk fantasy adventures, CLOCKWORK ANGELS and CLOCKWORK LIVES, written with Neil Peart, legendary drummer from Rush, are two of my very favorite novels ever. And my magnum opus, the science fiction epic The Saga of Seven Suns, begins with HIDDEN EMPIRE. After you've tried those, I hope you'll check out some of my other series.

I have written spin-off novels for Star Wars, StarCraft, Titan A.E., and The X-Files, and I'm the co-author of the Dune prequels. My original works include the Saga of Seven Suns series and the Nebula Award-nominated Assemblers of Infinity. I have also written several comic books including the Dark Horse Star Wars collection Tales of the Jedi written in collaboration with Tom Veitch, Predator titles (also for Dark Horse), and X-Files titles for Topps.

I serve as a judge in the Writers of the Future contest.

My wife is author Rebecca Moesta. We currently reside near Monument, Colorado.

Reviews

[Marsha Altman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book, which dates from 2000, was a pretty good effort at the time to compile a complete chronology of all of the events in the Star Wars movies, books, video games, comics, TV specials, and anything under official license. It helps that the author a lot of these official books that came out in the 90's until today. He's still a working writer, actually. It's an interesting look back at a chronology that will be voided by the Disney movies, I assume, as it deals with events post-Return of the Jedi that word is are not going to part of them.

The art is really a highlights of the book. The pictures are adorable.

It's a little messy because there's tons of centuries and millennium where basically nothing's going on for like, 3000 years, then something happens for 20 years (because the author wrote a book about, or another author did), then it skips ahead 400 years to another event, then skips another 1000 years because no one wrote anything about that time period. In fact, it makes the Empire that's such a big deal in the movies look pretty unimpressive because it lasted all of what, like 30 years before a peace treaty with the Rebels? And then maybe another 20 of continued resurgences before it gave up? (They have to kill Palpatine like, 3 times) That's really unimpressive when you consider the ancient Sith Empire that lasted a thousand. In the general scheme of things Palpatine was like a flash in the pan and it took Luke approximately 3 years to get the Jedi going again because he kept stumbling upon Jedi who were like in statis (or the one who was a giant tree).

A lot of this isn't the author's fault - some of it is summaries of books written by different authors who reuse standard plot devices. Poo Han Solo is captured and either enslaved or held hostage so many times he should have capture insurance. Luke keeps receiving devastating wounds. Someone comes up with another piece of technology that blows up planets or stars. Some Jedi kids are kidnapped again. You'd think by this point in the universe, so many people have been fighting for so long it's surprising that all of the planets aren't blown to pieces.

Also one thing is clear: If you are not a Jedi, you are lame. You are unimportant. The best thing to do is kill yourself and hope to be reincarnated as someone with some Force ability who can actually do something cool.

I guess I recommend this book if people want a layout of the different stories in the different mediums available up to the year 2000 (including a droid cartoon show?), as the author lists his source material in the back. Also some neat art. Good for completists, or people just so totally lost in the chronology of the universe.

[Maxine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Magnificent artwork. I absolutely love these old essential guides there’s something just so special and unique about them. Obviously the new essential guides are the ones you want for a full comprehensive timeline but the old ones still have value! The way the Expanded Universe did their guides is vastly superior to the guides we get in the modern era.

[Alex Strohschein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good, though now outdated and what's more, a myth (thanks a lot Disney!).

[Lewis Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Difficult to recommend to anyone but those nostalgic for the old expanded universe which this details, but only goes as far as 1999. This makes it kind of fascinating how they cover the events of Episodes 2 and 3 before they were even made. This is a very dry re-telling of all the major plot beats from every movie, game, comic and novel made up until that point, but thankfully it’s illustrated by the gorgeous work of Bill Hughes. As the expanded universe stories post ROTJ continue you start to realise how limiting it must have been to be able to use all the characters from the movies but not be able to put them in any real danger as writers were not allowed to kill off movie characters. This means stuff like Mon Mothma contracting a terminal disease doesn’t really carry any weight when you just know she’s going to be magically cured at some point. Still, a fascinating insight into the classic expanded universe, but not a particularly gripping read. I’d only recommend it to the old EU heads.

[J · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice primer of all the Star Wars stories published prior to this book's publishing in 2000. Star Wars: The Essential Reader's Companion I felt was superior as it's art was higher quality and it had the benefit of many more years information both published stories and the conclusion of the prequels.

[Natasha · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like these books better if they were actual pictures instead of illustrations. But they do provide you with great in-depth details to nearly ALL the characters of Star Wars, both in the movies and Expanded Universe!

[Theresa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Star Wars: The Essential Chronology
Star Wars: The Essential Chronology (Paperback)
by Kevin J. Anderson
This book provides a detailed collection of character history and description for the Star wars universe. Giving facts and information in an appealing nature to young readers.

[Brian Mathieu · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a stitching-together of many of the tales in the Star Wars universe, going back about 25,000 years. It's a little much to take in all at once, cover-to-cover, but not a bad reference to use when you've got a question about something mentioned in a movie/book/game.

[Allison · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is wonderful because it proves how much George Lucas screwed up his own story.

[Cayenne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Pretty dense, very detailed discussion of Star Wars "history." Fun to have it all together in one album, but I'm not enough of a fan to take the time to read the whole thing.