Lit 1979 SW Storybooks: Maverick Moon; Wookie Storybook; Mystery of the Rebellious Robot

I'm indulging in some late '70's SW nostalgia, and remembered the '79 SW storybooks that came out during that time: The Maverick Moon; The Wookie Storybook; and The Mystery of the Rebellious Robot.

I had TMM book, but never got the other two (though I read The Wookie Storybook much later). These were very early SW EU, and took place either after ANH (TMM & MOTRB) or prior to ANH (TWS). I remember these as being traditional storybooks, with great illustrations. Here are some links:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Maverick_Moon

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Wookiee_Storybook

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Rebellious_Robot

TWS is probably the most well-known of the three, given that it depicted Han & Chewie's first meeting, went into detail about Kasshyyk (Chewie's home planet), introduced Chewie's family, etc.

It would be great if a book publisher would reprint all three of this in one HC (or PB) book. I'd like to see own all of these, and have 0 interest in tracking down older dog-eared copies. Sure, I know I could get them all for good prices (they don't seem to be that expensive on the secondary market), but I would like new edition(s).

 

Hey! I had The Maverick Moon as a kid!

 

I've been binging on obscure Star Wars sources recently. I bought the Wild Space omnibus, and the more recent omnibus collecting the old newspaper strips, found a Youtube channel that has all of Droids and Ewoks in good quality, and even took the plunge and watched the Holiday Special!

Anyone know if any clips of the Ewoks Ice Capades show survive? I think that might be the single most remote installment in the entire oeuvre.

 

I actually came very close to starting a thread about the Wookiee Storybook not too long ago. There's a lot of weird, fun early lore in there - things like the lower levels of Kashyyyk being called the "Nother World" (a name I actually quite like), the Millennium Falcon having a number of "explorer craft," some surprisingly specific details about how Han rescued Chewie from slavery, and the fact that adult Wookiees can communicate with each other telepathically! Chewie's 200th birthday is referred to as his "bicentennial," complete with a not-even-close-to-subtle reference to the then-recent United States bicentennial celebrations, and there is an oddly prophetic illustration showing yellow-skinned reptilian aliens selling Wookiees into slavery (many years before WEG's Galaxy Guide 3 established the role of Trandoshans in the Wookiee slave trade). It's a fun little book that I would have devoured as a kid had I owned a copy.

 

Yes, The Wookie Storybook is definitely the best of these three, and IIRC it's the longest as well. The fact that it focuses on Chewie's past & family on Kashyyk is fantastic, given that there was not much EU out there that did this - even long after TWS came out (other than a story in the SW newspaper strips). The art in TWS was amazing, and was the best artwork in all three of these books. Ironically, even though I was a huge SW fan when this book came out, I didn't read it until the '90's - after I found it in a local library. I've never owned a copy myself, however.

 

Fun thing about those books is how they were revisited later. The Wookiee Storybook was referenced in the Black Fleet Crisis books (with a perfect-pitch note that the story had grown in the telling), and Dan Wallace and I got to bring back the Planetary Pioneers in the Essential Atlas. OK, I don't remember much about the Rebellious Robot being revisited, but two out of three ain't bad.

 

I learned recently that Kube-McDowell requested permission to ignore the existence of Malla, Itchy, and Lumpy for Tyrant's Test, but was told he had to use them. He wanted to make Chewie a polygamist, of all things.

 

Well I mean, he might be a polyamorist with both a wife and a girlfriend now, depending how literally we want to take Maz's words.

 

Chewie's family are also interesting in a meta sense because they prove people were keeping track of continuity even in the old, pre-Heir days of the EU. The same characters appeared in the Holiday Special, the storybook, and the Marvel comics.

 

Wonder how good these would be to read to kids at my after school program where I work...

 

Oh man! I'd like to have those re-released again.

 

Whaaaat.

 

Spoiler

 

Well........ummm......that happened