At nearly 11 pounds, this is certainly one of the heaviest Star Wars books ever. The Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia is the replacement for 1998's Star Wars Encyclopedia, and with a decade's worth of new stuff (not the least of which is the prequel trilogy), the Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia is proportionately bigger. As in 3 volumes, 1,200 pages, and 10.8 pounds.

As somebody who writes guidebooks, I've been wondering for the past 10 years whether the web would kill print reference books. I still haven't seen it. Sure, it's easier than ever to get data on any subject in seconds -- Google and wikis are revolutionary, and Wookieepedia has been in my bookmarks for years.

But printed books offer something different: an art to presentation, a tactile pleasure in browsing, a sense of luxury. On these qualities, the Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia hits on all cylinders. It's beautifully put together -- three hardbound volumes in a slipcase -- and the layout is simply a pleasant bath to soak your eyes in (props to Del Rey's Erich Schoeneweiss).

Link-clicking on a wiki is lots of fun, but browsing through a book is an entirely different experience. You're sampling both words and art direction, and there's more potential for surprise as you turn the pages. I might never click a link that takes me to A-10 interceptor, but there it is leading off the book. (No I didn't forget about you, Zzzanmxl, always bringing up the rear.)

Some reference books will certainly go all-digital, but they'll likely be the books nobody really wants to have to buy in the first place: textbooks.

I worked on the book with Encyclopedia godfather Steve Sansweet, Lucasfilm's Pablo Hidalgo, Mary Franklin, and Josh Kushins, short-story writer Chris Cassidy, and Bob Vitas -- and I want to give a special shout-out to Bob Vitas. In the mid-90s, when people like me and Pablo were trying to make our own fan encyclopedias, Bob actually did it, and he never stopped.

As a Word file, the Completely Unofficial Star Wars Encyclopedia is 7,700 pages and a brain-exploding 3.8 million words. Bob's a one-man Wookieepedia, who started a monumental task in the era before crowdsourcing, and the Complete Star Wars Encyclopedia would not have been possible without him.

Dan
(writing projects and current releases)