The New Essential Guide to Vehicles and Vessels: Star Wars

by W. Haden Blackman

Book Overview

This is the all-new, full-color completely redesigned and revised edition of this top-selling Star Wars guide, with first-time entries for The Phantom Menace, Attack of the Clones, and The New Jedi... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345449029
• ISBN13: 9780345449023
• Release Date: September 2003
• Publisher: Del Rey Books
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 1.92 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.5" x 8.5" x 10.9"

Customer Reviews

The BEST!

This is one of the best star wars reference books i have ever read! It has a great picture for every ship and the pages are a-lot more colorful and attractive! I recommend this book for every star wars lover! Even though like a-lot of other people have said it doesnt have the page long schematics, it still has a great simplified version of it, which is just as good. Overall, this book is top quality!

Tho Cool!

This book is too cool!I love it and so will you because it's very informative and has really great artwork.Each ship looks like it's about to fly right out of the book!Detailed descriptions and schematic drawings show you everything there is to know about a vehicle.What special modification did Han make on the Millenium Falcon?How many battle droids can an MTT carry at once?Exactly what ARE proton torpedoes?Fin the answers to these and many,many more questions in this book!Rush at hyperspeed to buy it!!!

My son and I both love this book!

This large and attractive book is an overview of vehicles from the Star Wars universe, containing everything from the AAT to the Z-95 Headhunter. Each vehicle is shown in a color, full-page picture, with a technical readout, and then is given a one page introduction with schematics. Lots and lots of vehicles are here, including many from the movies and the New Jedi Order, though obviously not from Episode III.My son is a major fan of Star Wars, and was really glad to get this book. The colorful and serious way that these vehicles are treated really brings them to life, making them seem as real to him as any real vehicles. Plus, he loved the one-page description of the vehicles, and pored over the book for many hours. He loves this book, and so do I! We both highly recommend this book.

Better than the first one

First of all, this book is beautiful. There are pretty borders and colors everywhere, and the pages are shiny. For each ship they have an exquisite original pictureContent-wise, the book is awesome. While it lacks the superb page-long schematics of the first book, it has a smaller, simplified version that's only a little less useful. There's a box where they tell the statistics for the ship, including the length, manufacturer, affiliation, and the speed in air, space, and hyperspace. There's also a cool quote for each vehicle.There are a lot of all-new vehicles, including all of the minor vehicles from Episodes I and II, some Vong starships, and a few important others. Of course, they had to cut some ships out, but only minor, unimportant ones, such as the Ssi-Ruuvi ships from The Truce at Bakura, the Scimatar assault bomber, the Lancer frigate, and the Carrack Cruiser. On the other hand, every single ship they cut out is in the back, given a couple sentences. Also in the back are dozens of other minor vehicles. Contrary to what you might hear, they DID include the sandcrawler. Rounding out the book is a graph of all of the vehicle speeds, a comprehensive Layman's guide to technology, and a major manufacturer's section. The manufacturer's section has logos for each group, even the completely unimportant ones they don't write about. All in all, an awesome book, the best one yet.

A Brilliant collection of art & inventive space hardware...

I was sent this book from Random House completely unsolicited and at first I didn't think that I would even crack it open at all -- but out of sheer boredom one day I picked it up and I was absolutely stunned at the incredible amount of work that went into making this collection as realistic as possible. The artwork is as top notch as you can get and the research that Mr. Blackman has devoted to each ship is very apparent. Everything from the obscure to the obvious is detailed within the pages of this tome. My personal favorite would be the Outrider used by Dash Rendar in 'The Shadows of the Empire'. A sort of stream-lined souped up version of the Millennium Falcon, it certainly looks very Star Wars and the commentary behind it all is comprehensive.Are you a fan of Pod Racing? You'll find 'em all in here. How 'bout the Super Star Destroyer Executor? In here as well. Or maybe you would like to know the top speed of the Jawa Sandcrawler -- all answered in here. Ever hear of the V-Wing? Do you know the technical specs on Boba Fett's Slave I, the weapons capability of Talon Karrde's luxury smuggling ship? You will after reading this book. It's all laid out in easy-to-read format. The attention to detail is incredible. I also enjoyed comparing the X-Wing with the Y and B-Wing fighters up close. Sure it's all fiction, but it takes one step closer to reality within these pages. My son has been drooling over this book ever since I brought it home and I finally had to give it up for a few days so he could comb over each page for what seemed like hours until his thirst for Star Wars info had been quenched. If you are looking for a fictional Star Wars story, this is NOT what you are looking for...instead this is a fictional collection of ships and vessels you will find in the Star Wars movies (including Attack of the Clones & the most recently released New Jedi Order novels) and how they stack up next to each other. Some of the more creative and clever looking ships are out of the novels rather than the movies, and personally I think that the ships from the original 3 movies are way more impressive than anything shown so far in Episodes I & II. Let me be honest: if you are a fan of all things Star Wars, you should have this book. If you'd rather read a book featuring Han, Leia and Luke, pick something else. Keep this in mind, but it's hard not to be impressed with the HUGE amount of work that went into even the tiniest of details in this book. Very well done.