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Review by Pedro, UK, 2011:
"I liked Death Star, it was well written and engaged me with the characters. There is a wide range of characters that were interesting. However the characters mostly had strange names that were hard to remember, I can understand them having names that are a bit different I’m used to that from reading other star wars novels, but these were juts to weird. AS a result of this I didn’t really know who was who. I had to wait and see what that character was doing then I would remember who they were. You might say there were too many characters and a few less might have helped me remember who they were, but I didn’t find the amount of characters bad and I felt the authors were balancing the story between them all well.
"I thought it was a bit silly how they all ended up on the Death Star, but I suppose they had to otherwise they wouldn’t fit in with the title of the novel and probably become irrelevant. It just seemed as though they all suddenly thought ‘I know I’ll go to the Death Star’. The way all of the people who we weren’t already familiar with from A New Hope (Darth Vader, Grand Moff Tarkin and Admiral Motti) and Admiral Daala suddenly became friends and started converging at the cantina in one big group also seemed a bit far fetched as well. The Death Star was massive and had other cantinas, how come no one ended up in one of the others? On top of this they were all unhappy with what was going on and we willing to become rebels?
"I read a review that stated the novel was more like a social gathering than anything else and near the end it did seem like that. For a book entitled ‘Death Star’ there wasn’t as much as I thought there would be about the actual station. We did see some of the architecture and how that worked but not enough. There was detail but this was detail about how there was a vent in the wrong place or that there were too many. Basically the detail about the construction was wrongly placed and would have been better if it had talked about how the gun had been made or something similar to this.
"Despite quite a lot of flaws the novel still kept me reading and I read it quite fast. It was written well enough that I could overlook the problems. I did enjoy how the story crossed over with events from A New Hope and told them from a different perspective. It made me want to re-watch the film and I could hear Darth Vader’s voice as he interrogated Princess Leia and Captain Antilles.
"An interesting read that doesn’t quite fulfil it’s promise but is well written and has some good characters, despite some unusual names that are hard to remember. It has very little action, which is refreshing when you look at most Star Wars novels, especially the more recent, focusing more on characterisation. Not the first book you should read when entering into the Star Wars books universe, more for hardcore fans or people looking for less action."
Rating: 3.5 / 5

Review by Bones, UK, 2010:
"Death Star is the latest collaboration between Michael Reaves and Steve Perry, both of whom have written together and solo for the EU. Here they chronicle some of the ins and outs of the construction of the iconic Death Star.
"My response to this book was two-fold. First, as a die-hard Star Wars geek, it was fascinating to learn about the history of one of the most symbolic elements of the original Star Wars film, as such an undertaking must have been massively complicated and time-consuming. A sense of this definitely comes through the book and we're introduced to several characters who contribute to the construction of the behemoth in one way or another. Getting down to a more intimate level when dealing with such a monstrosity is also interesting, and I did glean some sense of scale from the writing.
"However, this book is a first for me: 400 pages without a plot. How the two of them managed to keep up any sort of momentum is beyond me. Very little actually happens in this book, at least very little of any significance. The ending of the book left me feeling slightly cheated. I didn't really empathise particularly strongly with any of the characters, who all seemed to be a little stereo-typed. There was nothing meaty to this book and given that it is a book about a 120km wide space station, I expected more substance.
"In general, the some of the back story was very interesting but I was not particularly over-awed by this one. Only really for true blue Star Wars nerds."
Rating: 2.5 / 5

Review by Gianfranco Grillo, Chile, 2008:
"Excellent novel written by two of the best authors the EU has to offer, with an excellent characterization and a story that is able to clear most of the doubts one as a Star Wars fan has of the Death Star. Personally, I like how the authors are able to show that the Death Star was a terrible weapon, but many of the beings that were aboard were not evil beings, but were just following orders. The book provides a deeper look onto the character of Darth Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin, as well as the back stories of some of the important officers that commanded the battle station. Although a little slow at the beginning, when the story begins to develop it transforms into one of those books that are almost impossible to stop reading."
Rating: 5 / 5

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