NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY BUZZFEED • A companion novel inspired by 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 … 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.
Praise for Battlefront: Twilight Company
“A novel that ties in to a video game based on a sprawling sci-fi franchise shouldn’t be this good. . . . Battlefront: Twilight Company effortlessly thrusts readers onto the frontlines of the Galactic Civil War in a gripping tale.”—New York Daily News
“Compelling . . . an entertaining journey through a galaxy in turmoil . . . Battlefront: Twilight Company explores what happens to the cannon fodder fighting and dying in the background of space opera’s cinematic action sequences. Focusing on the life of a few low-ranking Rebel grunts caught up in a vast interstellar conflict, the novel is an enjoyable tale of interstellar adventure and drama.”—IGN
“Satisfyingly complex, immersive and moving . . . a war story unlike any Star Wars book that’s come before it.”—Roqoo Depot
“A military thriller [with] some pretty impressive actions scenes [and] the lived-in, gritty feel of the original trilogy . . . [Alexander] Freed shows us the military side of the Star Wars universe in a way that we haven’t seen much before, while also giving readers new perspectives on classic characters and moments.”—Tech Times
“Twilight Company is one of the greatest Star Wars stories ever about someone doggedly, cynically coming to understand why acting according to the light side is important.”—Den of Geek
“The strongest canon piece of Star Wars literature thus far . . . sure to be a fan-pleasing favorite . . . Explosive action scenes and dark humor only punctuate this character-driven tale [with] heavy world-building and cameos from other characters throughout the Star Wars pantheon.”—Alternative Nation
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Twilight Company is a band of military soldiers comprised of men and women human and non-human from different worlds forming an alliance fighting for the Rebellion against the Empire. The book takes places before, during and after Commander Skywalker destroys the Deathstar. Twilight Company fight many battles on different planets against the Empire with Darth Vader in the lead only to be triumphant in the end but with many casualties. I really enjoyed reading this sci-fi novel.
BATTLE FRONT: TWILIGHT COMPANY by Alexander Freed is a Star Wars novel following the adventures of a team of Rebel Mobile Infantry soldiers from after the Battle of Yavin to after the Battle of Hoth. It is a darker and edgier sort of book than the usual Star Wars fair, though still fundamentally idealistic at its core. Basically, it’s a book dedicated to all those rebels gunned down on the Tantive IV and who were getting blasted in Hoth’s trenches by AT-ATs. In the steak dinner of the Rebel Alliance, they are the diced carrots on the side.
The book primarily follows the perspective of Hazram Namir. Namir comes from a primitive war-torn world where he has served in the causes of numerous warlords just shy of Immorten Joe in terms of morality. Seeing a chance to get off his planet, he signs up with the Rebel Alliance and they put him with Twilight Company. Namir is the absolute worst sort of person to work with an idealistic band of do-gooders in the fact he’s an incredibly cynical misanthrope who only works with the Rebels because they were the only game in town when he wanted to leave his planet.
Twilight Company is in the process of retreating from the Mid Rim when our story picks up. The Rebel Alliance overestimated just how badly the Empire was hurt by the Death Star’s destruction and believed the galaxy was ripe for mass uprising. Instead, after some initial successes, the Empire has struck back (tee he) and they’re in full retreat. Along the way, they pick up the locals who want to continue fighting the Empire offworld as well as capture the planetary governor that is trying to defect.
Everi Chalis is more than just the governor of a no-nothing planet that the Rebel Alliance can’t hold against the Empire’s might. She’s a former student of A New Dawn villain, Count Vidian, as well as the Empire’s former chief efficiency expert. Chalis has an immensely bloated ego about her importance to both the Empire and Rebellion but genuinely knows what makes the mag trams run on time. The Rebel Alliance is full of plucky young heroes and heroines but someone who can actually say, “yes, this is a good military target. Go blow up this thing” is more valuable than her weight in corusca stones. Mind you, she’s kind of an ex-slaver and mass murderer but even the reader forgets this in her energetic perkiness. I have her played by Reese Witherspoon in my head.
Much of the book’s entertainment value is in how entertainingly wrong Namir is about everything. He’s under the impression he’s in a gritty morally ambiguous universe where the Rebellion intends to seize power by force out of selfish ambition. He’s continually off put by the fact that even when he reaches the officers, all of them are just another layer of would be heroes. It actually makes Chalis the only person in Twilight Company who he understands as she is totally motivated by selfish ambition. Similarly, Chalis believes Darth Vader is attacking Hoth for the explicit purpose of hunting down her because she believes she’s a vital resource versus a high ranking accountant.
One of the best moments in the story is when Chalis and Namir are arguing over whether to use Twilight Company to liberate a planet where innocent people are endangered versus taking a strike against the Empire’s most important shipyards. There’s no obvious answer to which is right but their innate distrust of each other prevents them from doing both. Certainly, Twilight Company could have refurbished itself after liberating the planet and then gone to do its next mission. Neither of them are willing to budge and that makes the story all the better.
The only weakness of the book is the villains, who are incredibly one-dimensional. Prelate Verge is a character that is so immature and whiny that I literally thought he was a twelve-year-old for much of the book versus a spoiled twenty-year-old. I don’t buy that some of the Imperial Ruling Council are going to be embarrassing fops (that’s inevitable in any royal court). It’s just the guy is an imbecile and I don’t think those kind of people ever rose above the rank of emissary to a Imperial Advisor. Because at the end of the day, those guys were a dangerous bunch of schemers. Unless Verge is Palpatine’s literal son, I don’t think he’d have been tolerated. His assistant isn’t bad so much as boring, just sullenly fuming about Verge’s idiocy the entire time.
In conclusion, this is a really solid book and entertaining throughout. I also liked the canonization of female Stormtroopers with Thara Nyende. While I knew the First Order had Captain Phasma and that meant that the Empire probably did too. It’s nice to be see it canonized in print. Either way, if you’re looking to have Rebel Alliance idealism tested but triumphant then this is the book to read. It’s one of my favorite of the new canon.