Author Topic: Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?  (Read 4862 times)

Frabby

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Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?
« on: 13 May 2016, 13:33:25 »
Having read most (but not all) BattleCorps fiction and slowly writing one summary of the BC stories after another for Sarna, I'm wondering what individual stories people liked best. Because there certainly are a few gems in there. Same about your favorite authors who you feel stand out in one way or another.
(For the record, I'm looking for feedback on stuff published via BattleCorps or the BC anthologies, but not the print novels.)

I'll go ahead and start with the following stories that I've read and would rate 10 out of 10 stars, in no particular order:

Operation Ice Storm (Jason Schmetzer) - The beautiful swan song of Clan Ice Hellion. At least they go down fighting.

Ghost Bear's Lament (Steve Mohan) - A story with two very different parts, to the point of being two distinct but connected stories - and each of them very good.

Betrayal of Ideals (Blaine Pardoe) - The true story of the Wolverine Annihilation. Tragedy, mayhem, and a sociopathic Nicholas Kerensky merrily killing good people for the greater good. Me happy.

Of Love and Peace and Cherry Trees (Steve Mohan) - I don't like the Clans (except for in good BC stories) and I'm cheesed out by House Kurita, so I should hate this Kurita vs. Ghost Bear story. But I don't. While it does touch upon all the cliches and has plenty of opportunity to drop the ball, it doesn't. It's in fact a very gripping story that had no small part in luring me into subscribing to BattleCorps, together with The Heart of Dixie. (And the site offers this story as a 2-part free teaser download. Go get it!)

Irreplaceable (Jason Hansa) - Probably the formative event of none other than Hanse Davion, the Victor of Halstead Station. Just awesome. It doesn't get any more classic BattleTech than this.

Zero Signal (Alex Fauth) - Entering the Dark Age. A perfect introduction to the mood of the Dark Age, from a civilian's perspective as it all goes to hell.

Salvage (Craig Reed) - Another story with the classic 3025 feel from a Davion protagonist perspective. Walking in the sun with a white hat on may be a bit trite at times, but here it works just fine and makes for a good short story.

Marauder (Lance Scarinci) - BattleTech needed a horror/ghost story. This is it. (I've been tinkering with my own ghost story submission to BC, Ship without a name, since 2007 but I just can't get it right and will probably never submit it.)

Honorable mentions go to (again in no particular order) The Heart of Dixie, Epaulet Mate, the Chaos Irregulars serial, Pirates of Penance, and Vole.

As for authors, I have to mention Kevin Killiany who puts a level of detail into his stories - be it background details like the context of Bad Water or technical details in his space stories (Pirates of Penance, McKenna Station) - that I enjoy very much.
And there's Phil Lee who, despite not appearing in the list above, delivers a consistently high quality in writing and really made me hate the Clans a bit less.

Disclaimer: There's a ton of excellent stories on BC that I forgot to mention, or perhaps simply haven't read yet. And there's a ton of good writers on BC. Just because a writer or a story isn't mentioned here doesn't mean any disrespect.
« Last Edit: 13 May 2016, 13:36:46 by Frabby »
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Author of the BattleCorps stories Feather vs. Mountain, Rise and Shine, Proprietary, Trial of Faith & scenario Twins

Jaim Magnus

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Re: Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?
« Reply #1 on: 20 May 2016, 08:35:37 »
Your list encompasses many of those I enjoy.  I would also add...

A Tale of Mercy in Defeat (Chris Hussey) which gives us a real look at the early Blood Spirits, before the bitterness started.

A Turn of the Wheel (Lance Scarinci) again giving us a look at the early days of the Clans, but through the eyes of a Pentagon world survivor who befriends a Clan warrior.

Redemption Rift (Jason Schmetzer) Chronicling the dark age Dragoons as they once again take employment from the Dragon, and the many issues that revolve around that.

The Field is Lost (Lance Scarinci) A dawn of the Clan Invasion tale, told from the perspective of a former MechWarrior who now finds courage in the bottle, but still manages to supervise a decent fight against the Clans.
BattleCorps - Righteous Fury, Sorrow of Eden, Lady of Steel, I Was Lost, Forsaken : Legacy - The Forgotten Places : Shrapnel - Scavenger's Blood : ELH Chronicles - View from the Ground : Shrapnel - It Ends in Fire, Picking the Bones

Sharpnel

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Re: Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?
« Reply #2 on: 20 May 2016, 12:17:51 »
Everything, and I do mean everything, written by Kevin Killiany. I cannot sing his praises enough. From Pitcairn Cross to the Chaos Irregular to the Ender Clusters stories he has never let me down.
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Dubble_g

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Re: Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?
« Reply #3 on: 21 January 2017, 08:43:25 »
Late to the party, but some favorite BC writers & stories:

Ants, Jason Hardy
Thought the writing itself was fresh and enjoyable, and I really liked the main character.

Last Full Measure, Kevin Killiany
The set up in the story was wonderful, to give you all these scenes of the people bonding together and then realize they're on the wrong side.

Eight Nine Three, Steve Mohan Jr
Steve gets points for being one of the few writers not to butcher the Japanese language, plus I thought this story was a great example of misdirection. The understated ending, and it's message about what really matters in war, is a refreshing perspective, too.

Making a Name, Jason Schmetzer
I like that this showed both sides of the conflict, which is something I think doesn't happen enough in the fiction. I think the setting is really geared towards grittiness rather than superheroism, where all sides have a point of view and there are no "bad" guys.
Author, "Inverted" (Shrapnel #4), "Undefeated" (#10), "Reversal of Fortunes" (#13) and "The Alexandria Job" (#15)

Sharpnel

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Re: Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?
« Reply #4 on: 22 January 2017, 05:18:05 »
Anything by Kevin Killiany, especially the Chaos Irregulars series.
Consigliere Trygg Bender, CRD-3BL Crusader, The Blazer Mafia
Takehiro 'Taco' Uchimiya, SHD-2H Shadow Hawk 'Taco', Crimson Oasis Trading Company

"Of what use is a dream, if not a blueprint for courageous action" -Adam West
As I get older, I realize that I'm not as good as I once was.
"Life is too short to be living someone else's dream" - Hugh Hefner

BrokenMnemonic

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Re: Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?
« Reply #5 on: 05 March 2017, 12:34:11 »
I've not read that much yet, but my favourite of the pieces I've read is "The Dark Night of the Soul" by Christopher Purnell. Others I've really enjoyed are:

Vole (Jason M. Hardy)
Good spycraft/fieldwork, and a really good insight into planetary politics during the FedCom Civil War; I really liked seeing a conflict involving BattleMechs end without needing open warfare to actually end.

Three Points of Pride, and Something More (Jason Hansa)
I was struck by the sense of humour in both of these, and how it worked well in the dialogue without needing to be overt or feeling out of character. It really felt like a victory when the defenders managed to move the ball in Three Points of Pride, whilst in Something More I loved seeing Clan characters in a more human light, against a backdrop of giant kangaroo combat troops.

Surkai (Ilsa Bick)
Another story that gave a good insight into a Clan character without making me view Clan characters as arrogant psycopaths.

Stitch In Time, and Pledges of Allegience (Dayle Dermatis)
I really liked how the female protagonists in these were written, despite them being at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of experience.

The Running Man, The Bitter Harvest, Dingane's Day, Brothers in Arms, and A Light in the Dark Night (Christopher Purnell - he's my favourite of the authors I've come across so far)
I like how Christopher Purnell writes characters; they feel very real, and I like seeing them in circumstances that bring out internal conflict. I also like that he digs into some difficult issues - the institutional racism on New Capetown, the retaliations on Terra after Kerensky's forces captured the world, and so on.

When Small Men Stand (Chris Hussey)
I really liked this insight into how elements of the planetary population viewed the Blakists, Stone's Coalition, and offworlders in general.

Thirteen (Craig Reed)
This wove back and forth between ghost story and mental illness really well, in a fashion that made not want to know which was the answer; it felt like a very human and believable story, with some iconic moments.

Echoes of Disgrace, Seventeen Minutes, and 893 (Steven Mohan Jr)

Callies Call (Victor Milán)

Abandonment and Desperate Measures (Blaine Lee Pardoe)
« Last Edit: 05 March 2017, 13:57:11 by BrokenMnemonic »

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VhenRa

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Re: Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?
« Reply #6 on: 05 March 2017, 23:44:35 »
Something more

Has to be that one. The sheer difference of story telling of a bunch of on the run Militia, giant kangaroos, captured Clanners trying to fit in with their captors. Not many BT stories have this tone.

Frabby

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Re: Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?
« Reply #7 on: 06 March 2017, 17:16:46 »
Genuinely interesting comments and opinions here. The comments above only reinforce my feeling that for a reader like me who isn't a native speaker, something is lost in translation at least in some stories.
And then there's that pet theory of mine that suggests audiences will have different expectations from storytelling depending on their own cultural background. I hit on a noticeable difference in style already in my other thread about the German-only BT novels. They aren't neccessarily better or worse than original american stories, but markedly different.
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KeVinK

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Re: Your favorite BattleCorps stories/authors?
« Reply #8 on: 24 April 2017, 21:16:29 »
As for authors, I have to mention Kevin Killiany who puts a level of detail into his stories - be it background details like the context of Bad Water or technical details in his space stories (Pirates of Penance, McKenna Station) - that I enjoy very much.

Everything, and I do mean everything, written by Kevin Killiany. I cannot sing his praises enough. From Pitcairn Cross to the Chaos Irregular to the Ender Clusters stories he has never let me down.

Last Full Measure, Kevin Killiany
The set up in the story was wonderful, to give you all these scenes of the people bonding together and then realize they're on the wrong side.

Anything by Kevin Killiany, especially the Chaos Irregulars series. 

Thanks for all the kind words.

I haven't been here in years, and didn't intend to be here now, but my new novel launched today and I could not resist doing a deep search for any mention of "Kevin Killiany."

First of all, despite BattleTech, in all its iterations, being one of my favorite universes in which to write, there's little chance I"ll be coming back to BattleCorps in any big way in the foreseeable future. My original series of young adult science fiction is doing well enough that I've got a multi-book contract that's going to take up most of my time and energy for the next year at least.

(I may regret mentioning this, but there is a very slight chance I'll submit a story late in 2017. Jason Hansa, a man I met through BattleCorps who has become a friend, and I have been kicking around a paired-story idea similar to our "Moment of Honesty" / "Harvest of Deception" match-up back in 2015. It's a small scale Crimson Crusaders / Jade Falcons match-up that's less than half formed. We've got our respective casts of characters worked out (I've come up with a plausible way for a character from "A Different Hope" to be serving under a character from "Dragons of Despair" and Jason's come up with an interesting group who challenge Clan stereotypes while being true to their ideal) and a general idea of how the running battle is going to go. But we don't know where they are or who wins or why. Like I said, we're kicking it around.)
(And, another thing I'll regret mentioning, maybe sometime in 2018 I'll get around to writing the Lex Atreus serial I've been poking at for a couple of years. And, as I mentioned in the afterword to Chaos Formed, the Chaos Irregulars will not leave me alone. No real story, but the characters keep popping up. Writers' minds are weird.)

Jason has also been one of the beta readers for my novels - reading the rough drafts and making suggestions - and no less than Philip Lee is my editor, so BattleTech is never far from our conversations.

I don't think I'm allowed to post links to my independent projects on the BattleTech forums - and it would be bad form even if it were allowed. So if you happen to be wandering around Amazon, you might want to look up my YA SF novels Down to Dirt and Life on Dirt. Nothing at all like BattleTech, or anything else I've ever had published for that matter.
(And, you didn't hear this from me, but if those two books look interesting to you, you might want to drop by Kevin Killiany's page on Facebook and look for a post about reviewer's copies. Just sayin'.)

Once again, thanks y'all for reminding me why the BattleTech universe means so much to me.

-- KeVin K.

"It's your dream; make it work." - Valerie K.
"Kevin is an incomplete ingrate." - Jason Hardy

 

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