Alexander Freed

And I'm liking it.

I'm really impressed with how they've done such a good job maintaining the narrative style from what Alexander Freed did with the first book.

Oh,

good.

You mean the...

Alexander Freed's...

It's on our list to cover for the show.

We're going to get to it.

It's the second one of the Reign of the Empire, uh, series.

There'll be another one coming out next year in 2027, but the first one was by Alexander Freed, and this one's by Rebecca Born- Roanhorse.

I don't remember who the third one's gonna be next year, but this all happens, I think, within- A few years of the end of the Ren- Revenge of the Sith, and it is...

These are fantastic.

We're talking about Ray Carson's Skywalker are probably my two favorites.

Alexander Freed's Rogue One.

Like...

These are books that take the film that you love.

Like, I j- I was j- I was kind of like at an indecision point.

I'm like, "You know what? Let's just go ahead and start it." Alexander Freed, you know, uh, Freed, you know, he did, um, Alphabet Squadron, which is highly maybe one of the best, you know, canon trilogies out there.

Um, like I'm, I'm having a little bit of a trouble getting into it 'cause it's like, it's just a little slow right now and jumping around like three or four different characters.

I'm like, "Okay, like, when is it like..." I'm like, "I, I, I'm sure it'll get good soon," but it's like, but it's-- it doesn't feel good now, so I'm like, "Uh, was this a mistake?" We'll see.

If anyone remembers the first Reign of the Empire book, we actually did a book review on it not too long ago, and that book was sort of pre-decessing the Andor show.

It was called The Mask of Fear, and it was written by Alexander Freed, or Alex Freed is who it goes by sometimes.

And that was published February 2025.

So, you know, here we are over a year later and the second book in the trilogy has been released.

So, well, of course, this is the second book in the trilogy.

Alexander Freed wrote Incredible Mask of Fear.

So coming in off of that was quite a challenge.

He's actually one of my favorite Star Wars writers.

And so really the biggest challenge was to make sure that I did that, that I brought all of these disparate characters together and made them feel real and gave them enough screen time, so to speak, that readers didn't walk away going, oh, you know, I don't even know who that was.

Why were they even in the book?

So the three sort of major characters that carried over from Alexander Freed's book, you know, you've got that triumvirate of Saw, Mon Mothma, and Bail Organa.

Was there one of those three you felt more drawn to than the other?