Star Wars: Attack of the Clones Incredible Cross-Sections

The Attack of the Clones: Incredible Cross Sections, or AOTC:ICS, is the third installment of DK's "definitive" Star Wars Incredible Cross Sections series. It is written by Dr. Curtis John Saxton and illustrated by Hans Jenssen and Richard Chasemore.

The Incredible Cross Sections (generally known as ICS) are a series of Illustrated Books that, as their name implies, provide a series of cross sections of various vehicles and ships. The Star Wars ICS show cross sections of vehicles and ships that appeared in the Star Wars films. Descriptive text is also provided, both of the vessel and related trivia.

It targets grades 4 to 8 according to the Library Journal, a respected source of rating and evaluation of play books for youngsters as well as serious publications for adults. The Library Journal praised Attack of the Clones: Incredible Cross Sections.

Unique to all the ICS series, the AOTC: ICS features detailed statistics in SI units on the represented vehicles. Common statistics include "maximum accelerations", measured in G's, shield dissipation rates and maximum power generation in Watts, as well as weapons yield, sometimes measured in tons of TNT.

Much to the disappointment of fans, the next book in the series, the Revenge of the Sith: Incredible Cross Sections did not include as detailed or as explicit statistics.

Contents
The book is 32 pages long, and covers a range of topics and ships of various sizes:
 * Technology
 * Naboo Cruiser
 * Zam's Airspeeder
 * Jedi Starfighter
 * Slave I
 * Owen Lars' Swoop bike
 * Padmé's Starship
 * Trade Federation Core Ship
 * Geonosian starfighter
 * Republic Assault Ship
 * Republic Gunship
 * AT-TE
 * Solar sailer

Criticisms
The most common criticism of the AOTC:ICS is the enormity of the figures, which at a glance exceed observations on screen. Supporters of the book have worked to show that the two can be reconciled, and argue that the existing evidence (e.g. calorimetry of vaporised asteroids) actually requires such high power levels to be available for Star Wars vessels.

The second most common criticism is its proposed mechanism for turbolasers, most of all the statement that the damaging portion of the weapon moves at lightspeed and is invisible. Supporters argue that sublight theories of turbolasers (like plasma) have their own problems, and rationalize the apparent inconsistency.

The book also sparked a new light in the Star Trek versus Star Wars debate.