Matthew Ruddle, marketing manager for Penguin Random House UK, dropped a few news bits on the livestream Sunday morning. Most notable is that Alexander Freed (Battlefront: Twilight Company) is writing the Rogue One novelization.
He also revealed that Timothy Zahn’s Thrawn novel will be a prequel to his appearance on Rebels. “You’re going to get to see how Thrawn got to his position of power, how he became so respected in the Empire, and just what makes him such a brilliant villain and tactician,” Ruddle said.
Alas, he couldn’t share even that much detail on James Luceno’s Catalyst, which was also announced yesterday. “If you’re going to be watching Rogue One, you need to read Catalyst,” Ruddle said. “It ties in, it connects dots.”
Tuesday brings Alexander Freed’s Battlefront: Twilight Company in paperback. Back when the hardcover came out, James called it “a good, solid novel for the military sci-fi reader” in his review. The paperback also contains the short story ‘Inbrief’ by Janine K. Spendlove, which originally appeared in the Star Wars Insider.
Comic fans have Darth Vader #22 to look forward to on Wednesday.
On sale today, Battlefront: Twilight Company is a good, solid novel for the military sci-fi reader. The world of Star Wars is no stranger to video game tie-in fiction, and has done so quite well with the X-Wing series and Republic Commando series, both now Legends. First time novelist Alexander Freed hits the mark by pulling the reader in for a trip with the men and women of Twilight Company, formally the Sixty-First Mobile Infantry, one of the Rebel Alliance’s toughest units, during the original trilogy era.
In a slight departure from all The Force Awakens buzz, Tuesday bring the novel Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alexander Freed. It has pretty good buzz from what I can tell, so if this is something that appeals to you, might as well go for it.
(Subscribers can expect the latest issue of the Star Wars Insider any day now. It contains the short story ‘Inbrief’ by Janine K. Spendlove, featuring a character from the novel. Non-subscribers… Well, it’s not on the shipping list this week, but soon.)
Revealed today at StarWars.com, the cover for Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alexander Freed. The game tie-in comes out November 3, 2015, in the long drought (ha) between Force Friday and The Force Awakens. As it happens, the novel’s blurb quietly went up a few weeks ago and I never got around to posting about it, so here you go:
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.
The booklet of Star Wars novel excerpts that Del Rey was giving out at Celebration Anaheim is now available to all as a free download. You can get it at Amazon or from your preferred eBook vendor.
It contains excerpts from the upcoming Dark Disciple by Christie Golden and Battlefront: Twilight Company by Alexander Freed, as well the other new canon books that are already out.
Revealed today at 
The booklet of Star Wars novel excerpts that Del Rey was giving out at Celebration Anaheim is now available to all as a free download. You can get it at