I recently purchased the Field Manual SLDF and I am disappointed to say the least. The book has inordinately many typographical errors, syntax errors and plain unacceptable errors. It's obvious that proofreading and even editing was minimal and that it was rushed to production. The 'special thanks' note at the credits thanking a swamped and reluctant head developer and the last-minute volunteer writers, supports this assessment - if support of the obvious conclusion is even necessary.
There are so many words missing from sentences that it's the norm for this book. There are ambiguous sentences and questionable meaning in others. The quality of the writing is just plain bad, with numerous entries being only a jumble of words just to meet some wordcount target. The culmination of the lack of quality is the fact that the corps entries of the 3rd, 6th and 7th armies are printed in larger font and all but one of them miss the 'Independent Regiments' sections - almost certainly because the larger font and the erroneous placement of pictures didn't leave room for them.
A book that is rife with tons of mistakes and errors of the simplest nature - Simon Cameron is named Calderon on two instances on the same page - inspires in me no confidence that lore-wise it doesn't suffer from a similar plethora of errors. Frankly, reading this book is painful.
In the case of all things Battletech, I hate to be solely a negative critic. Therefore, I want to express my gratitude to the people of Catalyst Game Labs for the work they have done over the years in keeping Battletech alive and moving forward. I may not like the Jihad and the Dark Age but I love all the work that has been done on these eras as well as regarding Battletech's past. I consider the writing and the quality of books and other products outstanding - with a few notable exceptions, one of which is the FM SLDF.
I make this post in order to request that this book be edited and re-worked and published again, at least in digital form. Frankly, I think that publishing errata for this book is an exercise in futility since there are so many and because it will not address the pain of reading the really bad writing that characterizes this book.
Lastly, is there something I've missed or having an Atlas with the Kerensky tag on the cover is another grossly unacceptable mistake?