Lit Books Skywalker: A Family at War, A new Star Wars biography - May 4 2021

To be a Skywalker is to be embroiled in conflict.

For three generations, members of the Skywalker family — whether born into the name or chosen to carry the legacy — struggled to balance their own emotions and the external strife in the galaxy far, far away. In the new book, Skywalker: A Family at War, author Kristin Baver will examine the events that unfolded in the Skywalker saga on screen as well as through books, comics, and other canonical storytelling to give a detailed account of the lives of key members of the family amid their travails and triumphs.



“I’m so thrilled to be able to tell the story of the Skywalkers through the lens of a biographer,” says Baver, the associate editor of StarWars.com. “From the outset, I knew I wanted to treat the family as if they were real people, with compassion and empathy, while simultaneously crafting an unflinching portrait of their accomplishments and their failures. These characters are larger than life yet so fragile and unmistakably human, and that comes into focus when you study how their actions impact the greater galaxy and their family.”

For the author, getting the chance to document the Skywalker saga in a new light was the culmination of a nearly life-long love for the franchise. “When I first saw Star Wars as a kid, I watched the movies over and over, always looking for something I hadn’t noticed before in the storytelling,” she says. “Essentially, I wrote the book I wish I would have had during that time, when I was hungry to know everything I could learn about these characters.”

Skywalker: A Family at War, from DK Publishing, will be released on May 4, 2021.

https://www.starwars.com/news/skywalker-a-family-at-war-announce

 

Sounds really good. Love the cover art.

 

That cover makes it look like Vader is ordering his kids into battle.

(I love it!)

 

Whoa this looks like Ryder Windham's old biographies but better (and they were awesome to begin with).

 

Some pages of the book

 

Snippets of chapter 4

 

So a biographic piece with a timeline. Hmmm, this might be interesting.

 

Much more in depth than I first thought.

 

I really love the genealogical and biographical elements of Star Wars, so I am optimistic to see all of this.

 

Amazon UK has a date of April 1 2021 for this.

 

Think we'll learn more about Shmi? Maybe her parents?

 

I wish. Personally I don’t expect a ton of new information in this; a lot of these types of reference books and biographies don’t really add new information, they just recontextualize the story we know with some biographical flavoring.

Of course, I want to be proven wrong. I’d love to know more about Shmi and/or her ancestry.

 

Oh, wow, this really is written like a biography of a real historical figure. Color me intrigued!

 

I like the idea but I would strongly prefer a thing like this to be done with original and consistent artwork. The aesthetic clash between the live action and animated screengrabs, not to mention the general "well, who would have been in a position to take a picture of that?" thing, works against that in-universe history feel.

 

I really like Kristin Baver's energy in the This Week in Star Wars Youtube show. Interested to see how this turns out.

This does seem a little too similar in general than the The Skywalker Saga book that came out a couple of years ago. That went for a different tone than a biography, but retelling the films again just feels a little bit like dipping into the well too many times.

That said you know I'll get it.

 

I like how this basically says Rey is part of the family because she's Kylo's dyad. They're related through the Force.

 

Bleh......

Being adopted into the Skywalker family is not an issue, but I dislike where the only relationship Rey truly had with a Skywalker, was with Leia Organa (for a year). It would have made more sense if she took that last name. It's also nice if the bloodline wasn't extinct, instead of someone joining a family that not longer exists. I also dislike the Dyad trying to further justify her being a skywalker.

 

I quite like the idea of someone choosing what family they belong to rather than having to stick to "bloodlines". That Rey chooses to honor the family in this way and define her own destiny if one of the best parts of TRoS.

That said, I wish they embraced this idea more fully and didn't feel the need to make her biologically a Palpatine; I think tracing her abilities to another bloodline somewhat defeats the purpose, but you could also make the argument that it does (or could have, if handled better IMO) enhance it by having Rey reject her destiny in favor of a better one.

I agree, though, that more definitely could have been done to justify Rey's sentimentality to the Skywalker name considering most of the people she interacted with in the family didn't actually carry that name. I sometimes fantasize about an alternate sequel trilogy where Rey had grown up on Tatooine instead of Jakku and loved stories about "The Skywalker". The Skywalker would be a semi-mythical hero that combines the exploits of Anakin, Luke, and Leia (maybe even some early Ben stuff) into one being. The rest of the story could play out more or less as in the films (and she learns these were separate people), but this would better set up her near reverence of the Skywalker name and her pilgrimage to the ol' homestead.

 

A DUEL CHANGES ANAKIN’S FATE IN SKYWALKER: A FAMILY AT WAR – EXCLUSIVE EXCERPT
IN THE FIRST LOOK INSIDE THE UPCOMING BIOGRAPHY, WE FIND A YOUNG BOY EMBARKING ON THE ADVENTURE OF A LIFETIME AMONG THE JEDI.

https://www.starwars.com/news/skywa...Q2zbTjgY6Ayknuh6BpSJA9a7wesqn6tDXwFq-j5ktvpQ4

 

This sounds like a coffee table big book for people who forgot what the movies were about.

This screams a lack of imagination by the creative teams, and a greedy money grab by the publisher.

pass.

 

I have to agree, sadly. My biggest gripe is that it doesn't contain even a hint of original art anywhere (not including the admittedly good front cover). It just seems to be made up of stills from the films and TV shows. I've always found reference books that merely rely on stills from the films and nothing else to be cheap and tacky.

 

This is the book grandma buys for grandson cause mom says "get him something star wars".

 

Hah!

 

There is something to be said about a familiar story told from a different point of view. Framing the story as an in-universe biography of three generations of Skywalkers, with the benefit of the entire completed saga to draw from? Feel free to sniff at it if you want but I'm quite interested in this one.