Like so many fans and collectors, I was thrilled to hear about Gus and Duncan's Comprehensive Guide to Star Wars Collectibles. While I will admit, I have often times found their website difficult to navigate, the thought of having a book with all the information in my lap was rather appealing.
That was until I got the book.
For starters, the book is way too big. Rather than be one giant tome of 900+ pages, it would have been a lot easier to read the book had it been broken up into at least two or three volumes. This also would have allowed for a much larger print in the text.
The pictures themselves (while many), were rather disappointing. Between being blury and uncropped, it looked more like a students essay than a professionally done price guide.
The actual conent is cumbersome, and often times difficult to track down what you're looking for. It would have been easier had the information been broken down a little simpler as opposed to three intermixed catagories. For example, the video section is broken down by format, then once again broken down by Country, then again broken down by actual movie.
It didn't help that things were all grouped together regardless of what they were. For example, action figure posters were mixed with movie posters as opposed to being in their own catagory.
I've also noticed that several sections are incomplete. While I understand that amassing a book dedicated soley to Star Wars merchandise is not an easy task, it was still disappoint that for the price, several sections were lacking particular items.
I'm sure many collectors will find this book a great wealth of knowledge. For me, it just doesn't work. While I admit, it's far greater than I could personally do, again, for the price, it just wasn't what I was expecting. Perhaps like The Phantom Menace itself, the book just couldn't live up to all the expectation of the hype surrounding it.
