REVIEW: Star Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alexander Freed

Star Wars Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alexander Freed
Publishing information: Hardback;
Publisher: Lucasbooks; 3 Nov 2015
ISBN: 0345511212
Series: Takes place between Episode IV and V
Copy: Out of pocket
Reviewer: Tyson

Amazon:

Synopsis: "A companion novel inspired by the hotly anticipated videogame Star Wars: Battlefront, this action-packed adventure follows a squad of soldiers caught in the trenches of the ultimate galactic war between good and evil.

The bravest soldiers. The toughest warriors. The ultimate survivors.

Among the stars and across the vast expanses of space, the Galactic Civil War rages. On the battlefields of multiple worlds in the Mid Rim, legions of ruthless stormtroopers—bent on crushing resistance to the Empire wherever it arises—are waging close and brutal combat against an armada of freedom fighters. In the streets and alleys of ravaged cities, the front-line forces of the Rebel Alliance are taking the fight to the enemy, pushing deeper into Imperial territory and grappling with the savage flesh-and-blood realities of war on the ground.

Leading the charge are the soldiers—men and women, human and nonhuman—of the Sixty-First Mobile Infantry, better known as Twilight Company. Hard-bitten, war-weary, and ferociously loyal to one another, the members of this renegade outfit doggedly survive where others perish, and defiance is their most powerful weapon against the deadliest odds. When orders come down for the rebels to fall back in the face of superior opposition numbers and firepower, Twilight reluctantly complies. Then an unlikely ally radically changes the strategic equation—and gives the Alliance’s hardest-fighting warriors a crucial chance to turn retreat into resurgence.

Orders or not, alone and outgunned but unbowed, Twilight Company locks, loads, and prepares to make its boldest maneuver—trading down-and-dirty battle in the trenches for a game-changing strike at the ultimate target: the very heart of the Empire’s military machine."

With Star Wars Episode VII just around the corner I have been trying to catch up on all of the official canon novels. Twilight Company was offered as an autographed copy through Barnes and Noble and so I took them up on their offer and picked it up.

Twilight Company tells the story of a Rebel unit that takes on some of the most difficult of assignments. Assignments that tend to lead to massive casualties as they either take from the Empire or hold the Empire back in order for other Rebel forces to make their escape. The well-known heroes from the films are brought up but almost to mythical proportions.  Leia is said to be one of the leaders in the Alliance and Luke is only referred to as the golden boy who destroyed the Death Star. That is all that is said, although Han does make a cameo but is never officially named only as an unknown person who gives advice to the central character, Hazram Namir.

Namir was a gang member on an Outer-Rim planet. He does various jobs for the major gangs of the planet and finally is recruited into the Rebel Alliance. Since his background has given him an advantage in learning to survive, he has been in nearly every confrontation the 61st  Mobile Infantry has been involved in. As the unit's various deployments take him and his friends all over the galaxy, he finds himself in a de facto leadership role. He is no-nonsense with those that serve under him but is full of self-doubt when it comes to leading them. It is only his experiences that have seen him survive countless encounters with the Empire.

While Battlefront is a video game tie-in, it is a decent novel. It is hard to find a Star Wars book that doesn't feature one, if not all of the main characters we have grown to love but here you will find a book chalk full of no-named characters that have an impact on the events that take place in the films (and other books). Battlefront is not your typical Star Wars novel as it gives us a frontline look at what it is to be a grunt on the battlefield fighting for freedom against the Empire. For that reason alone it is worth checking out.

Overall 8/10