Happy Halloween all you ghouls and guys. I know I'm probably being redundant here, but as a preamble to my big announcement today I wanna reprint this little paragraph I call the GLB (George Lucas Benediction), which I keep in a tiny little .doc file on my desktop -

'After Star Wars was released, it became apparent that my story -- however many films it took to tell -- was only one of thousands that could be told about the characters who inhabit its galaxy. But these were not stories that I was destined to tell. Instead they would spring for the imagination of other writers, inspired by the glimpse of a galaxy that Star Wars provided.'

Many of you probably know it's part of the introduction Lucas wrote to Alan Dean Foster's seminal EU novel, Splinter Of The Mind's Eye.

This has been a pretty decent year for me. I completed my first indie feature film, had a short story published over the pond, one of my novels is being looked over, and today, my very first professional bit of Star Wars writing debuts right here on Starwars.com! Cue the fanfare...I'm talking about 'Fists of Ion: Memoirs Of A Champion Shockboxer by Lobar Aybock, Chapter VII: Hard Raine.' (whew!) Nothing Galaxy-shattering my first time at bat. No Jedi, no Mandalorians or clones of Mandalorians (sorry, kids), just a little sideshow of a story set during the early years of the New Republic featuring a team of NRI agents led by Major Bren "Your-highness-the-shield-doors-must-be-closed" Derlin and a guy who's unlikely heroism is mainly in his knuckles.

It goes without saying, I love Star Wars. I'm going to risk redundancy one more time and say I have clear memories of sitting with my parents and being amazed at the strong reactions of both kids and adults to the seemingly boundless, full color adventure unfolding on the screen at the River Oaks Theater in Calumet City, Illinois (possibly in '77, more likely '79). But I suspect my abiding fondness for the GFFA started when I brought the first letterboxed VHS copies of the Original Trilogy home and watched them with my friends. I saw Dengar at Jabba's Palace way in the left hand corner of the frame and thought to myself "that guy's got a story." My friends and I started exploring those stories Lucas 'was not destined to tell' mainly through the wonderful West End Games RPG which I ran in my basement for two years. What a wealth of information those Galaxy Guide supplements had! There were some very imaginative writers doing a fantastic job of filling out the shadowy corners of fleetingly glimpsed places like Mos Eisley and Bespin, and fleshing out the lives of such celebrated one timers as BoShek and Dak Ralter. I came to realize what a vast and resonating sandbox George Lucas had created. The great thing about the Star Wars Universe is, you can take anything you're interested in, from the battle of Roark's Drift to The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, and find (or better yet, create) the Star Wars equivalent.

That's where we come to "Fists Of Ion," which is basically a boxing story in the vein of the Rocky movies, or Joe Louis vs. Max Schmeling, or Somebody Up There Likes Me. It's setting is the industrial nightmare world of Reuss VIII from my absolute favorite Galaxy Guide, #7: Fragments From The Outer Rim (no lie, this book foretold MP3 technology), where years ago I ran adventures for my buddies on Saturdays amid the cacophony of clattering dice and Coca Cola belches. It's also about shockboxing, a term that has stuck in my head for years and conjured up all sorts of images, most of which I've tried to include. It's got an indomitable, Ivan Drago-esque Barabel in it, a slimy, gutpeddling criminal syndicate, and a team of Ex-Rebels with a plan to tear the whole thing down. And yeah, there's a Gungan too. But he's cool, guys! Honest!

The greatest feeling in life is to make what you love your work. I'm extremely grateful to God and the powers that be at Lucasfilm (especially Pablo and the fabulous What's The Story feature that's responsible for me landing this job) for giving a lifelong fan a chance to do just that. Thanks too to Cat Staggs for the cool illustrations. She proves what I've suspected for some time, that the world's most talented folk are invariably Cubs fans.

So give it a read, and check out the footnotes I'm posting in a separate blog (taking a page from Abel Pena, who's been good enough to give advice to a guy coming pretty much out of the blue), and enjoy.

May The Force Be Wit' Ya!