Anyone own the Complete Star Wars Encyclopaedia? (2008)

[Vympel]

Just curious. How good is it?

[VT-16]

It's extensive, but with the amount of entries, some inconsistencies crop up, especially with timelines and events moved around from entry to entry. Other than that, I recommend it.

[Connor MacLeod]

I wouldn't. I own it, I regret spending the huge amount of money for it, and other than maybe trying to find a name or reference I dug up its not much good for anything. I much preferred the old Encyclopedia, but even that was largely just a re-cycling of mateiral from the Guide to the SW universe books.

I have alot of issues with the inherent silliness of some of the entries and where they contradict other sources, but that's nothing new in SW (or any franchise-based universe really.)

I liked the Atlas much better.

[VT-16]

Oh yes, the Atlas is brilliant. I have a feeling the upcoming Essential books will keep its extensive amount of info now that they're on a new wave of publishing. But the Encyclopedia is good for small things and trivia.

[Vympel]

The Essential Guides have improved in quality, but I think a big black mark remains over the NEGVV and NEGWT. They're mostly poorly detailed drek, and the illustrations of the NEGVV are awful.

I do really like the Atlas, though.

[Abacus]

I would advise you to choose "The Essential Atlas" over most of the Encyclopaedia.

[Darth Yan]

the chronology is also very good. But yes the atlas is awesome.

[fractalsponge1]

I don't see much hope for the EGVV books in general unless they get someone like Saxton to do the technical bits of the text. And maybe get an illustrator that actually had some skill... The original one with the pencil sketches by Doug Chiang was better (sketches, the orthos mostly sucked).

And the Atlas was indeed awesome.

[Connor MacLeod]

The Essential Guides have improved in quality, but I think a big black mark remains over the NEGVV and NEGWT. They're mostly poorly detailed drek, and the illustrations of the NEGVV are awful.

I do really like the Atlas, though.

Parts of the NEGVV and NEGWT are still useful, but they've declined in quality with the increase in quality too (less text devoted to specific stuff) and the "data" they include is a bit silly and inconsistent sometimes (planetary ion cannon ranges vs planetary turbolaser ranges, even though its explicitly stated in The Last Command that planetary turbolasers outrange ion cannons. And I'm not even going to address the TL and ion cannon ranges of shipboard weapons or missiles...)

Oh yes, the Atlas is brilliant. I have a feeling the upcoming Essential books will keep its extensive amount of info now that they're on a new wave of publishing. But the Encyclopedia is good for small things and trivia.

Sort of. It reads like and probably is a direct transportation of the Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia (no surprise since the guy involved in that was involved in the Encyclopedia I noticed) - he's got alot of sources and he's dedicated alot of effort to preserving and adding to his database. I used to use it alot more when I needed to try to remember something - it was mostly good for that, but its also full of flaws and errors. Long ago I emailed the guy because he had an entry for some ISD-III model that wasn't canon, but was a long time entry until I asked him about this. There were other entries over the years that I'd run across that weren't always 100% accurate either (he used to have atomic disruption as part of the disruptor entry, which in turn was derived from the TOTJ book from WEG but which never had the atomic disruption bit) so I suspect he took a bit of creative license with some things (trying to explain how it worked.)

Overall I can't say the product ever really impressed me as a reference book or a resource. It's big, heavy, expensive (still 80 bucks rather than 123, but thats still alot) and I suspect its deliberately designed to basically just suck money out of fans.

Hell, if you were going to waste money on things, I'd suggest buying the WOTC books for material - stuff like the CW campaign guide and Rebellion ERa sourcebook are more useful for material references. Pity wOTC is going under now.

[Darth Yan]

conner, do you use the atlas as a reference? just curious, cause i do.

[Connor MacLeod]

conner, do you use the atlas as a reference? just curious, cause i do.

Sort of. It's pretty much like any SW "technical" source - it has some good bits, some lousy bits, and some average bits depending on where you look and who you ask. Its probably a nice attempt at reconciling everything but I can't always say I like Wallace's approach to things all the time - he seems big on "appeasement" while at the same time taking the same view many other authors have and putting their imprint on SW (nothing will ever stop that though.) Oftentimes these tactics just muddy the waters more rather than solving them as intended, especially when the appeasment extends to recycling alot of older WEG-era stuff and such (which Wallace does a fair share of too.)