Amazon.com (ISBN 0345395352, Paperback)

You can find countless guides to the many gadgets and gizmos in the Star Wars universe--Bill Smith's Essential Guide to Weapons and Technology, which covers everything from ship-mounted turbo-lasers to combat remotes, is just one example. But what about all the characters in Star Wars? Look, a good book about remotes is one thing. A good book about the living? That's something else.

Lucky for us, Andy Mangels has pored over all the movies and the collateral novels, comics, and computer games to put together this illustrated guide to the major and minor characters of the Star Wars universe. As would be expected, many pages are lavished on the likes of Vader and Solo, but bit players like Salacious Crumb (Jabba's cackling monkey-lizard pet) and Lobot (Cloud City's cyborg majordomo) aren't forgotten. An impressive survey in both depth and breadth, this guide fills in the gaps on some of Star Wars' most well-known personalities (who knew Luke's nickname was "Wormy"?) while revealing characters you may have never heard of (like Han and Leia's twin kids!). --Paul Hughes