Read, You Must: Star Wars: The Visual Encyclopedia

DK Publishing has created many terrific visual guides to the Star Wars universe and have just added another “must-have” book to that list.

Star Wars: The Visual Encyclopedia is a pictorial catalogue of the people, places and things of the Star Wars universe.  Where Ultimate Star Wars goes into much more descriptive detail of the galactic events and character stories of the Star Wars saga, The Visual Encyclopedia gives a wide-ranging overview of what a visitor to that universe might discover.

Across 200 pages, the book contains spread after spread on a wide variety of topics, each full of visual examples. Everything from weapons and armor to creatures and droids are all broken down into categories (and sub-categories) then represented with multiple example images.

The writing team behind this book have all worked some of our favourite Star Wars guide books from the past few years. Tricia Barr (co-author on Ultimate Star Wars), Adam Bray and Cole Horton (both co-authors of Absolutely Everything You Need to Know, Chronicles of the Force and more) tie together the wildly varied items on display with their descriptions and notes.

The uniforms of the Empire are contrasted with the casual dress of smugglers and pirates. Royal dresses from Naboo to Alderaan are also compared. Interested in the foods, toys and musical instruments of Star Wars? They’re all here. How about helmets? LOADS of those! And so many droids!

The Visual Encyclopedia finds its examples (for just about everything) from throughout the Star Wars saga, from the movies, including Rogue One, to The Clone Wars and Star Wars Rebels. Instead of dividing things based on when or where they appeared onscreen, here everything is presented as equally important. It’s all Star Wars!

Star Wars: The Visual Encyclopedia really feels like an extensive souvenir book from the coolest museum exhibit ever. It can be read from start to finish, or you can open it up just about anywhere to have a closer look at nearly anything from the Star Wars universe.

Highly recommended!