Tuesday, 25 February 2014

#250 A Brief Guide to Star Wars (2012)

Author: Brian J. Robb
Title: A Brief Guide to Star Wars
Genre: Sci-Fi
Year: 2012
Pages: 250
Origin: purchased for £2.50
Nod Rating: 2 nods out of 5

 
The Worm, it seems, is a sucker for cheap unauthorised guides on science fiction TV shows. Furthermore, these particular cheap books need to be authored by one man: Brian J. Robb. The Worm has admitted such an addiction having scooped up this book – A Brief Guide to Star Wars (the subtitle bearing the confidence lowering words ‘the unauthorised inside story’) – whilst soon realising that he had been in the same reading-position before. Yes, this previous book was Brian J. Robb’s A Brief Guide to Star Trek. So, with the two rival fictional galaxies lining up against one another, what could be the result?

A Brief Guide to Star Wars is an inoffensive and forgettable read: it charts the birth of the idea of Star Wars and the early career of George Lucas, before giving a run-down of tid-bits of information regarding the original trilogy of films. The book embraces the second – less loved and vilified – trilogy, with time spent providing information on special effects, all before charting Lucas selling out to Disney and taking his mitts off his creations once and for all.

The segments of greater interest for the reader are those that centre on the period between Return of the Jedi in the early 1980s and The Phantom Menace in the late 1990s. This includes the ill-fated and pathetic Ewok spin-offs, and the incessant need of the creator to continue retouching previous works.

As can be expected by an ‘unauthorised inside story’, there is a complete lack of fresh commentary. Brian J. Robb has done an admirable job of trawling the internet and other books for quotes to pepper with his narrative, but the read is all fairly pedestrian. All of this corresponds to the earlier review of Robb’s ‘unauthorised’ take on the Star Trek universe.

So, what next for the Worm? Are there are any other long-standing cheap unauthorised guides on other Sci-Fi series…. Battlestar Galatica, perhaps? Who knows what the crazy book-reading future will hold.