Battlefront: Twilight Company Author To Write Rogue One Novelization
By Elaine Tveit
Alexander Freed, the author Battlefront: Twilight Company, will write the novelization of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story.
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During Star Wars Celebration Europe last weekend, it was announced Alexander Freed, the author of Battlefront: Twilight Company, will write the adult novelization of Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (via Star Wars Books). The novel is expected to be available in stores following the film’s premiere on December 16th, 2016.
Freed is a no-brainer to write Rogue One. Battlefront: Twilight Company, Freed’s first adult Star Wars book, took readers into the heart of the everybeing soldier’s war with the Empire. Things are not all happy odds and lucky escapes for the Rebel Alliance in the trenches, where sacrifices of life, blood, and limb are made during even the slightest brush with the enemy. Rogue One promises to take a similar turn in showing the bloody contest between the Alliance and the Empire for the Death Star plans, both on a large-scale battleground and on the individual level. Given the similarities between balancing the individual perspective with the greater war machine scheme in both stories, one might say Twilight Company was practice for Freed for adapting Rogue One.
Currently, the Rogue One novelization is listed on Amazon with a release date of January 3rd, 2017. That date matches up with the release date of The Force Awakens novelization by Alan Dean Foster, which was January 5th, 2016. However, it is early enough that January 3rd, 2017 may be a placeholder. You can still preorder it for $22.45.
There is a tendency with novelizations to adhere too closely to the original film script and not add anything new (reviews of The Force Awakens novelization on Amazon are replete with this complaint). Granted, there isn’t much new you can add without disrupting pre-established canon, but that’s where the quality of the writer comes in: a writer can use language to present scenes you’ve seen before in a new light, perhaps highlighting a person, object, or feeling you might not have had time to notice when you watched the film.
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I have no doubt Rogue One will be well written by Freed, because his prose and writing style are solid; the true test of success will be if he manages to make the story we will have all seen in theaters by the time we read the novelization new again.