Rating: 
Summary: Best of this series
Review: Of all the "essential guides," the original artwork and the approach to the entries in this one make it the best of the lot - I should know, I have them all. The alien species are described as if they really existed, and the approach to the book is that it was written by a traveling anthropologist rather than from an editor who is just summarizing their appearances in Star Wars movies and books. Each entry also includes a short story or description "written" by familiar and unfamiliar characters in the Star Wars pantheon. Luke Skywalker talks about his friend Windy's bantha, Wedge Antilles relates his experiences with the frustratingly thorough Slussi, and so on. It adds to the book, and makes it much more enjoyable.
Rating:
Summary: absolutely fantastic
Review: possibly the most helpful Star Wars reference in a LOOOONG time. everytime I read a new SW book now, I'll keep this thing handy! there were some species described in various novels that just had lame descriptions of non-movie species (like the Verpines, Drall, and Massassi) making them hard for my creative mind to picture in my head. That problem's gone now, this book cleared it all up, with truly gorgeous drawings of some foul looking creatures. the text is informative too, and I love the "journal entries by Dr. Hoole." this book is teriffic, I HIGHLY recommend EVERYONE pick a copy up. I got it last night, and I'm enthralled with it :)
Rating:
Summary: Great Book!
Review: The drawings inside the book are superb, the captions match all we have read in novels or watched in movies, and I would definitly choose it as a book for the star wars begginer! I was also glad to see that the Youzhan Vong were written about. I was curios to see what they looked like. The book answered every question I could think of.
Rating:
Summary: no way is this less than 5 stars
Review: The gentleman in the review below gives this book 3 stars because it's not an exhaustive guide to nitpicky aliens, and he completely misses the point of this book. This is an Essential Guide to aliens, meaning that it is an overview of aliens in the Star Wars universe. It does contain materials from other volumes because it's meant to be a one-stop guide. If he'd read the introduction, he'd see that. And he only needs to read the criteria for including aliens in this book (also in the introduction) to see why many of the nitpicky aliens from Phantom Menace and other movies were not included. Miss Lewis included the three main aliens (Toydarians, Gungans, and Neimoidians) and ignored the rest because they were not pivitol to that story.This book has many wonderful things in it. It does address the brilliant work of Archie Goodwin and Al Williamson by including the Marvel comics, long ignored by other Star Wars authors. Does it include more Expanded Universe? Sure! But it is my opinion that helping readers know the aliens that appear in the Expanded Universe books and comics is a noble goal! We've seen the creatures in the movies. We all want to know what a Caamasi and a Yuuzhan Vong looks like--because we only read about them. It also gives us a pronounciation guide, something that has been needed for a long time. Ignore the review below. The dude is a....
Rating:
Summary: Amazing companion book.
Review: This book is amazing. I would extremely recommended it to anyone looking to learn more about the star wars universe or reading any of the Star Wars novels.
Rating:
Summary: One of the best "Essential Guides"
Review: When I first got this book I was completeley skeptical, How could anybody document the whole alien species in the SW Universe? Authors of different SW novels or comics like to keep pushing and inventing weird alien species, species that most of the time are boring, senseless, just a myriad of "pathetic life forms". The real deal is that the author doesn't really analyze every single alien that has been shown in the Star Wars books, comics, movies, Expanded Universe, etc. This is the most appealing feature of the book, it centers only in the species worth mentioning, and it describes them in a unique manner, full of vivid descriptions, pictures and very interesting information concerning their history and their role in the struggle between the Force and the Dark Side. Myself, I have seen the movies hundreds of times, so I am quite familiar with the looks of the creatures we get to see in all the Episodes. But my amaze was reserved to the cretures that appear in the novels, creatures that we have to stuff up with our imagination for building some sort of picture on what they look like. You will surely be surprised by some pictures, specialy the Caamasi, and we also get to see a mayor make over on how bothans look like, a lot less human, and a lot more like the scheming mammals they are supposed to be. In overall this Essential Guide is worth your money if you are a real Star Wars fan and want to give your imagination a little help on picturing the aliens that appear in every SW novel.
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