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:: An ongoing episodic story of fan-fic set after Episode VI Return of the Jedi, and inspired by George Lucas' historical draft concepts ::
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New John Williams / Star Wars book for August 2026
31st July 2026 |
The John Williams fan site jwfan.com revealed that a new critical book examining John Williams' work on the nine Star Wars movie scores will be released at the end of August 2026 !
The site outlines that the tome will "consider all nine of John Williams’s monumental Star Wars scores ; will combine rigorous analysis with accessible prose and bountiful musical examples ; and will examine the Star Wars scores as examples of consummate dramatic film scoring and as works of genuinely symphonic scope and depth".
The site then offered the following insight into the author and his approach.
The author Frank Lehman is Associate Professor of Music at Tufts University ; he is the author of 'Hollywood Harmony' (2018) and editor of 'Film Music Analysis' (2024) as well as the forthcoming 'Cambridge Companion to John Williams'. Lehman explores the totality of Williams’s Star Wars musical universe, an orchestral epic that spans nine movies and over four decades of cinematic history. Drawing on his unparalleled knowledge of the series’ soundscape, Lehman argues for hearing the saga as a fundamentally symphonic experience, one where close attention to the soundtrack is rewarding, even essential. Engaging and accessible for casual fans, yet supported by rigorous research methods and critical perspectives, The Skywalker Symphonies lends Williams’s magnum opus the seriousness it deserves.
This sounds really fascinating and a rare critical and structural insight into John Williams' mastery ! I look forward to getting a copy if I can....
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| As I did with the progression of the Virtual Edition Episode X, I will post below sections of the prose for Episode XI as I draft it.... here, with Han and Chewie valiantly exfiltrating the Imperial Scientist, Professor Floydwood, Leia utilises her special powers to provide her own kind of defence....
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Not too far away in the centre of the yard, stood the first image of Leia, her sword spinning a dynamic disc. Her left hand released its grip on the sword handle, and a second sword flipped from her belt to her open palm. A green blade extended her arm’s reach, and now her arms were like a windmill, the swords acting both independently and in unison, but with skill and deadly precision.
A heavy thump behind her heralded the metallic arrival of a Droidai. The tall bipedal robot had used its electro-magnetic repulsors to leap over a cohort of stormtroopers, with the intention to surprise the Jedi foe from behind. Like the other droidai, it was skeletal in appearance, presenting a flat ovoid head with three red dots, and with four spindly arms, two of which ended in a T-shape and a nozzle, and two others were clawed.
Sensing as well as hearing its approach, Leia pivoted, and scissored her two blades at its head. With reflexes akin to its Jedi opponent, the droidai tilted back, brought up its right arm with its now-spinning T-shaped appendage, and activated the three shoto blades, a scarlet energy disc forming a shield from which the Jedi blades were deflected above. At the same time, it raised its left arm that ended in a nozzle, a whump sounded, and an electro-magnetic pulse blasted out at the Jedi.
The brunt of the magnetic force hit Leia, but she simply turned sideways to it and swayed a little. The stormtroopers arrayed close behind her were not so well protected, and they were thrown to the ground. The remaining troopers in the immediate circle backed off to let the robot take control.
The droidai retracted its right arm, a red glow shimmered down its arm, and a scarlet pulse of energy shot out from the central shoto dagger. Leia swiftly circled her left sword and parried the blast, and then brought her right sword around to strike again at the droid’s neck. Her left sword continued around to provide cover to her back, and deflect a stray laser bolt.
A faint web of blue shielding energy could be seen across the droid’s skeletal frame. Leia skilfully paused her right sword as it lined up on the neck, de-activated her weapon, Force-threw her sword hilt towards the neck just above the protective chest plates and within its shielding, and re-activated the blue blade just as the handle jammed up against the spine.
The droidai shuddered as the energy and the incision from the lightsabre caused havoc against its central wiring system. It wasn’t destroyed, though it was severely damaged. And with a single purpose aim of destroying all Jedi, it would endeavour to perform its ultimate command to the final function.
A small one-man Recon AT-AT had moved in from the perimeter and stepped closer to the shuttle-bus. Its pilot was now in firing range of the speeder bike and the fugitives.
Floydwood reached the bike and hooked his leg over the second seat, and then shuffled on top.
“Hold on tight !” yelled Han.
As Han leaned in on the accelerator lever on the handle bars, a fusillade of fire from the Recon smashed into the ground next to the bike, clipping the engine cowling of the speeder, and the ride swerved sharply as it began to pull away. The Professor, clinging to the low passenger handle, was thrown to the side, and a lucky shot from a nearby trooper smashed into his right shoulder. Floydwood cried out in pain, and clutched at his shoulder with his left hand. The bike, sparking and smoking from the right hand engine cowl, and growling in protest, accelerated towards the descending spinning Falcon. Han could see its boarding ramp and its aft loading lifter dropping in unison.
The second Leia immediately trans-located to stand beside the legs of the ATAT-Recon, and swiped her blue sword through the nearest support. The Recon lurched to one side and fell.
The third Leia, who had been adjacent to the bike, turned and batted a laser bolt back at the stormtrooper who had scored the lucky hit. The soldier spun and fell to the ground. More stormtroopers stepped forward, their guns spraying crimson fire towards Leia, who effortlessly parried the blasts away.
In the centre of the yard where the first Leia was fighting with the droidai, the robot took an unsteady step forward, and raised its lower left arm. The left claw hand lifted, and a short dagger slid out from under its wrist joint. The primary right arm with the T-shaped baton sporting the crimson disc and shoto dagger was erratically stabbing forward, while the secondary right arm with a claw was snatching towards the Jedi.
Leia brought her left hand up, sword now briefly de-activated, and sent the hilt into the neck space on the opposing side with a jab of the Force. The green blade flashed on once more, and met its blue counter-part.
Then Leia disappeared.
And the ghost of her re-appeared inside the frame of the droid !
The two lightsabre hilts remained floating next to the neck of the robot, their blades criss-crossed through the neck.
Even though Leia was much shorter than the towering droid, her apparition would not have been affected by the lightsabre blades.
Leia thrust her arms outward, and the chest and back plates of the droidai burst out in kind. Leia creased her face in exertion and pushed out once more... and the slender metal spine bulged and split and tore. Nano-wires and electricity erupted.
The three red eyes winked out, and the robot crumpled to the ground, leaving the faint ghost of Leia in its place. The startled stormtroopers surrounding them pulled themselves together and re-focused. They blasted gunfire towards the faint image of Leia.... only for them to belatedly realise that they were in their own crossfire ! The troopers tumbled to the ground, and Leia faded away.
Chewie was now making a bee-line for his beloved freighter. It was raining Imperial laserfire all about him, and he was valiantly batting away any laser bolts that zipped by too closely. He was aware of Han’s bike racing in from across the plaza adjacent to him, both targeting the relative safety of the Falcon. As the Wookiee reached the ship, he saw that it had just stopped spinning, and it’s height from the ground was allowing the ramp and the lifter to just kiss the tarmac, in effect the equivalent of the five landing struts. He decelerated as he reached the passenger ramp, and swerved to a hard stop. He leapt off the bike, swapped the sword hilt to his left paw, and spun a protective shield with his green blade. Explosions flared all around him as the troopers’ gunfire smashed into the ship’s ventral deflector shields. He ducked, grabbed the nearest hydraulic strut with his right paw, and used it to swing leaping on to the ramp. A lucky laser bolt smashed into the back of his left leg, and he tumbled down onto the ramp.
Han had also now reached the aft load lifter. Floydwood was slumped against Han’s back, his left hand still clutching his shoulder, his right hand a white knuckle grip on the low handle between the padded seats.
The third Leia materialised beside her husband, her blue sword already flashing back and forth deflecting enemy fire.
Han slipped off the bike and turned and grabbed the Professor as he teetered. He manhandled him on to the lifter platform, dived on himself, and slapped the controls. The hydraulics whined and the lift rose. On the starboard side, the boarding ramp with Chewie slumped on it, activated by Leia inside the ship, also rose.
The third Leia stepped back and forth extending her defensive cover of her husband and the Professor.
There came a loud rumble as the anti-grav thrusters kicked in, and the Falcon, still with its shuttle appendage, rose quickly into the sky.
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| Nathaniel Reed, 31st July 2026 |
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