Ryder WindhamRecensioni
Autore di The Ultimate Visual Guide to Star Wars
Recensioni
Star Wars: The Wrath of Darth Maul di Ryder Windham
The team has received a mission, and while the transformers and older Terran siblings are off to catch an enemy, Robby and Mo are stuck at home to finish up their homework. It isn't fair, since missions are rare and the two really want to join the fun. To hurry things along, they decide to use one of Nightshade's inventions to assist with the homework, but they don't expect it to turn on them! Meanwhile, the rest of the team has lost track of the enemy...and it might be headed right to the farm where Robby and Mo are already dealing with more than the can almost handle.
While the beloved transformers start off and end this read, it centers more on Robby and Mo as they get themselves into some pretty sticky situations. Action fans will enjoy the blasts, high tension, and danger as the siblings personally battle lasers and more...and all of this in ways which still slide in with a level fitting to the intended age group. To round things off, there's a wonderful sense of family, teamwork, coming-to-aide, and support.
The text does push readers to expand their vocabulary. Thanks to the theme and plot, readers are engaged and will be willing to work through the few more difficult words to see what happens next. The text is also in a large font for easier reading purposes. I was surprised at the length of several of the paragraphs, but thanks to the shorter word amount on each page, this shouldn't be overwhelming. The illustrations found on every page not only keep the text from growing overwhelming but follow the story to help support each scene.
Not only does the action make this fun, but the family and friend aspect offers a wholesome background. Robby and Mo do make mistakes but aren't chastised much. Rather, it's the learned wisdom which is focused on. This is definitely a nice choice for Transformer fans and those who enjoy a little more action. I received a complimentary copy and find this a great read to improve reading skills, especially for fans.
Forged by rage.
Taken as a child and trained in the ways of the Sith, he became the apprentice to the greatest evil the galaxy has ever known...
Honed by the dark side.
After years of plotting in secrecy, he and his Master will take revenge on the Jedi Order--and the once-mighty Republic will tremble...
The savage story of Darth Maul has been shrouded in mystery--until now.
The book was very entertaining and drew me in with each word. The book starts off with Anakin as a slave on Tatooine, including his journey to Tatooine, and his life there, It includes his thoughts and feelings that we could never see on screen. It shows his relationship with Qui-Gon Jinn, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Padme. I particularly enjoyed the parts when C-3P0 was there. His journey with the Emperor and Luke are also represented within the book, including Vader's true feelings about the Emperor.
It brings Anakin to life in ways we could have never imagined. I also recommend the book "Jedi Vs Sith: A guide to the force", Also by Ryder Windham, for further interpretation and onlook of the stories within this book.
I am also proud to say that I own the (Oct) 2007 First Printing of this book.
Yellow cars have been winning all sorts of races recently, and G.H.O.S.T. fears this may not be a coincidence. Optimus Prime, Megatron, and other agents are sent on a mission to make sure there aren't any rogue Transformers taking part in the races. The biggest fear is that Bumblebee might be involved, although he should be taking care of the kids and Terrans back at the farm.
This books comes out after the latest movie and is sure to grab the interest of young Transformer fans.
There are five chapters, each one fairly short and easy to read, while holding an interesting story. The font is larger than usual, making for easier reading. Then, there's the illustrations, which not only follow the well-known characters but let the scenes come across visually to aide young readers in understanding the text. Plus, they are enjoyable to look at.
The characters are familiar from the movie and stick to the personalities they are known to have. The situations is tense enough to make the story interesting and, still, very age appropriate. It's a nice way to lure in even reluctant readers and let them enjoy another Transformer adventure on their own.
I received an ARC and found it to be adventurous and well done.
Dorling Kindersley have done their usual excellent work when publishing this book and, with the frenzy that is building with the release of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens in December of this year, they are sure to have a money maker on their hands.
This book is sure to appeal to fans of any levels, and maybe capture the interest of those new to this Universe. The book itself is divided into topics that cover things from characters to locations, and these are interspersed with ‘key event’ facts and each includes a timeline and a behind the scenes article. Covering all six of the Star Wars films, it also touches on the animated TV series of Clone Wars and Rebels.
To say this book has detail would be an understatement, and do it a total injustice. As I said earlier I am not a huge fan, but I found the character pages fascinating; each has a biography which includes some important events of which they were a part and other little pieces of information on their weapons etc. The major characters, such as the R2-D2 unit are given a double page spread, while lesser characters may in some cases only get a portion of the page they are still included and this is part of what makes this a comprehensive guide to the Star Wars Universe.
Apart from the myriad of information that the reader will find within this books pages, they are also given a visual treat in the form of crisp images that are full of detail, from the most important of characters right down to the obscure. I have to admit that my favourite part of this book were the character and location sections, as after reading it I now feel I might just be able to hold my own in a conversation with a die-hard fan.
I would highly recommend this to all lovers of Star Wars and those, who like myself, enjoy the movies but feel their knowledge is lacking.
Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2015/06/05/review-ultimate-star-wars-ryder-windham-ad...
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
Windham previously wrote The Rise and Fall of Darth Vader and The Life and Legend of Obi-Wan Kenobi, which thematically and stylistically resemble this work, as well as various Star Wars comics, young readers books, and reference works. The most impressive thing about this novel is how dark Windham’s narrative gets for a book published by Scholastic for the school market. He does not shy away from the brutality of Maul’s upbringing and training. A good novel for Star Wars fans, in particular fans of the old Expanded Universe.
At 125 pages, this is one of the thinnest volumes I normally read and the thinnest that I have reviewed. I bought this book for the express purpose of detailing the two Rebel Alliance ships currently in my modeling stash, an X-Wing and a Y-Wing. There's not much text here as its pages are dominated by drawings, movie screenshots, and graphic artwork. Not having read anything outside standard Star Wars canon, it is difficult to validate the textual information you get. Given the brevity of each of the ship entries, the authors couldn't put in too many details anyway.
Most of the book concentrates on five specific starfighter types that appeared in Episodes IV to VI (and Rogue One) with another chapter devoted to Resistance starfighters appearing in Episodes VII to IX. The length of chapter (and amount of details) depend solely on the amount of "air time" each type received in their cinematic appearances.
As is to be expected the T-65B X-Wing gets the lion's share of attention both in the first trilogy and the sequel trilogy. Sadly, just as Star Wars fandom has mandated, the ships seen in the prequel trilogy get short shrift, mere mentions in the developmental stories of the other ships. The Y-Wing in both the Rebel Alliance and the Resistance versions is next in coverage, followed by the relatively recent U-Wing seen only in Rogue One. The technically interesting A-Wing is next, and the small and fast A-Wing has minimal coverage as befitting its fairly brief appearance in Episode VI.
While the textual content may be thin, the illustrations are the reason to buy this book. If you are interested in Star Wars modeling, this book should be in your library to detail up those Bandai and Revell kits in your stash. I was prepared to be critical about the price point on this volume ($24.99 US), but I've seen much higher prices on soft cover modeling reference books with less content.
This book is, basically, the most complete collection of all the Star Wars graphic novels published up until Episode 3's release, covering everything up to (in the Star Wars timeline) the Legacy era, and the expanded KotOR era. Basically, if you want to get into the older Star Wars comics, this is really where you want to go - it's the best place to start you collection, or your readings in general. It's not entirely comprehensive, and as in the case with many of these collections, the addition of recently published comics makes it obsolete, but it's still an excellent book to have in your collection.
The story is rather fast-paced and again, the space is limited and this book seems to be written with a younger audience in mind. Key events are told from the perspective of Anakin throughout his life. We get stories such as Anakin’s work with Watto and his podracing, the time he saw Qui-Gon engage with Darth Maul and his inner feelings for Padme. Since the story is told from the perspective of Anakin, there is a lot of the Star Wars story itself that is not present in this story. An addition to the normal Star Wars story, Anakin has an inner dialogue throughout the story so you get an idea of what he was thinking while the iconic scenes from the movies are retold. I found myself picturing the movie scenes while reading.
If you’re a Star Wars Legends fan, you will probably be disappointed. The writing in comparison is shallow and doesn’t really provide any new information. That being said, we should not really hold that against the book, it is still in my view a faithful representation of the canon and a fairly entertaining read. (And as I mentioned, the book seems to be written for a younger audience.)
While there isn’t really anything new, the writing does paint an interesting picture. If you recall after Obi-Wan battles Darth Vader on Mustafar and defeats him, Vader is left to burn alive. Darth Sidious finds him and takes him to a hospital. We see in Episode 3 that Vader is clearly in pain and who can blame him? The descriptions in the book however make it even more clear. In order to preserve as many midichlorians as they could, they did not use any anesthesia. This means that on top of Vader having his legs and left arm cut off and his body burned by lava, he felt every little cut and metal prosthetic being inserted into his charred flesh. When you put it that way, it certainly brings a bigger picture to the pain his fall and suit represents.
Overall, a decent retelling of the story of Darth Vader that was very nostalgic of my childhood memories of watching Star Wars and reading various novels related to the Star Wars Universe.
The story is rather fast-paced and again, the space is limited and this book seems to be written with a younger audience in mind. Key events are told from the perspective of Anakin throughout his life. We get stories such as Anakin’s work with Watto and his podracing, the time he saw Qui-Gon engage with Darth Maul and his inner feelings for Padme. Since the story is told from the perspective of Anakin, there is a lot of the Star Wars story itself that is not present in this story. An addition to the normal Star Wars story, Anakin has an inner dialogue throughout the story so you get an idea of what he was thinking while the iconic scenes from the movies are retold. I found myself picturing the movie scenes while reading.
If you’re a Star Wars Legends fan, you will probably be disappointed. The writing in comparison is shallow and doesn’t really provide any new information. That being said, we should not really hold that against the book, it is still in my view a faithful representation of the canon and a fairly entertaining read. (And as I mentioned, the book seems to be written for a younger audience.)
While there isn’t really anything new, the writing does paint an interesting picture. If you recall after Obi-Wan battles Darth Vader on Mustafar and defeats him, Vader is left to burn alive. Darth Sidious finds him and takes him to a hospital. We see in Episode 3 that Vader is clearly in pain and who can blame him? The descriptions in the book however make it even more clear. In order to preserve as many midichlorians as they could, they did not use any anesthesia. This means that on top of Vader having his legs and left arm cut off and his body burned by lava, he felt every little cut and metal prosthetic being inserted into his charred flesh. When you put it that way, it certainly brings a bigger picture to the pain his fall and suit represents.
Overall, a decent retelling of the story of Darth Vader that was very nostalgic of my childhood memories of watching Star Wars and reading various novels related to the Star Wars Universe.
Dorling Kindersley have done their usual excellent work when publishing this book and, with the frenzy that is building with the release of Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens in December of this year, they are sure to have a money maker on their hands.
This book is sure to appeal to fans of any levels, and maybe capture the interest of those new to this Universe. The book itself is divided into topics that cover things from characters to locations, and these are interspersed with ‘key event’ facts and each includes a timeline and a behind the scenes article. Covering all six of the Star Wars films, it also touches on the animated TV series of Clone Wars and Rebels.
To say this book has detail would be an understatement, and do it a total injustice. As I said earlier I am not a huge fan, but I found the character pages fascinating; each has a biography which includes some important events of which they were a part and other little pieces of information on their weapons etc. The major characters, such as the R2-D2 unit are given a double page spread, while lesser characters may in some cases only get a portion of the page they are still included and this is part of what makes this a comprehensive guide to the Star Wars Universe.
Apart from the myriad of information that the reader will find within this books pages, they are also given a visual treat in the form of crisp images that are full of detail, from the most important of characters right down to the obscure. I have to admit that my favourite part of this book were the character and location sections, as after reading it I now feel I might just be able to hold my own in a conversation with a die-hard fan.
I would highly recommend this to all lovers of Star Wars and those, who like myself, enjoy the movies but feel their knowledge is lacking.
Originally reviewed on: http://catesbooknuthut.com/2015/06/05/review-ultimate-star-wars-ryder-windham-ad...
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
I might actually look for the second book, though, because I do want to know what happens next with these characters, and these are very soft and lovely and remind me of getting into Star Wars as a kid, which is nice.
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