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lazypadawanRecently, some fan sites plugged a book called Collect All 21: Memoirs Of A Star Wars Geek by John Booth, which piqued my curiosity. After some issues with Amazon shipping my copy to Indiana, then ending up with two copies within a day of each other, I plowed through it in a couple of days.
It's one of those amateur press self-published jobbies you can do on the internet now and it's basically the author's collection of short essays on his favorite SW-fueled memories. In between essays are short tidbits labeled "Proof Of Purchase." Booth is around my age and the book is especially amusing for those of us who were small fry when ANH came out. Growing up in a time long before the internet and when you bought action figures to play with them, not to have them hermetically sealed, there was a purity and innocence to our SW obsession. This book captures that time very, very well. For instance, rumor control was non-existent, so people came up with cockamamie stories about SW all of the time. Booth recounts a buddy of his claiming there was a Darth Vader funhouse at a mall somewhere, and he mentions a playground rumor that there were already 12 SW movies in existence, and they were showing at some theater in Kansas City. He recalls the days when a SW costume consisted of a bathrobe and a flashlight. Before little boys knew anything about fan fiction or fan films, he and his pals were cranking out their own stories and ideas for their own homemade movies. I was laughing out loud quite a bit because while I had only a few "Star Wars guys" (as he calls his action figures) myself, I remember those halcyon days quite vividly.
Like most of us from that first generation of SW geekdom, SW went underground during Booth's adolescence but it wasn't forgotten. He chronicles his father's failing health and a rotten relationship coinciding with the beginning of the 1990s SW renaissance, then his excitement at taking hours to download the first SW Special Edition trailer. Booth even paid money to see Space Jam then went auditorium-hopping like I did back in '96 to watch the trailer several times. Hee hee. Then it rolls into the prequel era, where Booth's attitude is "well, at least it was fun getting excited about them and taking my kid to see them." No outright bashing but the obligatory grumbling about perceived flaws. There were some fun stories about Celebrations II and III. This is the thinnest portion of the book and his heart isn't quite as in it as much.
The book isn't always cohesive and there were times where I felt he could have filled things in a little more, but he may have his reasons for not going into a lot of details. It's definitely the first of its kind; I don't know of any other fans who have recounted lives in SW this way.
If you recall what it was like when every kid in your class had a transfer patch SW t-shirt and the joy of finding Kenner SW toys under the ol' Christmas tree or you remember those arguments over whether Vader really was Luke's dad, then you will definitely find "Collect All 21" a hoot. Even if you're a younger fan, you might find insights into childhood in the late '70s-early '80s interesting.
The book is available on Amazon and on Lulu.com (www.lulu.com/content/2895347).
It's one of those amateur press self-published jobbies you can do on the internet now and it's basically the author's collection of short essays on his favorite SW-fueled memories. In between essays are short tidbits labeled "Proof Of Purchase." Booth is around my age and the book is especially amusing for those of us who were small fry when ANH came out. Growing up in a time long before the internet and when you bought action figures to play with them, not to have them hermetically sealed, there was a purity and innocence to our SW obsession. This book captures that time very, very well. For instance, rumor control was non-existent, so people came up with cockamamie stories about SW all of the time. Booth recounts a buddy of his claiming there was a Darth Vader funhouse at a mall somewhere, and he mentions a playground rumor that there were already 12 SW movies in existence, and they were showing at some theater in Kansas City. He recalls the days when a SW costume consisted of a bathrobe and a flashlight. Before little boys knew anything about fan fiction or fan films, he and his pals were cranking out their own stories and ideas for their own homemade movies. I was laughing out loud quite a bit because while I had only a few "Star Wars guys" (as he calls his action figures) myself, I remember those halcyon days quite vividly.
Like most of us from that first generation of SW geekdom, SW went underground during Booth's adolescence but it wasn't forgotten. He chronicles his father's failing health and a rotten relationship coinciding with the beginning of the 1990s SW renaissance, then his excitement at taking hours to download the first SW Special Edition trailer. Booth even paid money to see Space Jam then went auditorium-hopping like I did back in '96 to watch the trailer several times. Hee hee. Then it rolls into the prequel era, where Booth's attitude is "well, at least it was fun getting excited about them and taking my kid to see them." No outright bashing but the obligatory grumbling about perceived flaws. There were some fun stories about Celebrations II and III. This is the thinnest portion of the book and his heart isn't quite as in it as much.
The book isn't always cohesive and there were times where I felt he could have filled things in a little more, but he may have his reasons for not going into a lot of details. It's definitely the first of its kind; I don't know of any other fans who have recounted lives in SW this way.
If you recall what it was like when every kid in your class had a transfer patch SW t-shirt and the joy of finding Kenner SW toys under the ol' Christmas tree or you remember those arguments over whether Vader really was Luke's dad, then you will definitely find "Collect All 21" a hoot. Even if you're a younger fan, you might find insights into childhood in the late '70s-early '80s interesting.
The book is available on Amazon and on Lulu.com (www.lulu.com/content/2895347).
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Thanks for reading!
Date: 2009-07-01 11:29 pm (UTC)Thanks again -
John
Re: Thanks for reading!
Date: 2009-07-07 03:11 am (UTC)