Star Wars: The New Essential Chronology

by Daniel Wallace & Kevin J. Anderson
Book Review by Dan Tres Omi

Sometimes, folks need some notes to go back and research to stay on their toes. No matter how many Star Wars books and comics one reads, one will always miss something. Well the brainiacs at Del Rey and Lucas Books have gotten together to provide the Star Wars EU fans with an essential chronology of everything from the movies, comic books, cartoons, and novels.

Daniel Wallace, who wrote a good number of the Star Wars Essential series, and Kevin J. Anderson, who has authored several EU books, both have done a tremendous job of summarizing the important events of the Star Wars EU. One of the biggest problems in the Star Wars EU is continuity. Sometimes there are flaws in major events and then there are flaws in the minute details. Wallace and Anderson avoid this by keeping several of the details out. This allows the reader to avoid finding too many spoilers. Leaving the details out forces one to read the actual material.

The illustrations by several artists are wonderful. However they are too few in number. One pretty much has to dig through the pages for them. What they lack in quantity they make up for in quality. The cover could have been better and something that captured the overall feel of the Star Wars Universe would have worked.

Overall, any of the Essential series books are needed. It gives the reader a reference point to look back at when something seems unexplained. The only flaw is that each section is not referenced to the particular book that covers the event. I doubt it would have made the research much more difficult. Maybe the intent of the authors was to force the reader to read the books. Of course, it needs to be updated. It is missing the rest of the Killik war and some of the Star Wars Legacy series.