Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic by Alex Kane, a Boss Fight Books Review
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I just finished reading Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic by Alex Kane the 20th book in the Boss Fight Books series, and I’ve got some thoughts.
Anytime I talk about Star Wars, I feel like I have to qualify everything with the statement “I’ve never seen a Star Wars movie.” The fandom is simply so passionate, that it’s important to acknowledge my distance to the material for fear of saying something wrong or, more often in real life conversations, the person on the other end will immediately jump into discussions of lore and character arcs assuming they’re talking with someone equally passionate. So, when I have to cut them off at the fourth mention of a planet with a name that sounds like a sneeze to let them know they are mistaken, they feel, rightfully so, lied to. After all, why engage in a conversation at all about something you know little about and have no passion for?
The passionate fandom is further evidenced in Alex Kane’s book, which documents the development and reception of the BioWare game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. As I’ve stated in previous reviews, Boss Fight Books fall into two general groups: memoir/personal connection stories and documentary style histories. This one is definitely more of a documentary style, but it dabbles with personal connection. But what’s interesting here is that the personal connection comes by way not of the author, as it the case with most other Boss Fight Books that dabble in the memoir/personal connection style, but by way of the game’s development staff, who are very passionate fans of the source material.
The book’s text is, I’d estimate, 80% interview quotes, and those interviews convey BioWare’s equal measures of excitement and intimidation for getting to work on such a cultural integral IP. Most of the book is a bunch of geeks geeking out. This is the book’s strength and its weakness. By focusing entirely on staff interviews, the book doesn’t take time to fish out a narrative thru-line, which makes the overall read less interesting for people like me who have no connection to the source material. But believe me, I fully understand I’m in the minority here. Most people who read this book will be fans of Star Wars. And those fans will likely be happy for having access to the minds behind the game. 100% pure excitement is all they need. The tension and conflict of a narrative won’t matter to the fans.
This is a very quick read, coming in at just around 100 pages. And even for people like me, who don’t care about Star Wars, the read is still very much worth it as long as you are a fan of video game development behind-the-scenes fodder. I love reading about what goes on in a game development studio. The level of coordination it must take to ensure such a creative endeavor comes together on budget and on time is truly beyond my comprehension. But books like Alex Kane’s Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic get me a little bit closer to grasping that insanity.
Mentioned
- Boss Fight Books review playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLMKbK8vtuoicyVRhGfap2QIj5R5mWJioY
- Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic from Boss Fight Books: https://bossfightbooks.com/products/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic-by-alex-kane
- Alex Kane on Twitter: https://twitter.com/alexjkane
Music Credits
8bit Dungeon Level Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
