Hour of the Wolf: a Running Review

[Sharpnel]

Battle is too far to the east, there's a whole two provinces in the way. Amaris Palace is in Lake Louise, Alberta. Battle takes place in central and northern Ontario, through to Manitoba, with Malvina being based in Winterpeg... er, Winnipeg.

The authors clear lack of understanding of Canadian geography was extremely frustrating. Length of trial, vs geographic area, vs lack of dropship transport, equals broken suspension of disbelief.

I agree. I'm not Canadian and even I was scratching my head wondering how they were covering 100s of miles in relatively short order.

[Elmoth]

You mean, you had kept suspension of disbelief that long?

[Middcore]

Since I skipped ahead in my reading list to get this book out of the way, I don't have any thoughts on the Dragoons turning wolf (aside from... hey, aren't a significant portion of the dragoons recruited from outside the unit and thus don't really have that clan connecti... no, no, save it for the other book).

I hope you do do (heh, doodoo) this for the other book, but... yes, if the Dragoons weren't going to rejoin the Clans in 3050, it's hard to see why they would find the idea compelling a hundred years later. Apparently though the highest purpose groups/factions we don't know what to do with anymore can serve is to make Alaric look cool.

It is beyond me how the sociopathic, inbred offspring of two characters nobody liked has become the designated all-conquering hero of this universe.

[Lorcan Nagle]

At least it's a far quicker read than Hour of the Wolf?

[Jaim Magnus]

You mean, you had kept suspension of disbelief that long?

Nah, lost it in the first chapter. Honestly, this was a slog to read, and I don't intend to ever read it again.

[Kitsune413]

Interlude: Disregard Terra. Acquire Currency. So far the Sea Foxes seem to be the only sane guys.

I was upset by that one actually.

Don't get me wrong, ignoring Terra and acquiring currency is the right plan...

My problem is the date that they decide that plan. Because of the date in the book it seems like they just decided that was the plan a few months into the invasion of terra...

But the Sea Foxes were involved in the plan to get the Dragoons to Terra in the first place...

If I'm getting the guy who's gonna be Ilclan the Mechs and the Ride to become Ilclan, I really want some assurances of independence and repayment afterwards... and not that easily duped here is your bag of silver judas kind of repayment either. That, "You got what you wanted and there are five of you left so if you want mechs to replace your mechs and you don't want us to just annihilate you with our perfectly fine militaries we're gonna be well compensated for this." sort of way.

Also the author had on his blog page that the Sea Foxes were up to something thinky so a chapter where they're like, "We like MONEY!" wasn't what I was expecting.

[Kitsune413]

Also she was critically injured and concussed just the day before. While I don't put it past the clans to jump into battle regardless of their injuries, there isn't much of a comment on them in this case, literally just a sentence about pushing past the pain of her injuries. It would have been nice to see more indication of her struggling with those injuries, just to add some consequences for prior events.

Even having treated people with traumatic brain injuries in my life, I've got to admit to being pretty ignorant about concussions. I thought they were things you shrugged off after a day or two...

and that can be the case... but it can also very much not be the case.

Chance honestly could have been running around with extreme headaches, super sensitivity to light, a potentially broken vestibular system which would have very much effected the way the mech worked and problems with her parasympathetic system thinking, "Hey, your resting pulse is 101 now. Because it is."

[Middcore]

Even having treated people with traumatic brain injuries in my life, I've got to admit to being pretty ignorant about concussions. I thought they were things you shrugged off after a day or two...

and that can be the case... but it can also very much not be the case.

Chance honestly could have been running around with extreme headaches, super sensitivity to light, a potentially broken vestibular system which would have very much effected the way the mech worked and problems with her parasympathetic system thinking, "Hey, your resting pulse is 101 now. Because it is."

Not any kind of medical expert here but my understanding is that concussions and being knocked unconscious are things that get treated in a very cavalier way in fiction (oh you black out for an hour maybe and then wake up with a headache, whatevs) that are absolutely nothing to take lightly in real life. There's a reason why sports leagues are now moving towards "concussion protocols" that can hold athletes out of competition for days at a time. Of course a military situation isn't exactly comparable, in a life and death situation for king and country and all that guys/gals may take more of a risk.

[Kitsune413]

I've had questions about this with almost all portrayals of Clanners. 
Clanners versus Inner Sphere: They don't follow the rules!  They are horrible!
Clanners versus Clanners: Constantly not following the rules in order to win.  Sneak attacks, headhunting, artillery blasts from a horde of artillery, ganging up on targets, intentionally choosing the obvious weakness of the opponent (an elemental challenging an aerospace pilot to unaugmented combat).

Up to a point I can explain it as Clanners exploting the system but able to maintain appearances of honor.  You didn't see me blast Kerensky with a cluster worth of artillery.  Yes I choose the less honorable combat to win my bloodname, but that's within the rules. etc.  But what I don't get is the supposed inability of any clanner to deal with any such tactics from the Inner Sphere. Not just complaining, but losing, because they are incapable of expecting or dealing with IS tricks. Clanners deal with Elementals daily, but can't deal with a camouflaged or hidden enemy?   

The weakness of Clanners facing the Inner Sphere seems overblown to me.
Maybe it's just excuses.  Clan warriors can't possibly lose to the Inner Sphere, therefore it must be their dishonorable tactics and not because I'm not as good as I think I am.

There is a third option here...

Clanners are just racist against the Inner Sphere.

The hypocrisy can just be a feature of, "If a Clan warrior does something sneaky, he is tactically brilliant and it's impressive." but... "If an Inner Sphere Warrior does something sneaky then it reinforces what I already believed about the Inner Sphere in the first place. That they're a bunch of sneaky no-gooders."

[Kitsune413]

Not any kind of medical expert here but my understanding is that concussions and being knocked unconscious are things that get treated in a very cavalier way in fiction (oh you black out for an hour maybe and then wake up with a headache, whatevs) that are absolutely nothing to take lightly in real life. There's a reason why sports leagues are now moving towards "concussion protocols" that can hold athletes out of competition for days at a time. Of course a military situation isn't exactly comparable, in a life and death situation for king and country and all that guys/gals may take more of a risk.

fiction is pretty cavalier about any injury... the reality of being in a coma for an extended period of time is that when you wake up you potentially won't be able to follow two step commands... (take a left, then take a right...) and depending on your age, if you're older, it can take months to recover... and you honestly may never be the same.

The super safe, "shot in the shoulder" of novels and movies is a disastrous injury. There is a major artery and nerve there. That arm isn't going to work anymore. If it's a little to the left or right the pleura of your ribs is going to be punctured and your lung is going to collapse. Honestly, I've treated people who have been shot in the meaty part of their leg that just randomly lose their balance and fall because the nerve damage is bad.

I think because a concussion can go away in a couple of days that we ignore the reality that you could also just be wearing sunglasses and a hat for a few weeks.

[Kerfuffin(925)]

Even having treated people with traumatic brain injuries in my life, I've got to admit to being pretty ignorant about concussions. I thought they were things you shrugged off after a day or two...

and that can be the case... but it can also very much not be the case.

Chance honestly could have been running around with extreme headaches, super sensitivity to light, a potentially broken vestibular system which would have very much effected the way the mech worked and problems with her parasympathetic system thinking, "Hey, your resting pulse is 101 now. Because it is."

A very minor concussion everyone who’s done a physical sport has had a head knock. And it’s commonly referred to as a concussion. In some ways it is, a very minor level. Just some minor confusion and some pain. For years I’ve only ever had them at that level.
I had a moderate level concussion, I couldn’t think straight. I had to read a and film a speech for a class, I would read a sentence and I’d forget the whole thing. Eventually I just read one word, and I would look up say the word and repeat for the whole speech. I couldn’t retain any more information. I couldn’t drive, I was constantly off balance for about a week. It took almost two for me to get back to normal. These are actual concussions.

That disconnect between a “ow I hit my head” and a “NFL hit to the head” level of concussion is large. They both technically are concussions, but one isn’t nearly as severe or dangerous. Using concussion to mean the first (which I think is happening here) isn’t wrong, but conveys the wrong message.

[Kitsune413]

I got rear ended at the end of last month, by a vehicle going 55 mph. It's been a ride. Basically two weeks of weird symptoms making me unable to do things... it's not at the level of the traumatic brain injuries I've treated. But it was on the real low end of the spectrum of that.

[Elmoth]

I was upset by that one actually.
...

If I'm getting the guy who's gonna be Ilclan the Mechs and the Ride to become Ilclan, I really want some assurances of independence and repayment afterwards... and not that easily duped here is your bag of silver

You are right. They could have asked for some of the wolf major warships as payment. That would have been an appropriate payment.

[Hptm. Streiger]

Then he talks Tara Campbell out of taking him out of the fight

So Tara Campell is the "worst" soldier of the Republic... she could have ended Malvina on Skye - but no instead of making use of that hatchet while Malvinas Mech was right in front of her - in shut down.
Same here - mow him down and if he survive listen to him. But maybe the other Hazen (Alex?) was enough for her.
Didn't liked the Old Guards take down, for such a great name you would have expected nothing short of a Picket Charge.

[Kitsune413]

You are right. They could have asked for some of the wolf major warships as payment. That would have been an appropriate payment.

Don't really need to take their fleet. Just some reassurances of autonomy and support. Then you just keep on taking their money.

[Agathos]

At this point Alaric must owe the SharkFoxes so much that they are already into “the bank has a problem” territory. They need him to last a long time to pay them back.

[nckestrel]

You have discovered the secret to the Sea Fox ilKhanship.
It’s not that they don’t want Terra, they’re just going to demand it in repayment.

[MarauderD]

So is it just me, or did HotW receive a less warm welcome than we were all anticipating?

I don't know what I expected at the time, but I did expect it to be...different than it was.

[Kojak]

So is it just me, or did HotW receive a less warm welcome than we were all anticipating?

I don't know what I expected at the time, but I did expect it to be...different than it was.

Well, I think a lot of people were hoping for The Return of the King, and instead we got The Rise of Skywalker. To generalize somewhat.

[Jaim Magnus]

Well, I think a lot of people were hoping for The Return of the King, and instead we got The Rise of Skywalker. To generalize somewhat.

Nailed it.

The thing is that we all knew how it was going to end. And that's fine. The problem is that the whole book feels like it's going through the motions, checking off boxes. There was no tension, or interest. No entertainment. No characters to root for. It felt mediocre. It felt lame. Honestly, it read like a hastily written first draft.

Not exactly the best way to signal a new era of the game. Especially when "fiction is driving the narrative again". If that's so, the fiction needs to be damn good. And this wasn't.

[Kitsune413]

So is it just me, or did HotW receive a less warm welcome than we were all anticipating?

I don't know what I expected at the time, but I did expect it to be...different than it was.

I think it's just the nature of the beast...

It should have been a trilogy.

Instead the first half is just Clan Wolf dunking on the Republic of the Sphere.

Then the second half is just Clan wolf dunking on the falcons...

And then there are the chapters where they are like, "Here are some protagonists please like them!" But it's all squished into the massive scope of the book...

And for anyone hoping for anything other than the obvious outcome the obvious outcome just comes marching in...

But a lot of it are just real world issues creeping in. They want fiction to drive the product. That's a good policy and a good idea...

But at this point we have waited so long for Ilclan that we as a fanbase wouldn't have held out for a trilogy. We'd have lost our collective minds...

So as has been said, it's rise of skywalker...  designed by committee let's get this done the book.

I'm looking forward to future fiction and future source books and I think with their ducks in a row it'll go a lot smoother than the last eight years. Or six? Or however long its been.

[Middcore]

But at this point we have waited so long for Ilclan that we as a fanbase wouldn't have held out for a trilogy. We'd have lost our collective minds...

Really? There were people who wanted this? Are there people who like Alaric? Who are they?

Did people want IlClan per se? Or did they just want an end to the Republic era?

[Liam's Ghost]

Just a friendly reminder that there are people who enjoyed this book and are happy with what they've got, and that's okay. People's tastes are different so not everybody is going to agree.

Anyway, reviewing should continue later tonight. I took yesterday off because I had the latest volume of Kaguya Sama to read and the latest episode of Fruits Basket to watch. Priorities are important.

[Agathos]

After years of heavy-handed foreshadowing, it was just something we had to get past. And now we have! I'm looking forward to Tamar Rising.

I'm not sure any comparison to Rise of Skywalker is all that fair. Rise of Skywalker was frantic in its incoherence, a series of quick cuts to increasingly bizarre plot twists. Hour of the Wolf was plodding and inevitable. (With the possible exception of the Northwind Highlanders; their inconstancy has a bit of that J.J. Abrams energy.)

[Kojak]

I'm not sure any comparison to Rise of Skywalker is all that fair. Rise of Skywalker was frantic in its incoherence, a series of quick cuts to increasingly bizarre plot twists. Hour of the Wolf was plodding and inevitable. (With the possible exception of the Northwind Highlanders; their inconstancy has a bit of that J.J. Abrams energy.)

To be clear, I'm not trying to compare the content of the actual stories. I'm only using that comparison as a commentary on the gap between fan expectations and the actual result. That said, I've always felt like the novel-length fiction was at best an extremely mixed bag, and generally prefer to consume the story in sourcebook form, so I too am looking forward to both the IlClan sourcebook and everything after it.

[Liam's Ghost]

Chapter Thirty-Two: That big red DFA button seems silly to me, and I went through all the rec-guides to see if we'd gotten an Amarok writeup so I might learn more. No such luck.

At the very least I wouldn't expect it to be nearly as effective as it seems here, able to actually deflect a DFA attack with no apparent down side or indication of damage. At best, I would expect you're guaranteeing the arms take the brunt of the hit rather than risking damage to something more face like. But the arms would still take the brunt of the hit. Kinetic energy is kinetic energy, there should have been at least some mention of damage to the arms when a seventy five ton mech bounced off them.

On the other side of the fight we have Stephanie Chistu fighting a skinwalker, which is treated as a typical encounter against a typical battlemech. Complete with the pilot being staggered by a head hit and ejecting from a normal command couch.

The pilot being "rattled" isn't really objectionable considering the mech. The Skinwalker is an interface cockpit equipped machine, and while pilots don't take damage from head hits like they do in standard mechs, the interface apparently blurs the line between man and machine enough that they might react as though they themself have just been hit. Such as by grabbing the area hit by weapons fire as though slapping a hand over a wound.

(on a related note, the similar inner sphere protomech interface, combined with the madness inducing plague on Necromo, resulted in blakist protomech pilots attempting to eat people by smashing them into the faceplate of their protomechs. Direct neural interface is a hell of a drug, kids)

So it's not unreasonable for a skinwalker pilot to react rattled as though he'd just been personally shot in the face, even without actually being injured.

However, the description of the ejected pilot just describes a normal guy. Who is then immediately vaporized. Interface equipped mech pilots wear a specialized suit of PAL armor, and while it would not have saved them from an autocannon slug, it would have been worth some mention. Instead, this interesting, unique battlemech is treated like just any other battlemech.

What's the point of using a Skinwalker if it doesn't get to do Skinwalker things?

[DarkISI]

The Skinwalker was an error and corrected via Errata. If You are reading from the ebook, updating it would solve this. If you have the physical book, you are stuck with it. But you can find it in the fiction Errata thread.

[Liam's Ghost]

Chapter Thirty three: I am sick to death of this running narrative that only Alaric and his wolves could save the Inner Sphere from Malvina. I get it from the clan side, because the clans are just that kind of arrogant and Alaric apparently walks on water. But Tara Used-to-be-Campbell saying it is aggravating nonsense. I'm sick to death of the writing shoveling this larger than life foes narrative while simultaneously going out of its way to remind us at every turn that Malvina is a petty psychopathic brat who is literally her own worst enemy. At this point I feel like I'm reading clan propaganda and I'm supposed to think that not only is Clan Wolf claiming to be the best at everything, but I should believe them too.

Top tier prank to play on the commander of your elemental star, disable the positively magical medical systems designed to pump him full of painkillers in the event of serious injury. The only thing I really find memorable about Parac is that for some reason this feature of Elemental armor that's been baked into the setting since the first time we saw Elementals is somehow not functioning in this case. Maybe he had an issue in the past? Got a little too dependent on painkillers and disabled the medical system so he wouldn't be tempted to relapse? Or maybe the all the pain he's described as being in is just an attempt at cheap pathos with no regard to how it's actually supposed to work or if this character was someone who'd had enough screen time or development for us to care about.

Last note, isn't it convenient that Malvina's fleet failed to notice the fleet of Wolf dropships arriving late in the campaign against the Republic, landing in North America, and then sitting around and doing nothing this whole time? I actually went back and double checked just to make sure. The Dragoons and Exiles arrived well after Malvina, and no effort is made to explain why nobody in orbit noticed them arriving. Sneaking a fleet of ships riding on impossibly bright fusion torches through the emptiness of space is not an easy task. But it just happens, and now the climax of the battle hangs on that omission. The Falcons are going to lose this battle because a fleet of dropships showed up almost a month ago and landed in north america, and either nobody saw a fleet of giant fusion torches moving through the system for days on end, or nobody thought it was important in the middle of an active planetwide conflict.

And any explanation we might get in a sourcebook later won't change the fact that it happened this way because the writer didn't think it was worth his time.

[Liam's Ghost]

Chapter Thirty Four: "How did we not see them coming?" Look, Stephanie, I've already harped on this twice, I gotta move on to other things!

Anastasia takes a moment to remind us of how brilliant Alaric and Malvina are. And... look, this thing were characters are brilliant because the text or characters tell us so is annoying. And I'm tired. It's been a chore to get this far.

On the plus side Anastasia is okay with headhunting attacks, since that's literally her job here.

Chapter Thirty Five: That felt like the least Seventh Commando raid in the history of the Seventh Commando. But we saw Zoomers again. Who remembers Zoomers?

[Liam's Ghost]

The Skinwalker was an error and corrected via Errata. If You are reading from the ebook, updating it would solve this. If you have the physical book, you are stuck with it. But you can find it in the fiction Errata thread.

Huh. I'm reading from a print copy.