A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Cover art by Two Dots. (C) 2017 Del Rey Books and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) On April 11, 2017, Del Rey Books, an imprint of Random House, published Timothy Zahn's canonical novel, Star Wars: Thrawn, the long-awaited origin story of one of the greatest villains ever created for the space-fantasy franchise set "a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away." Grand Admiral Thrawn was originally conceived by Zahn in the early Nineties when Lucasfilm and Bantam Spectra hired the Hugo Award-winning author to reboot the moribund Star Wars Expanded Universe. Star Wars - Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. the final chapter of George Lucas's storied trilogy, was only followed by a handful of Lando Calrissian novels set before Star Wars - Episode IV: A New Hope and a lackluster Marvel Comics line that ended publication in 1986. And with the long-rumored Prequel Trilogy apparently on permanent hold, it looked as though the franchise itself was in danger of dying. The publication

Cover art by Drew Struzan. (C) 1998 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL) One of the side effects of creating a literary "expanded universe" of a popular movie or television series is the studio's licensing division coming in and saying to a diverse group of authors something like  Okay, go ahead and write novels based on our characters and situations and carry the story forward, even though what counts as the Official Story is what we show on movie screens or TV shows. We will vet almost anything so long as it doesn't seriously contradict or affect any past or future project we may have later on. Lovely idea, this, since it keeps the fans happy with new stories set in their favorite universes and gives them new insights into the offscreen lives and "further adventures" of such characters as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the captains and crews of the various starships named  Enterprise , and, of course, the heroes and villains that populate George Luc

(C) 1997 Bantam Spectra and Lucasfilm Ltd. (LFL)  A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away.... It is a period of turmoil in the galaxy. Three years after the deaths of Emperor Palpatine and Lord Darth Vader at the Battle of Endor, the recently declared New Republic is locked in a life-or-death struggle with the remnants of the evil Galactic Empire. Although Ysanne Isard, the Empire's new leader, has been forced to flee from the capital world, Coruscant, she and her sinister agents have unleashed the Krytos Virus, a bio-weapon engineered to specifically harm non-humans in a bid to divide the Rebellion by sowing fear, anger and mistrust in what she perceives to be a fragile coalition between humans and aliens. With her Super Star Destroyer and strong Imperial fleet units, Isard has made her way to the planet Thyferra and manipulated events to take control of that world and its precious supply of bacta, the "miracle fluid" used throughout the galaxy to treat var

(C) 2001 Simon & Schuster. Cover art (C) 2001 Home Box Office, Inc.  I must be honest and admit that I did not read Stephen E. Ambrose's Band of Brothers until I had read several other works by the late historian and biographer who, along with Steven Spielberg and Tom Brokaw, helped renew interest in World War II and the amazing men and women of what Brokaw calls "the Greatest Generation." In fact, it wasn't until almost 17 years ago that I bought Touchstone Books' third edition of Band of Brothers: E Company, 506th Regiment, 101st Airborne from Normandy to Hitler's Eagle's Nest, even though Ambrose's book had been around since 1992, two full years before the publication of his trailblazing D-Day, June 6, 1944: The Climactic Battle of World War II (Simon & Schuster, 1994). But after having read the latter and its follow-up, Citizen Soldiers , I had become an avid reader of Ambrose's World War II books.  Band of Brothers

(C) 1962 by Ingri and Edgar Parin D'Aulaire. Renewed 1990 by Per Ola D'Aulaire and Nils M.P. D'Aulaire.  In 1974, when I was 11 years old, my mom and I used to visit her friend Olga at a townhouse in the then-still new South Florida suburban community called Kendall. At the time, Olga was married to an Airlift Airlines pilot and World War II veteran named Joe. Joe was still flying, and Olga would often invite us to keep her and her three teen sons company while he was away.  The youngest of the boys was only three years older than I was, and because I acted a bit more mature than most kids my age, he didn't mind when his mom asked him to hang out with me while she and my mom chatted out on the patio of Olga and Joe's Kendall townhouse and drank adult beverages. To entertain me,  Mike - I think that was his name, anyway - would often show me his collection of World War II models and dioramas; most of them were Revell kits of planes such as the P-51 Mustang an

(C) 1999 Philips Music John Williams Conducts Music from the Star Wars Saga - John Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra Although John Williams has been working as a performer, composer, and conductor since the 1950s, most film score fans believe that the Golden Era of his illustrious career is marked by the eight-year period that started with the premiere of Steven Spielberg's 1975 chiller Jaws and concluded with the 1983 release of the conclusion of the Classic Star Wars trilogy, Return of the Jedi Not only did the spiritual heir to Hollywood's Studio Era galaxy of composers as Max Steiner, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, and Bernard Herrmann write the 14 compositions featured in this 1999 Philips collection of music from the Star Wars saga, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Superman: The Movie, and E.T., but Maestro Williams composed film scores for Dracula, The Fury, Jaws 2, 1941, Black Sunday, Monsignor, and Raiders of the Lost Ark, just to name a h

Over the last 31 years,  By Request: The Best of John   Williams and the Boston Pops Orchestra  has been in my music library in both cassette and compact disc formats and a favorite "listening experience." The cassette version, in fact, was one of five tapes I took with me on my 88-day study-abroad stint in Seville, Spain. I had a very cheap Walkman clone and I'd walk from my apartment to the College Consortium for International Studies' Seville Center four times a week with John Williams' music providing a  bubble  of the familiar amidst the very Spanish atmosphere of that lovely and ancient city in Andalusia. Considering how fond I became of that cassette tape (I still have it somewhere, even though it hasn't been played in over 20 years), it won't surprise anyone that  By Request  was among the first batch of compact discs that I bought after my first CD player and fledgling collection of CDs were stolen from my house. First, I bought only the