Battlefront: Twilight Company, by Alexander Freed, follows our protagonist, Namir through his adventures with Twilight Company, a ground infantry division of the Rebellion. Its mission: ground-based offensives, recruitment, and generally gumming up the works of the Imperial Machine.
The first thing that struck me about this novel was the insane number of characters thrown at you in the first few chapters of the book. One of them is not revealed to be one of the countless Star Wars alien species until 18 pages into the book. At first, I found the book a slog as the gears of the plot’s machine clicked into their proper places. The hardest thing to keep track of was just exactly where in the timeline the story takes place, as there were several seemingly unrelated flashbacks given without any context. Once the protagonist finally found himself in a situation that grounded me in one of the Original Trilogy’s standout events, I was locked into the narrative.
Having finished the book, I understand why we are introduced to so many characters and not given much context for the grander scheme right away. So many characters barely given a name were killed in small engagements, slowly narrowing down the list of key players in the end. Brilliantly, Alexander Freed decided to use the perspective of Namir, barely knowing many of the soldiers under his command, to give a better sense of the odds that Twilight Company constantly finds itself up against.
In the first few chapters of the book Namir meets an Imperial Governor, Everi Chalis, who decides to defect simply because she felt her assignment to Haidoral Prime was beneath her station. She works any angle she can to make herself useful, but mostly to survive. As the book picked up steam, I was never sure whether her allegiance was to the Empire, the Rebellion, or herself. She was a complicated character, much as Namir.
The main antagonists of the book are Prelate Verge and Tabor Seitaron, a nearly insane, hopelessly fanatical Prelate (a special title granted Verge by the Emperor himself) and a semi-retired Captain who would just like to keep his teaching position at the academy and have his tea. Tasked with tracking Chalis, Verge is so bent on pleasing the Emperor that he, much to the distaste of Tabor, inflicts torture upon his own crew for failure.
While it took me almost a quarter of the book to get oriented, the journey was well worth it. From around chapter 11 or so, the story began chugging along faster and faster until reaching an epic conclusion. While military-thrillers have never been my favorite, there was plenty for a Star Wars fan to love. Fans of the X-Wing books will no doubt love this book, as it gets into the trenches with the soldiers. I can’t recommend this book more highly.
STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT: TWILIGHT COMPANY, by Alexander Freed, Del Rey Publishing a division of Random House Publishing, LucasBooks and Disney trademarked — was released November 3rd, 2015 and is now available in: hardcover, paperback, and e-reader/kindle versions.
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