Alack! An excellent book series to
You cometh anon! Fear not, ‘twill be grand.
While perhaps my verse in iambic pentameter is not necessarily worthy of an entire series of books, the same cannot be said for this excellent series, Shakespeare’s Star Wars, written by Ian Doescher. He has written each episode of the Star Wars series up to the seventh published in October 2017. All have been re-written in Shakespearean iambic pentameter.
While this may not appeal to the typical Star Wars fan—or will it?—it appealed to me. I always enjoyed Shakespeare and these delightful versions allow you to relive the well-loved movies while dusting off your Shakespearean vocabulary. My daughter and I went to a local ComicCon last summer and she won the above poster of BB-8 in a jaunty hat and many other intriguing images. I hadn’t even heard about the series but when the book The Force Doth Awaken: Star Wars Part the Seventh finally came out, we bought it for my cousin Ben who is the biggest Star Wars nerd I know. Before we wrapped it, I read a few parts (Rey! Kylo Ren! Their duel in the woods!) and I absolutely didn’t want to give it away! My daughter bought me William Shakespeare’s The Jedi Doth Return for Christmas, and I just read it this week.
Now my plan is to read them all. I hope to convince my rising-high-school-freshman son who doesn’t seem to like reading so much that a) he would enjoy reading the Star Wars stories he knows so well in this format and b) reading these books about Star Wars would help him when the inevitable day comes that he will be reading Shakespeare in English class. The jury is still out, but once all the books we own, progress we will make.
After all, Star Wars themes borrow from Shakespeare like many great works of entertainment. This is one of the many reason the plays are timeless. In each episode of these books you’ll find the well-loved humor, intrigue, and derring-do building to an exciting crescendo, taking you into 16th-century-dialog life in Space. It’s brilliant, and I highly recommend it to those who like their Star Wars with some wit, verily.
bylisatully 
Those books look absolutely awesome! Another one I want to check out is the Darth Vader as a Dad series that look like middle-grade readers featuring what it would be like for Luke and Leia to have been brought up by Vader, complete with pictures.
I think I have seen those around the library. Also (and I think this is a different set of books) the Jedi Academy book series for a younger audience. Some very clever stuff out there expanding ways for us to consume things we love!
Noting all of this down for future reference. I do have budding readers here.
I just got my copy of the first one – Star Wars! Can’t wait to read it. It’s like the perfect combination of things I love. 🙂 Great post!
Wow that was fast! 🙂 I found that it was a surprisingly quick read. I dare say I plan to buy the entire series. Enjoy. Do let me know what you thought!