Minecraft Books



The Official Minecraft Books are a series of guidebooks for Minecraft, written for new and inexperienced players while being high-quality enough for collectors. The books are written by Stephanie Milton, Paul Soares Jr. (paulsoaresjr), Jordan Maron (CaptainSparklez), Nick Farwell, Matthew Needler, Phil Southamt, Alex Wiltshire and published by Scholastic. There are currently four books in the series: Minecraft: Essential Handbook, Minecraft: Redstone Handbook, Minecraft: Combat Handbook, and Minecraft: Construction Handbook. They were first released in the UK in late 2013 (Essential, Redstone) and early 2014 (Combat, Construction). An individual book that is sometimes considered as the fifth book is Minecraft Annual 2014. This book was released in late 2013. In July 2015, the Blockopedia was released, giving information about all blocks in Minecraft since 1.8.

Essential Handbook
Author(s): Stephanie Milton, Paul Soares Jr. (paulsoaresjr), Jordan Maron (CaptainSparklez) (made in conjunction with Notch and Jeb)

The Essential Handbook contains information on surviving the first few days, making shelters, crafting tools and weapons, and finding both resources and food. In July 2015 the Updated Edition of the Essential Handbook was released.

Redstone Handbook
Author(s): Nick Farwell

The Redstone Handbook contains information on redstone circuits, including basic components of redstone, simple circuits like logic gates, T flip-flops and clock circuits, larger circuits like a compact block swapper and a minecart station, and up to complex contraptions like minigames, automated farms, and full scale computers complete with memory. It also contains construction ideas to implement new knowledge. In July 2015 Updated Edition of the Redstone Handbook was released.

Combat Handbook
Author(s): Matthew Needler and Phil Southam

The Combat Handbook contains information about armor and weapons. For example, the sword durability table on Page 8 states that a diamond sword will deal 8 damage and last for 1562 successful hits. It also contains almost every mob's strengths and weaknesses plus safest combat advice, including advice for zombies, skeletons, blazes, ghasts, the wither and the ender dragon. Later in the guide in includes information on potions, traps with schematics, and enchanting tips and tricks, Lastly, it contains a information about player versus player combat, or PvP, including a pre-battle checklist on page 52 and how to make and raid bases. In July 2015 the Updated Edition of the Combat Handbook was released.

Construction Handbook
Author(s): Stephanie Milton, Paul Soares Jr.(paulsoaresjr), and Jordon Maron(CaptainSparklez) (made in conjunction with FyreUK)

The Construction Handbook contains step-by-step instructions on how to build things such as the player's first house and gardens to decorate it, fortified walls for a city, suspension bridges to cross a river in style, floating islands, pirate ships and roller-coasters. It also includes examples of FyreUK's builds and other creations in Minecraft. In July 2015 the Updated Edition of the Construction Handbook was released.

Handbooks
These books were sold at Scholastic Book Fairs in the United States of America as well as Australia, and are also available at Walmart, Barnes and Noble, and Target. These books were also sold at National Bookstore outlets in the Philippines. The four current books are the Minecraft: Essential Handbook, the Minecraft: Redstone Handbook, the Minecraft: Combat Handbook, and the Minecraft: Construction Handbook. The four handbooks are also available for purchase together in a special bundle called The Complete Handbook Collection. In July 2015, all the Handbooks were updated to include 1.8. All the Updated Editions are also available to be purchased together in a special bundle called The Complete Updated Handbook Collection. The original editions are no longer officially sold anywhere.

The Minecraft Annual 2014 was sold exclusively in the United Kingdom in late 2013 and can still be purchased from official retailers.