Author Topic: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!  (Read 13009 times)

abou

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 1891
A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« on: 21 May 2013, 20:00:46 »
I just finished this novel after picking it up from BattleCorps.  Overall, it's not bad, although I was most interested in Tucker Harwell's story and would have rather seen it focus on him.  It's clear that this would have been a "spine" novel in the old BattleTech line and thus so many other characters are covered.  Like most of the novels, it's interesting to see the actual events compared to how they are reported in the sourcebooks (eg. Seth Ward's death).

What bothers me is that the Dark Age (and this book in particular) seems noisy.  A lot is happening, which is interesting, but the secrets of the storyline aren't being elucidated, which makes it aggravating.  Maybe this is happening on BattleCorps and I should just get another subscription, but I'm frustrated with the lack of reveals.  Then again, I suppose some big reveals did happen in this book.

Devlin Stone is behind the blackout.  The blackout affects high frequency hyperspace.  Fortress Republic affects low frequency hyperspace.  The Republic has the ability to jump through the Fortress Republic barrier and gather information.  That's big stuff.  However, we still don't have info on mysteries that are almost a century old, including Arthur Steiner-Davion's status, Devlin Stone's motivations, the Green Ghosts, etc.  And I think that is my problem with this books: lots of stuff happens, but the most important part was relatively small.  When you compare at how quickly the big mystery of Wolf's Dragoons and the SLDF were revealed back in the day, it's frustrating at the snail's pace we experience now.

Hopefully we'll get a big payoff for it all, but I'm getting impatient.

Nav_Alpha

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3679
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #1 on: 21 May 2013, 23:10:41 »
I rather enjoyed Bonfire - especially after the mixed quality of some of the DA books. Very good read and it just opened up a lot of scenarios, etc.


"Hold your position, conserve ammo... and wait for the Dragoons to go Feral"
- last words of unknown merc, Harlech, 3067

Jaim Magnus

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 7814
  • Assisting you and your enemies equally.
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #2 on: 30 May 2013, 00:25:55 »
Overall I enjoyed Bonfire, but the stuff with Tucker Harwell bored me to tears.
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

Captain of C-21

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 487
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #3 on: 12 June 2013, 22:42:26 »
With the Origins Sale I went and picked up Bonfire of Worlds finally, and am really enjoying.  The parts with Tucker Harwell are, for pulp fiction, pretty gripping.  Most of the battles have done an excellent job of capturing a sense of calamity and desperation on the part of the Steiner side.  Almost 2/3rds of the way through it now, going to be sad when I finish it and don't have anything more to read.

Proud Warrior of the Clan Protectorate.

Looking to play clix Mechwarrior in the Northeast Ohio area?  Come join our playing group!

Quote from: Worktroll
Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

FedSunsBorn

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2362
  • Avatar by ShadowRaven.
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #4 on: 12 June 2013, 23:49:28 »
Considering the author had to tie in a lot of other work into just one novel, I say he did a great job of it. I thought many of the characters were decently written but I did wish for a tad more detail at times but, again, with so much to cover...I still thought everything was fine. I did like the Tucker Harwell arc since this guy possibly knows stuff that 99.99999% of the Inner Sphere doesn't know about...who caused the blackout and Comstar's militant resurgence. Leaving other mysteries just makes people wanting more after, I know I did.

I do agree that I want some answers though. The Wolverines....the Blackout, the Blakists etc. Something concrete and that cannot be changed about due to it being 'in universe'.
Made by HikageMaru

Captain of C-21

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 487
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #5 on: 23 June 2013, 14:59:07 »
I finished Bonfire of Worlds a while back and have started to read certain passages with more detail, have to give my summary.

First off, this is probably one of the best Dark Age Battletech novels.  I'd easily rank it up there with Fortress Republic (#18), Pandora's Gambit (#27), and Surrender your Dreams (#23).  Ton of action, just enough politics and scheming that the characters actually appear smart.  Lot of jumping around and POV characters but it never seemed forced.  I think my favorite parts were with Tucker Harwell and anything in the Lyran corner.  The Wolves have some real teeth again, the scenes with Clansmen actually makes them feel like a different society, rather than just a bunch of mech' jocks.  Anastasia Kerensky is a good character here too, but she's more balanced than when she last appeared (In Masters of War, I think, there she was a unstoppable force of nature with a wacky agenda).

I liked seeing the Alaric and Verena scenes, very sad when Anastasia just up and killed Verena for little reason other than to do it

The way almost all of the major characters intertwined again on Tharkard was nice too, I think Bonfire managed to continue on where the "Republic in Flames" duology left off with givin g us the core of Dark Age cast very well.

One big part did stick out of my mind though when reading the book.  The scenes with Tucker Harwell, particularly when he's about to get away from the secret Comstar base on Luyten.  Did anyone else feel like Alexi Holt's dialog was very... odd, almost fake?  I understand that Tucker Harwell was not (and will never be, unfortunately) in a right state of mind after what Patricia did to him, but these two lines;

Quote
"Who wouldn't be a Monster in Service to God?"

and then at the very end of the novel;

Quote
"Oh Tucker, why couldn't you just leave it alone?"

Coming from a Knight of the Sphere, unless Tucker isn't hearing things correctly, this sort of language just seems... foreshadowing that something bad has been happening behind the Fortress Republic walls, something that is changing the Republic, or maybe unveiling a new kind of Republic that is much less white-hat than before. 

Proud Warrior of the Clan Protectorate.

Looking to play clix Mechwarrior in the Northeast Ohio area?  Come join our playing group!

Quote from: Worktroll
Face it - MW:DA had, for its run, massively greater commercial success than BattleTech's ever had. Over two million click-base minis - want to guess where the number of BT minis comes in? I'd guess on the order of a few percent of that. While BT has survived for 30 years, we've never had the same number of players at any point. The pity was that unlike BT, MW:DA ended up being run by businessmen, not game fanatics.

Dahmin_Toran

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 413
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #6 on: 03 July 2013, 20:04:53 »
Who actually killed Khan Seth Ward on Tharkad?

abou

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 1891
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #7 on: 03 July 2013, 21:54:02 »
Alaric did.  A Loki assassin attempted to kill Seth with a knife, but was killed by Alaric, who then used that same knife on his Khan.

Jaim Magnus

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 7814
  • Assisting you and your enemies equally.
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #8 on: 03 July 2013, 22:04:08 »
And then Alaric put the blame on the dead Loki agent.
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

worktroll

  • Ombudsman
  • Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 25565
  • 504th "Gateway" Division
    • There are Monsters in my Sky!
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #9 on: 03 July 2013, 22:39:08 »
One big part did stick out of my mind though when reading the book. 

Yes, yes it did. MOAR NOW, PLEEZE, MR WRITERMEN!! ;)
* No, FASA wasn't big on errata - ColBosch
* The Housebook series is from the 80's and is the foundation of Btech, the 80's heart wrapped in heavy metal that beats to this day - Sigma
* To sum it up: FASAnomics: By Cthulhu, for Cthulhu - Moonsword
* Because Battletech is a conspiracy by Habsburg & Bourbon pretenders - MadCapellan
* The Hellbringer is cool, either way. It's not cool because it's bad, it's cool because it's bad with balls - Nightsky
* It was a glorious time for people who felt that we didn't have enough Marauder variants - HABeas2, re "Empires Aflame"

Dahmin_Toran

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 413
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #10 on: 04 July 2013, 11:13:20 »
Thanks...so Alaric became Khan due to treachery. Like mother like son. What happened to Katherine? Did she just die of natural causes? Did Alaric see her before she died? Did Katherine see the Wolf Empire established?

Jaim Magnus

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 7814
  • Assisting you and your enemies equally.
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #11 on: 04 July 2013, 11:16:16 »
Alaric killed her as well.
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

Dahmin_Toran

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 413
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #12 on: 04 July 2013, 11:26:49 »
Damn! Why? Did he choke her out? She was too old? Or he saw her as a threat. Another question, how the heck did Alaric get the Ward Bloodname? He is not genetically related. Did they lie about it?  And whose Bloodright did he get? Vlad's?

Jaim Magnus

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 7814
  • Assisting you and your enemies equally.
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #13 on: 04 July 2013, 11:39:16 »
She recommended that he kill Anastasia Kerensky because she was a danger to Katherine.  Alaric saw that Kat was a danger to him because she put herself first, and him second.

He got the Ward bloodname that was previously held by Seth Ward.  No word on whether that was the one once held by Vlad or not.

Only a handful of people know that Alaric has no Clan genes.  He killed two of them.  Now it's only the Loremaster and a handful of scientists who know.  Essentially they lied to the rest of Clan Wolf and declared him of Ward stock.  Even Alaric didn't know the truth until after Victor's funeral.
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

Wolflord

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3621
  • Look Ma! I have enough posts for a time jump!
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #14 on: 04 July 2013, 11:40:59 »
Damn! Why? Did he choke her out? She was too old? Or he saw her as a threat. Another question, how the heck did Alaric get the Ward Bloodname? He is not genetically related. Did they lie about it?  And whose Bloodright did he get? Vlad's?

Partly she was a threat (knowledge of his parentage, too much influence) partly she was a distraction (focused on Tharkad not Terra).

Yes everybody lies. Officially Vlad was his gene mother and Katherine was his genefather.

Alaric got Seth's Bloodright, not sure whether that was Vlad's or not.

Dahmin_Toran

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 413
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #15 on: 04 July 2013, 11:56:40 »
Wow...thanks guys.

Dahmin_Toran

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 413
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #16 on: 04 July 2013, 12:04:37 »
So why did they call themselves the Wolf Empire? Is Alaric an Emperor now?

Jaim Magnus

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 7814
  • Assisting you and your enemies equally.
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #17 on: 04 July 2013, 12:06:28 »
I guess for a sense of permanence?  Rather than OZ?

As for Alaric... to the Wolves he is Khan Alaric Ward, to the Lyran population he is Archon Alaric Steiner.

Personally, I think he should be arKhan Alaric Ward-Steiner-Davion... but that just gets wordy.
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

Wolflord

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3621
  • Look Ma! I have enough posts for a time jump!
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #18 on: 04 July 2013, 12:40:38 »
So why did they call themselves the Wolf Empire? Is Alaric an Emperor now?

It's got a nice ring to it and is a nod to history (Roman Empire replacing Roman Republic).

Dahmin_Toran

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 413
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #19 on: 04 July 2013, 12:44:23 »
Archon Alaric Steiner. Why aren't the Clan warriors scratching their heads over that? Does he want to be a Khan or Archon. Where are his true loyalties?

Wolflord

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3621
  • Look Ma! I have enough posts for a time jump!
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #20 on: 04 July 2013, 12:55:15 »
Archon Alaric Steiner. Why aren't the Clan warriors scratching their heads over that? Does he want to be a Khan or Archon. Where are his true loyalties?

There probably is a bit of head scratching amongst the Wolf Warriors however provided that Alaric continues to be a successful war leader they will mostly be prepared to wave it off as just smoke and mirrors to help keep the Steiner spheroids in line happy. Alaric plays his cards close to his chest, he is a khan, he may or may not wish to be Archon/Director-General/First Lord etc etc, I think it's safe to assume that he intends to be Ilkhan. His loyalties lie with himself first, the wolves second, then the rest.

Frabby

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 4241
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #21 on: 04 July 2013, 15:50:20 »
I guess for a sense of permanence?  Rather than OZ?

As for Alaric... to the Wolves he is Khan Alaric Ward, to the Lyran population he is Archon Alaric Steiner.

Personally, I think he should be arKhan Alaric Ward-Steiner-Davion... but that just gets wordy.
To think that Steiner is a Cloud Cobra bloodname...
Has it ever been established if or how the ruling Lyran House is related to that bloodname, by the way?
Sarna.net BattleTechWiki Admin
Author of the BattleCorps stories Feather vs. Mountain, Rise and Shine, Proprietary, Trial of Faith & scenario Twins

Wolflord

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3621
  • Look Ma! I have enough posts for a time jump!
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #22 on: 04 July 2013, 16:00:39 »
To think that Steiner is a Cloud Cobra bloodname...
Has it ever been established if or how the ruling Lyran House is related to that bloodname, by the way?

Yes the founder of the Steiner Bloodhouse has a common ancestor (a General Paul/Peter [?] Steiner if memory serves) with the "royal" Steiner line. So based on discussion in previous threads the current Steiner royalty eg Trillian and Roderick are the wrong kind of Steiner to claim a bloodname (presuming they ever interacted peacefully with the cobras)

In Phelans case the founder of the Ward Bloodhouse was the common ancestor thus he gets to make a claim on the ward Bloodhouse.

Dahmin_Toran

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 413
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #23 on: 05 July 2013, 11:51:25 »
Right because his mother was Salome Ward. Then why did they even need to create a Kell Bloodname?

Wolflord

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 3621
  • Look Ma! I have enough posts for a time jump!
Re: A Bonfire of Worlds -- Spoilers!
« Reply #24 on: 05 July 2013, 12:00:38 »
Right because his mother was Salome Ward. Then why did they even need to create a Kell Bloodname?

Technically all the abjure e exiles no longer had a right to hold on to their bloodnames.

Technically Ulric Kerensky created the Kell bloodname to reward Phelan and to allow him to remain as Khan of the exiles.

But since none of the other exiles gave up their bloodnames I can only assume it was a political move to make settling a large number of wolves on arc royal more palatable to the planets native population.

Frankly it's just one more item on the long list of "stuff that happened in 3057" that I prefer to rewrite at my table.