Alexander Freed’s first novel is an entertaining journey through a galaxy in turmoil.
By Jared Petty
While Star Wars films provide audiences with no shortage of epic space battles, lightsaber duels, and strike team raids on shield generators, the movie canon rarely pays much attention to the life of the rank-and-file soldier. Battlefront: Twilight Company explores what happens to the canon 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.
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Twilight Company succeeds best whenever it’s following protagonist Sergeant Namir on his transformative odyssey from journeyman mercenary to rebel leader. Jaded by a life of warfare serving a variety of masters, Namir is understandably cynical. Thankfully, author Alexander Freed chooses to imbue his doubtful hero with a redeeming trustworthiness and straightforward decency that counteracts his dourness. Namir feels genuine and three dimensional without sinking into the kind of self-indulgent malaise that might have sapped the soul from an entertaining adventure yarn.
Sharing the spotlight with Namir is Everi Chalis, a former Imperial governor-turned-defector whose insight into Imperial logistics offers Twilight a chance at changing the course of the galactic civil war. Her character is by necessity more mysterious than Namir, and the novel works to keep us guessing which side of the war she’s truly on. Her alternately adversarial and cooperative interactions with Namir provide much of the story’s strongest content.
Less interesting than the protagonists are Twilight’s villains, a pair of mismatched Imperial dignitaries tasked with hunting down Chalis before she can tell the Rebels everything she knows. The pedantic Prelate Verge and the tired old Captain Tabor Seitaron might have made an interesting set of foils, but their screen time is very limited and we don’t get much of a chance to empathize with either of them. Occasionally, Twilight Company also cuts away to a parallel tale involving SP-475, an Imperial stormtrooper stationed on Sullust. SP-475’s chapters are interesting enough on their own, but when her story thread inevitably intersects with the main Twilight narrative, the results are disappointing. Rounding out the roster is a cast of adequate supporting characters from the 61st Mobile Infantry. None of these Twilight companions particularly stands out, but the Namir-centric story doesn’t demand much of them.
Twilight Company succeeds best whenever it’s following protagonist Sergeant Namir on his transformative odyssey from journeyman mercenary to rebel leader.
We also get a couple of cameos from mainline Star Wars characters like Nien Nunb and Darth Vader, as well as a brief-but-enjoyable Echo Base sequence with a freighter pilot who may or may not be Han Solo. The brief, delightfully-constructed encounter between the Sergeant and the freighter captain is probably my favorite scene in the novel, a marvelous little nugget of storytelling that comes off feeling like a natural and necessary part of Namir’s development rather than a pandering piece of fan service.
The set pieces episodes are nicely orchestrated and drip with properly-adventuresome flavor. Over the course of slightly-less than four hundred pages we take part in space battles, ship-to-ship boarding actions, ground combat on Hoth, several planetary invasions, and a final climactic siege. These mission sequences are where Twilight really shines, and Freed does an admirable job of giving us a grunt’s-eye view of personal combat in the Star Wars galaxy. His orchestrations of battle feel appropriately local, with most of his attention given to the immediate survival concerns of particular individuals and squads rather than the broader tactical situation. The result feels honest and compelling. Freed’s depictions of shipboard life are likewise appropriately mundane and imaginatively detailed, providing just enough of an interlude between engagements to give readers a taste of the tedium and psychological malaise that is an inevitable part of army life.
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The plot falls apart a bit in the final act as a couple of key characters make some very strange choices with tremendous consequences that seem somewhat out of character and half-baked. Chalis’ story in particular struggles to find a satisfying resolution, and Sergeant Namir’s catharsis plays out in some questionable strategic decision making. Still, the action keeps moving and Namir keeps learning, and that’s what we’re really here for.
Battlefront’s novelization is a well-orchestrated and compelling first effort by author Alexander Freed. Twilight Company is a solid adventure novel with a likable main character and enough action, twists, and turns to keep you engaged for the duration. Its focus on action and exciting set-pieces helps counterbalance a relatively weak roster of antagonists and less interesting supporting cast.
