Books Imperial Handbook - A Commander's Guide

I do feel that for those that are overwhelmed by Wookiepedia and want something on the go, this is a good one to have, and I actually honestly didn't know some of the stuff seen here. But considering that this only really covers a 19+ year period while the Jedi and Sith books cover millennia, I can see why some might feel it to be rather limited.

And much like the Jedi and Sith books compliment Essential Guide to The Force, the Imperial Handbook compliments the Essential Guide to Military and Warfare.

Bounty Hunter Code is honestly the one I'm getting last because I'm not all that big into Bounty Hunters, and I hear that is even more of a reference book than this one.

 

Yeah, there's not anything that really adds to the lore, unlike Jedi Path and Bounty Hunter Code. It just sort of stops at the level of recapitulating WEG organizational charts for the Army and Navy. I feel like the choice to divide it up by branches of the military really hurt it -- an organization that allowed for a further range of topics would have been better. The IU component is also especially uninspired -- all the main authors are just the people we know from the Death Star conference table, plus an anonymous stormtrooper (they couldn't at least have picked Daine Jir?). And they all have the same dull writing style, which doesn't really capture the intent of the material. It's far too open about the awful **** going down in the Empire to feel like Imperial propaganda handed out to the lowest-level officers, and when it tries to sound like propaganda it doesn't really nail it (no propaganda would ever suggest that sometimes you've just got to kill civilians, no big deal -- it would suggest that sometimes civilians die in military operations, but the Empire is blameless in intent and that all casualties you might cause are the fault of the Rebels for their illegal guerrilla revolution that puts civilians in harm's way). There just didn't feel like there was a lot of imagination to it.

 

Bounty Hunter's Code is one of the best entries! It's full of a diverse selection of fresh information, and it uses the IU conceit extremely well. It's very immersive. It and Jedi Path are the two really good iterations of the series.

 

Once I get the Bounty Hunter Code book, I'll probably pull an SF Debris and do reviews of all 4 books and give them scores relative to each other. Thinking back to my previous post, I realized that there are things I like and don't like about the three I have so far.

 

You don't support the Sith? His highness's right hand is a Sith.

 

Well, you work with the Sith Apprentice you have, not necessarily the Sith Apprentice you want...