THE ILLUSTRATED STAR WARS UNIVERSE ($17.95 from Bantam)

Credits:

Written by Kevin J. Anderson

Art by Ralph McQuarrie

Additional Art by Joe Johnston

In an interview Mania published a while back, Kevin J. Anderson revealed himself to be one of the world's most unique- - in terms of technique- - writers. Anderson, author of numerous best-selling STAR WARS and X-FILES novels, told me he lives in the Pacific Northwest, where he writes predominantly via audio tape: he goes for long hikes in tat lovely country, narrating his stories into a hand-held recorder, off the top of his head. Then an assistant transcribes the tapes. It's an unusual technique that demands a high level of organization and discipline between the brain and the mouth, as it were, because otherwise the tape would be endless stream of "Luke listened to the hollow, no, distant, tapping, in the distance, no, wait, I said that..."

He's also one of the busiest writers in the Star Wars franchise. Not only does he write novels, but he seems to crop up every other day as an editor or contributor to SW anthologies, comics, or this latest, a book with at least as much text as a novel, the ILLUSTRATED STAR WARS UNIVERSE.

The UNIVERSE is a collection of chapters guiding us through eight significant Star Wars worlds: Tatooine, Coruscant, Dagobah, Hoth, Endor, Bespin, Yavin 4 and Alderaan. But rather than a simple series of encyclopedia entries, Anderson guides us through these worlds through original characters, either native to the worlds or visitors. It's a neat conceit that allows the novelist in Anderson to liven up the reading. For instance, Endor, home of the cuddly Ewoks, is described by an Sergeant Jhorn, a miserable Imperial records officer who hates his assignment so much that every description of the lovely forest moon is filled with bile. There's even a bit of post-modernism thrown in, as Jhorn is in fact editing an essay by an Ewok-loving anthropologist. The result is paragraphs that praise the Ewoks for their ingenuity and then proclaims them "marginally impressive."

And so on. Coruscant is described by an Imperial High Muckety-muck who describes the vast planet city and explains how happy the lower race are in the ghettos. The grassy Alderaan, victim of Governor Tarkin's Death Star, is recreated for us by a poet on the run (Hari Seldona, a tip of the hat to Isaac Asimov's FOUNDATION.) My favorite is the chapter on Bespin, the Cloud City, which appears to be a long press release and is written that way. ("A place to play, a place to relax!") There's so much information presented here that I'm glad Anderson keeps tongue firmly in cheek.

Anyone who's been a Star Wars fan since the dawn knows Ralph McQuarrie's art, and there's an incredible variety of McQuarrie paintings here, great vistas and detailed views of ships, flora and fauna. Sometimes it creeps me out how much we know about these imaginary places, and McQuarrie has been crucial to making them come alive. There's even a hint of development of the mythos along the way: McQuarrie includes his early sketches of hairless tauntauns on Hoth, and Anderson tells us that there are in fact several tauntaun races, some with hair, some without.

There's always some tidbit you didn't know, and unlike the novels, these details all come from before and during the first trilogy, so there's no threat to them as (I hate this word) canon. When Anderson tells us there are hairless tauntauns below Hoth and tall Ewoks called Yuzzums who live on the plains, you might as well believe him.