Reviews and Comments

It’s „The Hobbit“, read (and sung) by a great voice actor. Big recommendation, if you like the book already.

Not much of any space opera, but a nice contained story of mercenaries vs. Clans. Much better than the skippable Main Event which introduced the Black Thorns. Emotional story beats are resolved in this book and the characters actually talk to each other, the lack of which was frustrating in Main Event.

„Let’s find happiness together.“

Toriko, you’re going straight in, aren’t you?

Time for lesbian Stalker

Lots of internal Federated Suns politics, 'Mech fights short and sweet Solaris VII battles. One of Stackpole‘s better novels and a good one in the series. When Kai, Victor and co were introduced, I didn’t like them at all. Now, they’ve grown to adult characters who know what they’re capable of. The shadow of the FedSuns civil war is becoming visible. I like it, it’s on the list of non-skippable books.

For some reason I can’t follow the Sarna list of novels in order?

I like BattleTech fiction best when the mechs are looming in the background. The back half of this book has them fighting just a little too much. Apart from that, it’s a good story about a son struggling to fill the boots of his father and the next generation having to take over the fight before they’re ready.

What a book. I have to agree with the viral post: Read it, now, without looking up anything about it. 💙🩷

Apparently there are currently 89 Japanese volumes of this. So the question is, stop now while I’m ahead or commit to it?

This really isn’t a Solaris novel, as the title suggests. There are only a couple chapters on Solaris, the rest is a bog-standard “new mercenary company” story. A dispossessed Mechwarrior gets some Mechs and some pilots together, they find a bad contract and they somehow make it through. The novel is very much written as an intro to BattleTech, and it does that work competently. However, the characters are kind of bland and nothing important to the universe happens. If you’re going through old BT novels, I’d recommend skipping this one.