that’s no book review
I picked this up over the New Year holiday after hearing Mike Krahulik talk about it over one of their podcasts.
I’m not a big Star Wars fan by any stretch of the imagination. I enjoyed the original movies as the sci-fi popcorn flicks that they were, magnified by some impressive special affects and distorted through a slight haze of nostalgia. I had never read a Star Wars book before, but I was drawn to investigate this one because it offered a behind-the-scenes look at one of the most recognizable icons of the Star Wars universe.
The book tells the stories of several people (civilian and military) who were involved with the construction and operation of the station, leading up to its destruction as seen in Episode IV: A New Hope. Authors Michael Reaves and Steve Perry present some interesting characters and their stories, which are all connected by a shared theme. Here’s a hint; IT’S A GIANT FUCKING SPACE STATION.
The book does an excellent job showing us the people that lived and worked on the Death Star, not all of whom were evil Imperial soldiers, and the real human emotions they go through having to deal with the fact that they participated in genocide on a planetary scale.
My only real complaint with Death Star is with the few times that the story in the book crosses paths with scenes from the motion picture. Here we feel the heavy hand of LucasTM and I get the impression that the authors were forced to copy & paste directly from the movie script lest they deviate from the all-important canon.
Regardless of the reason, the effect is jarring as we transition from relatively smooth narrative prose to stiff-legged scene description and wooden dialog, and I think the book would have been better off if the authors had a bit more creative freedom.
Despite its flaws, I would still recommend the book to anyone who enjoyed Star Wars and wanted to dig a bit deeper into what is presented on the screen.
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I wonder if this book was born out of the scene in the movie CLERKS, when Randall is discussing how all the innocent construction workers and caterers and such were blown to smithereens because of that whiny bitch Skywalker…?