Author Topic: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)  (Read 6267 times)

theCrowe

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 261
some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« on: 15 August 2014, 15:55:37 »
Some books' mothers are better than other books' mothers...

But seriously... I've just finished reading the jade Phoenix trilogy and I've got to say I struggled. I've been reviewing battletech novels as I read through them and generally I've had good things to say about all of them so far but I can't figure out just what it was about these ones that just didn't do it for me.

Did anyone else find the same with these three offerings in particular?
« Last Edit: 13 September 2014, 15:14:20 by theCrowe »

FedSunsBorn

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2362
  • Avatar by ShadowRaven.
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #1 on: 16 August 2014, 00:34:25 »
I finally got all three of the trilogy rather recently and started on the first book and I have got to say that I didn't care for what I read. It wasn't badly written but I just couldn't get into the character(s) and didn't get beyond a few chapters. I will grant that it might get better if I continue to read the series but for right now, they are on hold. I am just happy that they are helping to complete my collection.
Made by HikageMaru

Blacknova

  • Bullet Magnet
  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 1739
  • I am Thomas Hogarth's Love Child
    • The Kapteyn Universe
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #2 on: 16 August 2014, 06:04:18 »
I remember that when I first read these, I really enjoyed them, as they were our first true clans eye view of that culture.  Sure, Blood of Kerensky gave us some of that, but most of it was from Phelan's POV.  This was Clan from the start, and a hard line Clan as well, which showed us the other side of a very complex culture of numerous sub-cultures.
Dedicated to committing viciously gratuitous bastardy of the first order.

Unofficial LD for 2 seconds - It was a glorious moment!

"They can bring it. We fought off an army of guys who wore 20 pound decorative brass shoulder pauldrons. I'm not afraid of the Disney Land mascot brigade" - MadCapellan, in reference to the Confederation possibly facing the Clans.

cavingjan

  • Spelunca Custos
  • BattleTech Volunteer
  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 4470
    • warrenborn
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #3 on: 17 August 2014, 10:32:11 »
I suspect there are two things at play. The first is target audience. A lot of the books were definitely aimed at a younger reader than what is reading them these days. The other is the early books have been built upon so much that to go back can feel like they don't hold up to the test of time. Similar to what you see with old sci fi novels or movies.

YingJanshi

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 4507
  • Switch Friend Code: SW-4326-4622-8514
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #4 on: 17 August 2014, 16:00:35 »
Yeah, I struggled with them too. Though I think that was my apathy towards the Clans. (For the longest time I couldn't get into them. Just found their culture shallow and uninteresting.)

I suspect there are two things at play. The first is target audience. A lot of the books were definitely aimed at a younger reader than what is reading them these days. The other is the early books have been built upon so much that to go back can feel like they don't hold up to the test of time. Similar to what you see with old sci fi novels or movies.

I don't know if I'd say that. Some of the SW/CI era novels had some pretty mature themes. (Okay, not as much as the DA novels but still.) I don't think I'd even call them YA books.

Initiate of the Order of Valhalla

(HBS: Backer #4,960)
(Clan Invasion: Backer #314)
(Mercenaries: Backer #6,017)

theCrowe

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 261
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #5 on: 22 August 2014, 05:32:40 »
I'd agree with most of whats been said here. As FedSunsBorn says it's not a writing quality issue it's the characters.
Blacknova notes the clans-eye-view Vs the Blood of Kerensky Phelan's view point. I'd say that this is probably where the issue arises. Where Stackpole succeeds most in his story is that we can identify with Phelan as we encounter a strange new culture through his eyes. The dificulty with Aidan as a protagonist is that we have to just accept that he has difficulty with such basic (to us) concepts as father and daughter.

As far as target audience goes there's too much sex and violence for what might be considered a "younger reader" but i'm 30 so maybe i'm a little older than a young adult. That said Thurston is pulling some pretty hefty vocabulary out of the bag like "antediluvian". I've no shame in admitting i had to look that one up.

Anyway, i'll not say by any means that the Jade Phoenix books are badly written, I'm not about to publish any trilogies any time soon. But i will say that perhaps this story was just a harder one to get right. A harder subject to tackle and perhaps from a harder angle for a reader to approach from.

FedSunsBorn

  • Captain
  • *
  • Posts: 2362
  • Avatar by ShadowRaven.
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #6 on: 22 August 2014, 11:59:59 »
I will freely admit that I am not a Jade Falcon fan or a Clan fan in general so it could just be my own personal bias against the culture that is preventing me from liking the book(s).
Made by HikageMaru

Rtifs

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 554
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #7 on: 22 August 2014, 15:04:06 »
The dificulty with Aidan as a protagonist is that we have to just accept that he has difficulty with such basic (to us) concepts as father and daughter.

That's the whole point of his story.  He comes from a society and background in which he's not allowed to understand or experience family bonds.  Yet he encounters them frequently in the books he reads and can't fully comprehend the stories without that experience.  At the end of his story he finally gets the answer to his questions.  And along the way, we get a lot of Saturday morning cartoon fighting in an attempt to keep things exciting. 

theCrowe

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 261
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #8 on: 24 August 2014, 17:56:43 »
saturday morning cartoon fighting! that's perfect.

anyway, I understand the story. I just couldn't identify at all with any of the characters. They all seemed too remote to really care about.

And another thing, The whole freeborn vs trueborn part of the story. I was all ready for Aidan to make some pretty radical choices in his life, eschewing the hateful prejudices of his culture having lived among the freeborn and grown in respect and admiration for them. Aidan could take the first steps as a reformer and bring a little humanity and enlightenment to the... wait, what? He wants his blood name and a gene pool legacy? aw shoot. There goes the only real story I was interested in.  ???

SeeM

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 339
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #9 on: 14 February 2015, 05:42:02 »
Jade Phoenix have Falconner Joanna and Nomad. They completly stole the show and are the main reason to read trilogy. Imagine truborn warrior shooting fighters with dropships cannons and a tech bringing a meal. Those two are almost like Bruce Wayne and Alfred. It's a pity that they're not main characters. And Aidan is an ******, I really didn't like him from the start. "Nooo... I'm not a WaRrIoR, my life is gone. Wait! I could use that idiot Ter Roshak to get a position in freeborn unit, train myself in battle and tell the world that my carrier has been saved by a murderer, reveal his crimes and let him pay in my own trial of refusal." %^$^%$ what a stupid son of a @#$@#$^!!! He had one chance of beeing smart and failed.

He's a perfect (anti)hero for the Falcons. As I love JF, I don't like Aidan. He's too sentimental with his friends and too ruthless with his goals. It just doesn't fit. I like Ter Roshak, Nomad, Joanna, Marthe, scientists and guys from freeborn unit. But, and I really tried, not Aidan.
(+)

omega2010

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 217
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #10 on: 14 February 2015, 19:22:16 »
Jade Phoenix have Falconner Joanna and Nomad. They completly stole the show and are the main reason to read trilogy. Imagine truborn warrior shooting fighters with dropships cannons and a tech bringing a meal. Those two are almost like Bruce Wayne and Alfred. It's a pity that they're not main characters. And Aidan is an ******, I really didn't like him from the start. "Nooo... I'm not a WaRrIoR, my life is gone. Wait! I could use that idiot Ter Roshak to get a position in freeborn unit, train myself in battle and tell the world that my carrier has been saved by a murderer, reveal his crimes and let him pay in my own trial of refusal." %^$^%$ what a stupid son of a @#$@#$^!!! He had one chance of beeing smart and failed.
I was going to say the same thing.  Joanna was the most memorable character of the trilogy to me and it didn't surprise me when she got her own novel later.
Who is driving?  OH MY GOD!  BEAR IS DRIVING!  How can that be?

Steve - They thought they could take the caps off all the markers and let them dry out. But there was one marker they never reckoned with.

Kitsune413

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 5324
  • Diamond Khanate Sakhan
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #11 on: 14 February 2015, 20:13:57 »
I didn't like them either. It does really come down to them being unlikable characters.

You spend three books in Aiden's  head and he isn't a 'Fun' guy.

Every man lives by exchanging - Adam Smith

SeeM

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 339
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #12 on: 14 February 2015, 21:49:50 »
I was going to say the same thing.  Joanna was the most memorable character of the trilogy to me and it didn't surprise me when she got her own novel later.

And it's in Battlecorps Anthology #1. It looks like some authors feel the same.
(+)

Scotty

  • Alpha Strike Guru by appointment to the FWLM
  • Catalyst Demo Team
  • Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 13687
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #13 on: 15 February 2015, 00:29:34 »
saturday morning cartoon fighting! that's perfect.

anyway, I understand the story. I just couldn't identify at all with any of the characters. They all seemed too remote to really care about.

And another thing, The whole freeborn vs trueborn part of the story. I was all ready for Aidan to make some pretty radical choices in his life, eschewing the hateful prejudices of his culture having lived among the freeborn and grown in respect and admiration for them. Aidan could take the first steps as a reformer and bring a little humanity and enlightenment to the... wait, what? He wants his blood name and a gene pool legacy? aw shoot. There goes the only real story I was interested in.  ???

The story you were interested is impossible for several reasons

1) the Clans didn't change after the trilogy happened; the status quo had to be preserved and Aidan couldn't be the one to do it because that book was set in the 'past' when it was written.

2) Aidan did[/d] respect and admire Freeborn skills and experience.  He managed to get two of them posted to the Falcon Guards, and one of them managed to win a bloodname in her own right.

3) Despite being remarkably un-Clanlike, Aidan was still Clan.  He could no more forsake the opportunity to win a Bloodname than you could decide to ignore your retirement plan and just walk into the woods at age 65.  He was a product of his society.
Catalyst Demo Agent #679

Kansas City players, or people who are just passing through the area, come join us at the Geekery just off Shawnee Mission Parkway for BattleTech!  Current days are Tuesdays in the afternoon and evening.  I can't make every single week, but odds are pretty good that somebody will be there.

omega2010

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 217
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #14 on: 19 February 2015, 15:18:20 »
And it's in Battlecorps Anthology #1. It looks like some authors feel the same.
I was thinking of I Am Jade Falcon but then I remembered that novel was a bit divisive.
Who is driving?  OH MY GOD!  BEAR IS DRIVING!  How can that be?

Steve - They thought they could take the caps off all the markers and let them dry out. But there was one marker they never reckoned with.

theCrowe

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 261
Re: some books are better than others.
« Reply #15 on: 19 February 2015, 20:07:51 »
The story you were interested is impossible for several reasons

1) the Clans didn't change after the trilogy happened; the status quo had to be preserved and Aidan couldn't be the one to do it because that book was set in the 'past' when it was written.
.

so these three books are just like the star trek filler episodes of the battletech novel world. Take them out and you loose a little background but essentially nothing changes. I suppose that's a little uncharitable. There are probbably more than a few other battletech novels that could be accused of the same thing but perhaps in their case it's forgiven due to the presence of a good story.

Anotheruser

  • Private
  • *
  • Posts: 49
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #16 on: 21 February 2015, 17:02:22 »
I have a soft spot for the Jade Phoenix trilogy, though I can understand why people might not like it. And I think it does have flaws - the pacing is odd, so that the story feels very disjointed at times. I think it could definitely be better written. But I also think it is, in its own way, superior at least to Thurston's later BT books, some of which really came across as the token 'Jade Falcon' books (at best - Freebirth in particular deserves a good kicking... my brother had never been a big fiction reader, but I'd introduced him to some of my BT novels. He screamed through the Warrior trilogy, the BoK trilogy, some of the later books, got onto the Twilight of the Clans series... hit Freebirth and never got any further... but that's another story!)

Anyway, I think the protagonists and main characters in the Jade Phoenix trilogy are pretty unlikeable, but I think that's deliberate. Because the real character of the trilogy is the Clan system itself. As mentioned, they're our first real look at it (and that in itself I think makes the trilogy more than filler), but they're also dystopian novels, because it isn't pretty. We're not meant to like the Clan system, because as we're shown it's monstrous - it abuses young children and teaches them to kill, it routinely denies the value of human life, and above all has deliberately excised from life some of the most fundamental things that make us human, such as family and love and compassion. And all the Clan characters in the novels are damaged by that system. The fact that Aidan's book collection is not only secret, but also illegal is a classical element in dystopian fiction, but this is a dystopia that's been in place long enough that now noone can even understand the banned elements - Newspeak has been in place for a long while. I think Thurston's later books are weaker because, in part, they seem to actually buy in to some of the propaganda and forget this dystopian element, but it seems pretty deliberate in the Jade Phoenix trilogy itself.

And Aidan's character shows that. As Rtif's points out, the main point is that he's not this great reformer throwing off the iniquities of the system. He's also indoctrinated and stuck in the Clan way. Horse calls him out on various things like the seeking for a bloodname, and I think it's actually a strength that the story has Aidan unable to articulate why those things matter to him. But at the same time, his experiences and his reading and his character leave him standing out, seeing this other stuff but (due to his indoctrination), unable to grasp it, but also unable to leave it alone. And so he's in this odd position where he can see on one hand how the Clan is failing to live up to its own ideals, and on the other is experiencing these very unclanlike thoughts in his head. And I think it's a crowning irony (whether intended or not), that he gets all these honours at the end for what is ultimately an extremely unclanlike act for a warrior. Because in the end he doesn't die for his clan, but dies for his daughter.

Could all that have been better executed? Definitely. They could certainly have been better written. I wouldn't place them amongst the best of BT fiction, or amongst my personal favourites (probably Exodus Road and The Last Charge). But I think they really deserve a place above a lot of the more generic stories because they're doing something that a lot of the others simply aren't doing.
« Last Edit: 21 February 2015, 19:59:55 by Anotheruser »

ColBosch

  • Lieutenant Colonel
  • *
  • Posts: 8647
  • Legends Never Die
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #17 on: 21 February 2015, 21:22:03 »
Exactly! It's a "look behind the curtain," much like Heir to the Dragon, a novel from the villains' point of view. It explains and expands the society, shows how people can live in it, and illustrates that heroes aren't always the "good guys."
BattleTech is a huge house, it's not any one fan's or "type" of fans.  If you need to relieve yourself, use the bathroom not another BattleTech fan. - nckestrel
1st and 2nd Succession Wars are not happy times. - klarg1
Check my Ogre Flickr page! https://flic.kr/s/aHsmcLnb7v and https://flic.kr/s/aHsksV83ZP

SeeM

  • Master Sergeant
  • *
  • Posts: 339
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #18 on: 22 February 2015, 04:42:31 »
Because the real character of the trilogy is the Clan system itself.
Exactly! It's a "look behind the curtain," much like Heir to the Dragon, a novel from the villains' point of view. It explains and expands the society, shows how people can live in it, and illustrates that heroes aren't always the "good guys."

That is true, short stories from Jade Phoenix would be a nice addition to Jade Falcon sourcebook.
(+)

Rtifs

  • Warrant Officer
  • *
  • Posts: 554
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #19 on: 23 February 2015, 12:19:09 »
I rather liked all the characters, except Joanna.  I’ve always hated her.  But I didn’t care too much for the stories. 

Joanna always felt like a hanger-on.  She would get retroactively tacked on to every major battle.  So she gets a role in the Falcon Guards at Twycross and magically survives, gets to kill the widowmaker, etc.   She just feels like that one guy everyone knows who claims to one-up everything you do.  If you see an eagle, he saw a bigger one. 

The other thing I didn’t like about her is that she just goes around killing people wantonly.  And no one cares.  I get that in the BT universe life is cheap, but a military doesn’t last long when its warriors just murder each other whenever they get mad.  The clan system is all about having the self-discipline to follow the trial system regulations.  Someone with the lack of self-discipline like Joanna should have been flagged as a problem early on, and shipped off to a solahma unit.  The incident that really highlights this is at the beginning of Freebirth.  She picks a fight with a guy on Coventry and kills him.  This in spite of the fact that she was well aware of the orders against fights to the death, and the position the clan was in – desperately short of warriors.  She is never punished or suffers any negative consequences.  She should have been punished, even if only for violating orders. 

YingJanshi

  • Major
  • *
  • Posts: 4507
  • Switch Friend Code: SW-4326-4622-8514
Re: some books are better than others. (Jade Phoenix)
« Reply #20 on: 23 February 2015, 18:07:38 »
The other thing I didn’t like about her is that she just goes around killing people wantonly.  And no one cares.  I get that in the BT universe life is cheap, but a military doesn’t last long when its warriors just murder each other whenever they get mad.  The clan system is all about having the self-discipline to follow the trial system regulations.  Someone with the lack of self-discipline like Joanna should have been flagged as a problem early on, and shipped off to a solahma unit.  The incident that really highlights this is at the beginning of Freebirth.  She picks a fight with a guy on Coventry and kills him.  This in spite of the fact that she was well aware of the orders against fights to the death, and the position the clan was in – desperately short of warriors.  She is never punished or suffers any negative consequences.  She should have been punished, even if only for violating orders. 

That actually sounds like a very Falcon thing to do though...

Also, remember that the Warriors are basically taught from birth to seek glory. Ultimately (hopefully) ending with their Bloodname and maybe even a mention in the Remembrance. Yes, they are also taught to fight for the good of the Clan. But...for most Warriors it is a difficult concept to get, of Clan honor being higher than your own. And as others have said, among the Clans, might makes right. And also, when you have a warrior as good as Joanna, how do you punish her? She'd just have to issue a Trial of Grievance and she'd probably win it.

Initiate of the Order of Valhalla

(HBS: Backer #4,960)
(Clan Invasion: Backer #314)
(Mercenaries: Backer #6,017)