Star Wars Alien Archive: A Guide To The Species Of The Galaxy
Wookiees, wampas and Weequays; Biths, banthas and bogwings; porgs, puffer pigs and Pau’ans; this is the ultimate species guide for Star Wars fans aged 7 to 70! This comprehensive collection will tell you all you need to know about the aliens of the galaxy.
Deep in the stacks of the Graf Archive, an old traveller’s journal has been discovered and restored for public viewing. A long time ago this unknown traveller documented his stories about the many creatures found in each destination he explored, and includes famous movie locations such as the Mos Eisley cantina on Tatooine, Maz’s Castle and the holy city of Jedha.
The archivist restored this journal and added facts and stats about the cultures, legends and famous members of over 200 species, including famous characters such as Chewbacca, Ahsoka, Wicket and many more.
Alien Archive is beautifully illustrated with full colour artworks, sketches and diagrams by Tim McDonagh, illustrator of Galactic Atlas.
Author: Lucasfilm
ISBN: 9781405288477
Publication Date: October 04, 2018
Age Range: From 9 years
As the Star Wars galaxy expands, delving ever deeper into the Unknown Regions and bringing new threats to the rest of the galaxy, it’s always useful to take stock and see where we are before the next influx of information comes our way. Given that, Star Wars Alien Archive: A Guide To The Species Of The Galaxy is a well-timed release, in this instance giving us a detailed look at aliens of all kinds from across the galaxy.
Written in-universe, the book is opened with a forward by Xoddam Lothipp, Deputy Director of the Graf Archive, and by using this technique it instantly evokes the masterful The Illustrated Star Wars Universe by Ralph McQuarrie with words by Kevin J. Anderson. That walked us through a selection of worlds, also in-universe, with thrilling tales of discovery and danger. This book is more of akin to Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, detailing this galactic menagerie that is forty plus years in and breeding faster than ever.
The book breaks down this zoo into a variety of sections. Dry habitats looks at desert worlds like Tatooine and Geonosis, breaking those down into areas like Tatooine and Mos Eisley, with brief in-universe dissections of the races there. Certain races, like Wookiees and Lasaat, warrant a deeper investigation and as such get more page space. Pod Racing looks at the competitors in the Boonta Eve Classic and the denizens of Jabba’s Palace before shifting clockwise around the Outer Rim and into the Inner Rim and Jakku, north-west up into the Mid Rim and Jedha and east into the interior and Coruscant.
Wet habitats are tackled, which encompasses races from every film so far including Solo: A Star Wars Story (and interestingly, given the non-canonical standing of the Ewoks movies, the Gorax is present). We get a good look at the fascinating creatures of Naboo, perhaps the most deeply-desingned planetary menagerie so far, as well as avian creatures like the Convor and the Porg. We even get domesticated creatures, and the coup de grace, the creatures from the dejarik board.
As a creatures guide with a very handy A-Z at the back, its of great value. With artwork highly evocative of the pen and ink line drawings seen in the 80’s, from Jedi to the West End Games era, it has a vintage, lost book feel which drew me in. Expect this one to receive an updated and expanded version in a couple of years. Highly recommended.
