With the never ending run of new Star Wars films, TV shows, books, games, and comics, it's always been easy to fall behind. Add in work, freelance, or whatever else is going on, and the stack of reading material can really, um, stack up. I managed to make some significant headway the last few months. In a probably futile effort to dig out my office, I've added some new shelves for the ever-expanding collection of games and books. That's prompted me to look more closely at a few items that have been under a few layers of more stuff, before putting them on the shelf for the time being.
One of the items that I browsed through months ago was the Art of Star Wars The Force Awakens. I love the Art of... books, and so knowing that I would be back to look at this over and over, I didn't make a huge effort to read it in detail. I took a little more time this go around, but there is still a ton of material to look back upon for fun and inspiration. I love the ship wreckage in the water, for example.
When I originally got the book, literally my first comment was cursing that they had changed the proportions of the book in a way that made it a mismatch on the shelf compared to the previous six that it would sit next to. I didn't realize just how much until this week.
This is seriously annoying.
I mean COME ON. Granted, the format of many Star Wars books is unusual - just look at those location books off to the right - but at least the various series types usually align pretty well. However, it was one of the reasons to get it oversized, deeper bookshelf sometime ago. That said, I still haven't solved where to keep wonderfully massive The Blueprints book. It's taken up a seemingly semi-permanent spot on my oversized drafting desk, which is at least somewhat appropriate.
Actually, it's not just the new art book. The new novels can't get their act together either. While the "young adult" series has a consistent color and style to it, the rest are all over the place. They generally keep the Star Wars logo at the top of the spine, but Battlefront and The Force Awakens novelization break even that minimal formatting. Even the young adult series isn't totally immune - for some reason, the Star Wars logo is turned 90 degrees on Lost Stars since it has a wider spine, but otherwise makes no sense on the shelf with the others in the series since it is the only one that does that. And for some strange reason, Lost Stars is like a quarter inch shorter. And has white text on the spine instead of red. And I really need to stop looking at these things...
Getting back to the reading, I plowed through several weeks worth of comics and I'm still not caught up. Yet more have been released since I made it over to the comic book store. Of course, at the breakneck pace those are coming out, I'm seriously considering cutting back to the trade paperbacks for at least some series. Kanan is still my favorite of the new lines, though I've also been enjoying the various Kenobi stories, somewhat unexpectedly.
So for those expecting to read more about Nexus of Power here on the blog, the issue is...I'm waiting for my copy. It should arrive in the coming days, though. RPG game books - a medium dedicated to consistent formatting. Except Saga Edition, to a degree. And the especially the various Savage Worlds RPG editions and settings. And I'll stop now.