And so it begins...

Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope (novelisation)
​by George Lucas (GW: Alan Dean Foster)

It is a dark time for a galaxy far, far away. The Empire has just completed construction of the Death Star, a moon-sized weapon that can destroy entire planets, and there seems to be no hope for resistance. But the Alliance - made up of rebels and the parties supporting them - might just have a chance. All they need are the Death Star plans. Plans that are on their way to a farm on Tatooine...

I've perused many novels from this era, some of those film/screenplay novelisations, and was honestly impressed by the quality of this adaptation. Alan Dean Foster, the ghostwriter, makes it look easy, but condensing a film into 247 pages and still retaining moments of beautifully phrased scene setting takes effort and skill. There are obviously some differences and contradictions from the film - and indeed later developments - but hey, at least Chewbacca gets his medal here. I also think that the extra (AKA deleted) Tatooine scenes work really well in a novel format. In fact, they're necessary for pacing. Basically, this is as good as it gets for a 1970s film novelisation.

But it wouldn't have worked out quite so well if the story itself wasn't so compelling. I've always loved A New Hope. For some reason, I needed to see it play out over pages instead of a screen to realise how the plot was built. And it was built well.

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