By Ryder Wyndham, Chris Reiff and Chris Trevas

DK, out now

All you ever need to know about the Alliance and Resistance ships…

With The Rise of Skywalker now just hours away, what better time to indulge in some Star Wars technical spin-offery? There’s lots released in the run-up to the ninth Star Wars saga tale – including Resistance Reborn, the novel bridging the gap between The Last Jedi and this, and Cavan Scott’s script book of his Dooku audioplay, both of which are highly recommended.

This DK manual isn’t simply the standard description of the ships involved, along with technical specs and visual breakdown – this is a history of the Star Wars universe in the period of the nine films as told through those ships. There are extracts from memos from Leia Organa in the early days right up to reports to her in the latter part of her life, portions from official histories and much more. All of it’s canonical – there’s material here that references the various different Star Wars iterations in its Disney days – and it makes for a much more fascinating read than you might expect.

Verdict: I doubt there’s a hidden clue as to some part of The Rise of Skywalker in here – but it’s well worth reading from cover to cover to find out. 9/10

Paul Simpson