Yesterday a press release announcing that Stephanie Meyer would be releasing a 192 page novella titled "The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner" based on a Bree a minor character from the third novel in the Twilight Saga made it's rounds in the media. Some Twihards are super excited about this, me not so much.
Stephanie Meyer is famous for maintaining close contact with her fans via her website, which includes multiple outtakes from the 4 books in the saga. Readers can also find the first 13 chapters of "Midnight Sun" on her site, for those who don't know, Midnight Sun was the planned 5th book in the Twilight Saga and is a retelling of Twilight from Edwards perspective. The first draft of the manuscript was leaked by an insider and Meyer decided to make it available via her site promising that her next book would be Midnight Sun.
Now it's two 2 years and 2 ridiculously successful movies later and just in time for movie number 3 she has decided to release this novella which is based on a character from book/movie #3.
The character Bree appears in one scene in the approximately 700 page Eclipse, part of the army of vampires sent to kill Bella she surrenders to the Cullen's who offer to show her the way but kick ass Volturi Hench-Woman Jane kills her instead. The novella will show her journey with the army of bad vampires(lead by Victoria and Riley) from Seattle to Forks.
It could be an OK story, but truth be told I simply do not care about the character(s). We all know why Victoria goes on her mission, we all read when Riley realized he was a tool in Victoria's quest for vengeance and we all read Bree describing how she and the other newborns were brought into Victoria's Army. All three characters die in Eclipse, we know who they are, what they do, why they do it, and we know how they reach their demise. There are an infinite number of spin off options and according to many online polls that were made after yesterday's announcement people would have preferred it if she wrote about anyone else.
Me personally I would prefer reading the completed "Midnight Sun", as the ""would be fifth book in the series it benefited from better writing and stronger story telling. It also let's the readers see the where Edward's darkness comes from.
My verdict is that this is not a reason to get excited but an example of further milking of the Twilight cash cow, you know the milking I'm talking about: Edward panties, Jacob ice cream bars, Bella lipgloss and a novella about insignificant characters.
On the plus side, it will be available for free online for a period of time and $1 from the 13.95 selling price will be donated to charity.
