The Malaysian Reader

I read books because you don't want to!

Star Wars Week: The Book Is How Much??

Friday, 25th May, 2012 § 3 Comments

Star Wars Week at the Malaysian Reader looks more like Star Wars Every Other Day. You know how it is. You make plans and then Real Life laughs at your plans and grabs you by the neck and takes you with it on a wild joyride on the Highway of Not Enough Time to Blog. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Anyway, here’s a nifty book that dropped into my lap the other day

As stated on the cover, this is a pop-up book with a Star Wars theme and just like the Wookie book in the previous post, this book is supposedly for the kids but the complexity and fragility of the design and the text-heavy content makes it more suitable for the grown up fan. Or am I just being patronizing? Yeah, probably but I think I do have a point. Check out this AT-AT at the Battle of Hoth:

Okay, my photo-taking skills aren’t that hot but what I was trying to show is that this is not your run-off-the-mill pop-up book. Matthew Reinhart did an incredible job making pop-up versions of Star Wars characters, vehicles and monsters. Like Rancor here:

Erm, I don’t know why I took a photo of the pop-up Rancor from the side. Here’s an in your face view (not my photo, credit goes to Google Images):

And those boxes of texts surrounding the main pop-up on every page can actually be flipped open to reveal more, albeit smaller, pop-ups but no less incredible looking than the big pop-ups. This book definitely has the “wow” factor. I don’t have photos of the smaller pop-ups because I want you to give your money to George Lucas and find out for yourself.

Here is my personal favourite, the Mos Eisley Cantina. You can see Ben Kenobi and Luke about to enter the place:

Ponder Baba and Dr. Evazan (partly hidden) looking for a fight:

The last page (page 12) features Darth Vader. The attention to detail is wonderful. As the page is opened, Vader’s helmet begins to morph into place but just as it closes up you can see Anakin’s disfigured face within the mask. Brilliant!

Darth Vader, quadraplegic Sith Lord.

I didn’t highlight any of the smaller pop-ups, as I’ve stated above, but I need to highlight these. The Vader page has a small Luke and Vader pop-ups and the hook is that both of the lightsabers light up (batteries included). However, Luke’s lightsaber lights up with no problems:

But Vader’s lightsaber does not. When I first opened this book, Vader’s red lightsaber lights up just fine. However as I flipped through the book and then back to the Vader page, the lightsaber remained ‘off’.

Couldn’t be the batteries so it must be the wires connecting it to the batteries. Reading the reviews at Amazon I found that this problem is common. Luke’s fine but Vader’s doesn’t light up. Slightly disappointed of course but the overall awesomeness of the book makes up for the missing light.

It’s a great book to add to your Star Wars book collection although if you want to hand this to a kid, adult supervision is recommended. It’s basically a 12-page board book but the pop-ups are well-designed, complex but the folds look fragile (well, they are made of paper after all) so a boisterous Star Wars fan could in fact tear it beyond repair. Handle with care and it’ll entertain the Jedi or Sith Lord in your family for a long time.

Han Solo is like,”What the heck am I doing at the back?”

Day Two of Star Wars Week and this time a short review of probably the most hilarious Star Wars book ever. It’s a slim board book ostensibly for younger readers but really, who are we kidding, right? There are many helpful tips on how to speak Wookiee in various social situations (at the mall, at a restaurant, at the park, etc.) and there’s a handy sound module to guide on how to growl the right words. You wouldn’t want to insult a Wookiee’s mom when what you really meant was to ask for more coffee. That would be awkward.

Here’s a YouTube video of the book:

Since 25th May or the official Star Wars Day is this Friday, I thought I’d highlight some of my Star Wars books this whole week because clearly nothing says ‘NERD’ than a week of books inspired by a space opera movie franchise that debuted thirty years ago.

But not today. I’m tired so I’ll just provide some links to my old blog, Dem’s Good Readin’. The first one is the first appearance of cyborg Darth Maul. Many fans believe cyborg Maul made his debut in the Clone Wars animated series.

Not really.

Cyborg Maul first appeared in Star Wars Visionaries but since that book was non-canon I suppose the story doesn’t count.

Next, from the now defunct Star Wars Tales comic book series is ‘All Vader Needs Is Love‘.

And then there’s ‘The Apprentice‘ which is a very succinct tale on how the Sith Lords practice their Rule of Two.

Tomorrow, an actual review of a Star Wars book. At least that’s the plan.

Voted Most Likely to be Thrown Into a Chasm By His Own Pupil

Palpatine is my favourite teacher from a sci-fi movie because other than totally rocking that crimson robe, he could also fly around like a crazed monkey with herpes and shoot lightning bolts from his fingers. I bet your Maths teacher never had that ability. And he teaches his students all about secret history that the Jedis would not like you to know. Censorship is fascism, ‘Master’ Yoda!

Happy Teacher’s Day, Master Palpatine. May the Dark Side of the Force Be With You, Always.

Yet another blind buy that turned out to be a serendipitous find. Haven’t read anything by Frances Hardinge before, I picked up Twilight Robbery for two reasons. One, the synopsis at the back was simple yet intriguing (a kidnap plot but it involves “a wayward goose” which I found to be funny) and two, it was the only book in the YA fantasy section that did not have a blurb from Rick Riordan and/or Stephanie Meyer. I don’t hate either author since I haven’t nor have any intention of reading their books but I’m not really influenced by praises by other authors on book covers especially when their platitudes appear on just about every other YA book on the shelf. So Francis Hardinge received my money just because her paperback is devoid of any praises from her peers.

Anyway, the book…

Twilight Robbery is essentially a story about institutionalised segregation. The destinies of the people in the city of Toll, a city that requires payment to enter and a payment to leave (hence the city’s name) and where the protagonists Eponymous Clent and Mosca Mye find themselves trapped in, are determined by their names and the auspices of which Beloved (Zodiac-like deities) they were born under. If you are born under a Beloved that sounds a bit ‘radical’ like Palpitattle, He Who Keeps Flies out of Jams and Butter Churns, then you’re relegated to live in Toll-by-Night and officially do not exist during the day. Other than the lack of sunlight, Toll-by-Night is a place where the people are ruled by fear and want. Which Beloved name is considered radical and which is considered safe is determined by the city elders who are all conveniently qualified to live in Toll-by-Day. Eponymous and Mosca find themselves involved in city politics when the Mayor’s daughter is kidnapped and the prime suspect is a boy whose name was reclassified and could only ‘exist’ in Toll during the night. But is he really the culprit?

Twilight Robbery is the second book featuring Eponymous Clent and Mosca Mye and even though I did not read the first book, the second one is pretty much a standalone novel that I did not feel too lost while reading it. Events from the first book are referred to often which gives Twilight Robbery a nice sense of continuity but it doesn’t give the impression that you have to read it first in order to understand Twilight Robbery.

It has been compared by both fans and detractors to Pratchett’s ‘Discworld’ series of books what with the social commentaries and a world that resembles a pre-Industrial Revolution Britain. The style of writing between the two authors are also somewhat similar. Ms. Hardinge loves witticisms with tongue firmly in cheek. Take for example this sentence, “Stars were now scattered across the sky, as if the white-faced moon had grown bored waiting for something to happen and started spitting gleaming fruit pits” or this, “A couple of expressions pulled Clent’s face to and fro between them, like puppies trying to fight their way out of a bag.” Magnificent!

Twilight Robbery is a door-stopper of a book coming in at just under 600 pages. I admit that a couple of times I felt a little frustrated with a plot that seemed to be taking its time to resolve itself;  there are double crosses aplenty to the point that I didn’t know what the heck was going on, but the deft writing and well rounded characters (especially Mosca) kept my interest till the end.

I’ve never heard of Francis Hardinge before this but I’ll watch out for her books from now on.

By the way, Twilight Robbery is called Fly Trap for the US edition.