Star Wars: The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology

Another hit in this series, this essential guide offers you information about the weapons and technology in Star Wars. Most of it is Canon, some of it is not. However, any fan of Star Wars Information and such should not be without this book. It is replete with information and knowledge.

I really enjoy the Del Rey Star Wars "Essential Guides...", they are for the most part well written and generally well conceived by authors who genuinely love Star Wars. Bill Smith's work on "The Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology" is a fun tech book on everything from blasters and lightsabers to ground based turbo laser batteries, vaporators, comlinks and sensor jamming technology. The book also lists the corporations that produce the equipment people use in day to day life. I find that this tends to add a sense of realism, since no one uses entirely generic items that are provided free of charge to everyone...like on Star Trek.The book is also well detailed with lots of art, both three-dimensional sketches and line drawings, accompany the text that describes each object. Often, in the case of unique items, Magwit's Mystifying Hoop, explain who used it and why. Unfortunately, if teleportation is so common that performers can use it in their stage acts, why isn't proliferated every where else in Star Wars? Mostly, the art is quite good, though I found a few of the personal weapons to be gimicky and/or poorly conceived of and drawn. Other than this is a great reference for Star Wars fans who might be tired of being buried under meaningless Treknobabble.

This was an excellent book. I found it entertaining and that's usually why I buy these types of books. They take a lot of their information from different SW novels, which sometimes bothers me. But I DO like this book. It kept my attention so that's good. Star Wars rocks...

This is a must have for everyone who has to know everything about Star Wars. The in depth, easily understandable articles cover plenty of different topics, and are crammed with information. Each of the entries details a piece of technology, and delves into its strengths and weaknesses. Both the author and illustrator obviously understand Star Wars, and their knowledge shows through. While this may not be the best book for a casual fan, for a serious one this is a must have book.

This is an excellent book and is a life-saver. I always got questions about one of the weapons or any of the technology in one of the books or in one of the movies and this is where I go first to to find information about one of the weapons. If I can't find it here I go to the Star Wars Encyclopedia.