Books Star Wars: Inferno Squad

Did you play through the game's campaign?

 

No, I actually never played the game. Is it as good as some say?

 

It's okay; definitely wasn't worth the initial price, but you should be able to get it for less; maybe wait a few more months and pick up an actually complete edition for an okay price. They also removed the loot box system which was so horrendous it got EA into legal trouble. It still has a bunch of micro-transactions though. If you just want the story, watch a playthrough.

I only just got to this book and I must say that Iden seems far too fanatic in this to comfortably fit with the quick switch she does in the game. The book is great at showing imperials that are not only rationalizing away the atrocities of the Empire (e.g. Lost Stars, Sloan) but actually celebrate it. I'd be really curious about how much knowledge of the game's (planned) plot Golden had when writing the novel. I guess this is more an issue with the game's writing rather than the book though.

 

TBH, I probably would've never picked up the book had it not been for Iden's campaign in BF2. I really like her character because of that game, and I even use her as my main. I won't get into details about her story that takes place after the book, but I'd recommend it if you liked the characters as they were in the novel.

 

Ar what point in the book are quinlan vos and akar-deshu mentioned? I don't remember them being mentioned anywhere but wookiepedia says that they're both referenced.

 

The only reference to any Jedi that I remember being referenced in the book was

Spoiler

Lux Bonteri talking about being in love with one

 

Yeah, that would be:

Spoiler

Ahsoka

 

Spoiler

I know

 

LOL! Love it!

 

Read this last week and enjoyed this a hell of a lot, to a surprising extent. Really, really loved this book.

 

Quick question if anyone wouldn't mind weighing in. I've read about 90% of the new canon books and comics (outside of the young reader stuff). I just haven't read Heir To the Jedi, Queen's Shadow, and the Battlefront books.

Are the Battlefront books worth it for someone who has never touched the game? Would there be too much lost if you haven't played the game to follow the books?

Thanks!

 

The first EA Battlefront game has no story whatsoever. The story in Battlefront 2 takes place after the events of Inferno Squad, so you wouldn’t be missing anything.


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Thank you!

 

To add on to what @Daneira said, I think both battlefront books are very much worth the read for different reasons.

 

Seeing this thread brought back up reminds me that I really need to do a reread of it (and a lot of the earlier Disney books) now that I’m nearing the end of TCW. (Yes, for the first time; seeing that it’s leaving Netflix lit the fire I needed to finally make the time to watch it all.) I need to go back through to catch all the references I missed by having not seen it before then.


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Hmm.... everyone needs to check the new excerpt from Resistance Reborn at B&N.

Just saying.

https://www.barnesandnoble.com/blog...-wars-resistance-reborn-by-rebecca-roanhorse/

 

This was always a strange book in that I got the idea that the characters have to start off as complete bastards - and even stay that way for the bulk of the book - but because it did such a successful job of selling them to me as complete bastards, I never saw them as anything else!

 

I miss novelizations for Video Game campaigns, wouldn't mind if they Golden to come back, sorta merge the two versions together.

 

I would love a sequel to this.


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huh strange apparently I haven't posted in this thread yet, which is weird given how much I hate this book (which is mostly the result of me having actual expectations for this book, lesson learned on that one)

it's a book that fails on pretty much every level possible, it's "villainous" characters aren't actually all that bad, yes we get some "lol rebellion am I right?" lines from Iden and what's his face, but when it actually comes to showing the protagonist DO some "imperial" stuff the book dances around it or puts it in the hands of the one guy who will turn out to be the bad guy in the game anyway, it also puts the crack team of operatives assembled to hunt down the rebellion against their greatest foe yet, bunch of nobodies in the sticks who are in no way affiliated with the rebellion that just 5 minutes ago blew up the death star, great use of resources guys. And they spend like half a year on this mission, why...
Well I know why because the events of the game prohibit the main characters from spending ~300 pages gunning down rebellion members, so you are stuck with the best of the best the Empire has to offer going up against the Z team of kinda but not really Rebel Alliance
so the book fails as an Imperial book, it fails as a military book despite it's connection with the Battlefront franchise and it even fails as a spy book because the mission is low stakes, meaningless and badly executed
on the plus side Janina Gavankars (I hope I spelled this right) voice acting is really good for the audio book
don't even get me started on the game...

just read the first Battlefront book

 

4/5
STAR WARS: INFERNO SQUAD is the tie-in book to STAR WARS: BATTLEFRONT II by Christie Golden. I'm a huge Christie Golden fan and love her work with Warcaft, Ravenloft, Star Craft, and her work in the Fate of the Jedi series. I was hesitant to read this book, though, because I felt that the Battlefront II game had been something of a disaster.

I didn't dislike the protagonists of the single player campaign, even wanted to see more about them, but cutting off a third of their campaign for DLC left their story feeling pretty unfinished. Also, I felt like the game had been falsely advertised since it had implied a full Imperial campaign but you only spent a little time as Inferno Squad before defecting to the Rebellion.

Even so, I've softened my opinion regarding Iden Versio and her team and really wish we'd get more ofd their adventures during the Imperial Era. One of the disappointments I had in the TIE Fighter series was that they barely had any time to establish characters for what could have been a solid ongoing series. One of the benefits of the old Legends universe was the fact that we were able to follow the continuing adventures of numerous smaller groups. It's why I love the current ongoing Doctor Aphra series as it reminds me of things like Knights of the Old Republic and Legacy.

The premise is that Iden Versio and her three Special Forces troopers are working for the Imperial Security Bureau. Iden is one of the few survivors of the Death Star, which automatically means she's a complete fanatic, and wants some payback for the destruction of the Imperial war machine. After some low-level missions planting bugs and being closer to spies than commandos, they're given the mission of infiltrating the Partisans that have been given a second wind after their near-destruction in the movie ROGUE ONE.

I've always liked the Partisans and am interested in seeing more of them in future supplements (presumably before now). They're the terrorists to the Rebel Alliance's freedom fighters. It was something only the Star Wars RPG ever dealt with before in Legends and only barely with things like the Justice Action Network and the Imperial Remnant (ironically).

One thing that real life has shown is that oppression doesn't make someone a good person, it just makes them oppressed. Plenty of people would fight against the Galactic Empire but engage in terrorism to do so. Putting up die-hard fascists like Inferno Squad against hardcore terrorists is an interesting premise even if it's darker take from Star Wars than we're used to.

Part of what I like about this novel is that it really shows the average Imperial is fully capable of doing unimaginable evil while not mentally engaging with it. Iden mourns her comrades on the Death Star while not really thinking about Alderaan (dismissing everyone who died there as rebels despite 99.999999% being noncombatants).

Iden's willing to go along with the Partisans making terrorist attacks against Imperial citizens because that's the mission and it's for the greater good. Finally, her biggest worry is that her mother will be disappointed in her due to having them fake her defection. They're tribalistic "Team Us vs. Team Them" and it's unfortunately all too realistic. The fact that being undercover screws with that sensibility just a little is well-done.

I wasn't quite sure what the mission objective was for Inferno Squadron because they could eliminate the Partistans at any time and they don't seem to be doing much to find out where the leak of Imperial information was. I did like the interactions between the squad as well as their differing views on the war as well as the Partisans. I was also surprised at the inclusion of a major character from The Clone Wars 3D series and was glad to see them use that bit of continuity.

In conclusion, I really liked this book and would like to see further adventures of Inferno Squad during the Galactic Civil War. I don't see it likely as happening but Disney should know that it has plenty of interesting characters that fans would love to read more about. Inferno Squad seems like a group that would be great to show up in the Galactic Civil War, blowing up Rebels and performing more missions. Admittedly, I wanted to see more of that in Battlefront II anyway.