We wanted to write the first prequels as a story that anyone could pick up.

I did several interesting jobs, working in restaurants, I worked at a lab rat farm, feeding and watering all these rats. Then I got a full-time job as a technical writer for a large scientific research laboratory.

Well, I know that George Lucas doesn't like it at all. When I was working on The Illustrated Star Wars Universe, he told me that he would be happy if every copy could be tracked down and smashed.

There will come a time of fire and night, when enemies rise and empires fall, when the stars themselves begin to die.

I always turn in my books on time, so you can always count on a book coming out when it's supposed to.

We sat around on a hotel balcony with a bottle of wine and tried to figure out how you would go about blowing up a planet. That's the kind of conversations science fiction writers have when they get together. We don't talk about football or anything like that.

My wife and I are involved in writing/publishing/promotion twenty-four/seven. It isn't a day job; it's life.