The Jedi Path

Sooo I was birthday shopping and stumbled upon the book, The Jedi Path.  My mind instantly went to Pirie's article on Drama.  While I am a Star Wars nerd along with many others and was very excited to see that there is an actual guide to being a jedi out there; I also had many questions.  Since Star Wars along with lightsabers is mostly fictional, how can such a realistic guide to this story line be published?  While I was wondering if this style of writing is really realistic, it occurred to me that it is in itself published in order to make something seem more realistic.  This extension of making an object seem more real can definitely be seen when it comes to fictional societies.  

Being a huge fan of Utopian/Distopian Literature, I have found many awesome fictional societies to bury myself into throughout the years.  However, the most interesting ones are the ones who have their own printed language that is exemplified in various smaller books that link to the main one.  For example, The children's story of Dinotopia has various smaller books or additional versions that include the written language of Dinotopia.  With this printed crypt of a fictional societies language, I was able to  make my imagination more real by creating letters to friends or writing pieces of my journal in Dynotopian.  These additional versions or smaller journals that are created off of a main story is also seen in Moore's Utopia.  Many versions after the original had additional maps that allowed the reader to get a better visual of what this world is really like.  Although these worlds are fictional, I found it amazing how small additional details can make a fictional world seem even more realistic.

So I realized that I guess books like The Jedi Path are not that weird at all.  They are only created to make a fictional world seem all the more real.  Not only do they do this but they allow fore readers to continue using their imagination through reading.  While many fans of Star Wars may not like the novels, they can easily follow the world through the film as well as smaller books that relate to specific ways of this fictional world.