I'm not really sure how this will go over, but i've decided to make my book DROIDMAKER downloadable in its entirety, effective today. It's a long book (518 pages), and I still recommend going to Amazon and getting yourself a copy (it's how you can pay for this "shareware"), but below are links to get PDFs of the book: I've divided it into the three "acts" that makes up the saga.

Act 1: Intro plus Chapters 1-6 [1.8MB]
Act 2: Chapters 7-17 [3.7MB]
Act 3: Chapters 18-26, Index [4.3MB]

I don't know how long I can keep these links available, so get it while you can. I hope you'll enjoy it - Droidmaker is really the only work of its kind - and I hope you'll feel free to share it with like-minded Star Wars/George Lucas fans, computer graphics folks, videogamers, movie geeks, and technophiles. The reviews on Amazon have been quite wonderful (both Alvy Ray Smith AND Ben Burtt rave there) but your feedback is always welcomed.

Product Description
The inside story of George Lucas, his intensely private company, and their work to revolutionize filmmaking. In the process, they made computer history. Discover the birth of Pixar, digital video editing, videogame avitars, THX sound, and a host of other icons of the media age. Lucas played a central role in the universe of entertainment technologies we see everyday.

From the Publisher
This book ventures in territory never explored, as Rubin-a former member of the Lucasfilm Computer Division-reconstructs the events in Hollywood, in Silicon Valley, and at Lucas' private realm in Marin County, California, to track the genesis of modern media. With unprecedented access to images and key participants from Lucasfilm, Pixar and Zoetrope-from George Lucas and the executives who ran his company, to the small team of scientists who made the technological leaps, Rubin weaves a tale of friendships, a love of movies, and the incessant forward movement of technology. This is a compelling story that takes the reader into an era of technological innovation almost completely unknown.

From the Inside Flap
Money can buy a lot of privacy. But little in the film business was ever more private than George Lucas’ Computer Division, the fog-shrouded Marin county laboratory where he used his Star Wars windfall to forever change what we see on the screen, and how we see it.
Why did Lucas spend so much of his new-found wealth to reinvent filmmaking? What was he trying to do? What did he really accomplish? And why did he suddenly stop?

DROIDMAKER is an insider’s chronicle of Lucas’ uneasy role between business, technology and entertainment—with parts played by Francis Ford Coppola, Walt Disney, The Grateful Dead, Akira Kurosawa, Steven Spielberg, Michael Crichton, Stanley Kubrick, Ross Perot, Robert Moog, Steve Jobs, The Doors, Steven Soderbergh and many others. Their stories woven into a tapestry of backdrops: USC, Atari, Sun Microsystems, CBS, America Online, Amadeus, the University of Utah, Tron, Xerox, Twilight Zone, Pixar, Jurassic Park and, of course, Skywalker Ranch.

DROIDMAKER goes behind the scenes of how movies are really made. It follows Lucas and his dynamic relationship with Coppola. Explore the universe of Star Wars and how a filmmaker came to rely on computers to make tangible his imagination. The very nature of media today is in part due to Lucas’ passions. The films, products and experiences that trace their lineage to his scientists make an extraordinary list; his company’s secretive research spawned billions of dollars in new companies and gave birth to whole new industries. Only a success on the magnitude of Star Wars could eclipse what are likely Lucas’ most significant cultural contributions.

If you enjoy movies, or use computers for video, music or games, you are living in a world imagined by George Lucas from behind the walls of his hidden fortress. DROIDMAKER takes you inside those walls for the first-ever look at the secrets, the myths, and ultimately, the reality of Lucasfilm.

About the Author
Michael Rubin is a filmmaker and educator dedicated to empowering people with new media tools. He has designed film/video editing equipment, supported feature film and television projects (The Twilight Zone,The Sheltering Sky) and published a number of seminal texts on editing, including Nonlinear and The Little Digital Video Book. Rubin lives in Santa Cruz, California.