The Good, The Bad and The Dark Age Novels

[Dmon]

I am going to be taking the plunge and re-reading the Dark Age novels in order.

What books did you enjoy and why?

What books did you hate and again, why?

 >:D

[JPArbiter]

The general consensus is that the Dark Age novels didn’t find thier stride until the Scorpion Jar, though i personally think that is unfair.

The Delrio trilogy has earned some scorn for the author(s) lack of attentiveness to the IP’s rules in terms of fiction writing, and oversexualizing Anastasia Kerensky.

Blood Avatar is infamous for being a Battletech book with no mechs, asnd it’s content is practically retconned from existance.

Personally among the early stuff I liked the first three books (ghost war, ruins of power and A call to arms) and stuff got fun once the Falcons and Cappelans got involved.

You can probably skip hunters of the deep, patriots stand, and blood avatar. Surrender your dreams might be a hard read cause the narrative is a linear, and again, may be subject to moderate to severe retconning

[Lorcan Nagle]

The conventional wisdom that they improve as of The Scorpion Jar is pretty accurate. Of the ones before that point, I'd rate them as follows:

Ghost War:  Good, not great.  It's on a par with Stackpole's Mutant Chronicles and Dark Heresy novels rather than the best of his BattleTech ones.
A Call To Arms:  I really enjoyed this one.  Of the early Dark Age novels, this is the one I felt best captured the setting as described.
The Ruins of Power:  This is my vote for the worst BattleTech novel ever.  I skip this one when I reread, and I have reread The Sword and the Dagger, Ideal War, Far Country, By Blood Betrayed, and Star Lord multiple times.
The Proving Grounds Trilogy:  OK, but nothing special.  Has some nice bits that justify the low mech numbers, but ultimately this shouldn't have been a trilogy, it's basically the same plot three times.
By Temptations and By War: Eeeeeeh.  There's elements of the one good plotline from the Proving Grounds Trilogy that continue and conclude here, but by and large it's not great.
Fortress of Lies:  A serviceable but unspectacular book. 
Flight of the Falcon:  I really enjoyed this one.  Milán does a great job of capturing the Jade Falcons voice in a similar style to Thurston
Blood of the Isle:  Another enjoyable one.  This is the first book in the Malvina Hazen is a terrible monster arc.
Hunters of the Deep:  This is a book more enjoyable for the idea than the execution.  I've enjoyed a lot of Randall's BT fiction, but this one didn't quite work.  The first book to have some post-breakup FWL politics though.

[JPArbiter]

I am a sucker for the bad novels sometimes. Ruins of Power is one of them. It is a YA novel before YA novels got codified. Would probably stand as one of the better novels with a little cleanup by a different author

[Kidd]

My personal favourites:

Ghost War - 007 in Battletech, and generally funny
A Call To Arms - almost the real "first book" of the MWDA setting
Fortress of Lies - decent combat, and a good look into what it takes to build a faction in Battletech
Patriot's Stand - seems generally panned, but come now, it's Magnificent 7 in Battletech, what's not to like? :D
Blood of the Isle - injects a relatable humanity into the pro-Steiner faction, in the form of Jasek
Sword of Sedition - another very foundational book for understanding 3145 politics, and literally brings almost the entire cast together
A Rending of Falcons - simply because I like Victor Milan's writing

Almost none of the "second wave" of Dark Age books caught on much with me. That speaks for itself a little I think. But I'd like to give it a second shot... so I'll be re-reading them myself soon.

The Proving Grounds Trilogy:  OK, but nothing special.  Has some nice bits that justify the low mech numbers, but ultimately this shouldn't have been a trilogy, it's basically the same plot three times.

This. THIS. SO MUCH THIS!

[roosterboy]

Blood Avatar is infamous for being a Battletech book with no mechs, asnd it’s content is practically retconned from existance.

Not sure what you mean by that, as I can't think of anything from that novel that has been retconned away.

[Nav_Alpha]

I’d rate Call to Arms up there with any other BT literature - fun, fast paced, well written and captures the Dark Age vibe 100 per cent. But is also has a bit of a 3025 vibe with rare Mechs and Mechwarriors as kings of the battlefield.
Temptations and War is also damn good I say - but the Republic/CapCon conflict is my fav. So I’m biased.

Blood Avatar is worth a read. It is what is is.

Other stand outs are: Wolf Hunters and to a lesser extent, Surrender Your dreams (complete with retcon ending).

Also, the last book that’s details up to  3145 and focuses on tucker Harrell is pretty good.
The rest are sadly lacking - a real shame because I love the era.

[JPArbiter]

Not sure what you mean by that, as I can't think of anything from that novel that has been retconned away.

I thought events in The Wars of Reaving killed it, i could be mistaken though, i know better then to challenge you in terms of canon Rooster. 😉

[Bren]

As someone who didn't think they were a large fan of the Dark Age novels, Flight of the Falcon has my favourite scene in any BattleTech novel and A Bonfire of Worlds is probably my favourite novel of any era.

[Nav_Alpha]

As someone who didn't think they were a large fan of the Dark Age novels, Flight of the Falcon has my favourite scene in any BattleTech novel and A Bonfire of Worlds is probably my favourite novel of any era.

Yeah, sorry - you’ve made me revise my above list.
The three Falcons/Skye books were very good. My only problem with Flight Of the Falcon and Rending was that they didn’t stack up to Milan’s earlier trilogy, which was most excellent.
And, also... yep. We get it Ms Hazen is really hot and mad. But does she need to be nude in EVERY scene?

[Karasu]

The fact that Blood Avatar is really much more of a mystery/thriller than any other Battletech book doesn't mean its bad.  You just have to be aware of what you're going to get.  It's also written with an older audience in mind than many of the original BT books, I feel.
Personally, I found that there was interesting world-building in the area of normalish people, where we readers generally see only the lives of the elites.

[JadeHellbringer]

The fact that Blood Avatar is really much more of a mystery/thriller than any other Battletech book doesn't mean its bad.  You just have to be aware of what you're going to get.  It's also written with an older audience in mind than many of the original BT books, I feel.
Personally, I found that there was interesting world-building in the area of normalish people, where we readers generally see only the lives of the elites.

I actually really enjoyed it, it's nice to see a look at the universe that isn't stompy robots and inbred royalty now and then. That the threads it left for the rest of the universe to use never really got pulled on by later books was too bad.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

So angry they haven't cured Diabetes yet... thousand plus years in the future *shakes head*

I rather enjoy Patriots Stand. It's a solid story IMO about a bunch of little guys fighting for what's theirs. Also enjoy Trial by Chaos but I'm a Ghost Bear so I'm a bit biased. I'll second the comments on Ghost War thought.

[Deadborder]

And, also... yep. We get it Ms Hazen is really hot and mad. But does she need to be nude in EVERY scene?

It's a Vic Milan thing. Seriously.

I'll generally echo the sentiments here, with the added note that I found Patriot's Stand to be excruciating. The good guys were so vomitiously pure and wonderful, while the villains were shallow, puppy-kicking evil with no real depth or motivation beyond "city folk = bad"

Personally, Blood Avatar is one of my favourite BT novels, full stop.

[SteelRaven]

We get it Ms Hazen is really hot and mad. But does she need to be nude in EVERY scene?

Clanners spend allot of time half-naked to completely naked, it's mentioned a few times that nudity is not really a big deal to them and I guess it highlights their more tribal nature in the narrative.

[Dulahan]

I didn't really dislike the Dark Ages stuff, personally.  The stand outs mostly the ones mentioned above though!  My problem is they tend to blur together since I read them all back to back to back.

[JadeHellbringer]

It's a Vic Milan thing. Seriously.

I'll generally echo the sentiments here, with the added note that I found Patriot's Stand to be excruciating. The good guys were so vomitiously pure and wonderful, while the villains were shallow, puppy-kicking evil with no real depth or motivation beyond "city folk = bad"

Personally, Blood Avatar is one of my favourite BT novels, full stop.

Backing completely on Patriot's Stand. Hated it. To be fair, it might be the only post-Scorpion Jar novel I actually did truly hate, but yeah. Like you said, mary-sue heroes who can do no wrong vs. mustache-twirling bad guys with no clear reason for being bad guys other than 'because that way the other guys are heroes...?'. (I almost threw the book out the window of the bus I was on when I first read the bit about the Atlas pilot with post-its all over the cockpit so he could drive it. In a universe where Mechs have become fairly rare, how does this guy get NEAR a rare assault Mech if he needs a post-it to determine what controls do what? Come on, bruh.)

As for Blood Avatar, Ilsa's writing is definitely a stark difference from the usual 'cerulean bolts of man-made lightning' stuff. Calling it 'dark' isn't quite cutting it, is it? (Skull-licking for fun and profit!)... that said, if you're going to go dark, be GOOD at being dark, and she's very good at it. As awful as the material was with things like the Bounty Hunter's perversions to begin with, she did a great job handling it.

(Side note: Ghost War had its flaws and warts, but remains to this day the only Stackpole novel I've actually liked. Not Battletech- anything by him. For whatever reason, I enjoyed that book though.)

[YingJanshi]

The fact that Blood Avatar is really much more of a mystery/thriller than any other Battletech book doesn't mean its bad.  You just have to be aware of what you're going to get.  It's also written with an older audience in mind than many of the original BT books, I feel.
Personally, I found that there was interesting world-building in the area of normalish people, where we readers generally see only the lives of the elites.

I actually really enjoyed it, it's nice to see a look at the universe that isn't stompy robots and inbred royalty now and then. That the threads it left for the rest of the universe to use never really got pulled on by later books was too bad.

I really, really liked Blood Avatar. Sure she did go a bit too grim in a few places...but it was a really well written mystery. And also a step up from the usual pulpiness of the average BattleTech novel.

Personally I'd love to see more books like it, insofar as stories that explore different aspects of the universe than just nobles and MechWarriors. (Yes, yes, I know, that's the core of the game, but come on, the universe surrounding the game is HUGE, why can't we explore it more?)

[Kidd]

Backing completely on Patriot's Stand. Hated it. To be fair, it might be the only post-Scorpion Jar novel I actually did truly hate, but yeah. Like you said, mary-sue heroes who can do no wrong vs. mustache-twirling bad guys with no clear reason for being bad guys other than 'because that way the other guys are heroes...?'. (I almost threw the book out the window of the bus I was on when I first read the bit about the Atlas pilot with post-its all over the cockpit so he could drive it.

'M gonna make a stab at defending Patriot's Stand, FNAR :))

The novel hinted at various shady pasts for the motley crew of mercenaries: an outcast Spirit Cat, a lot of failed mercs, a Ghost Knight, and a Bannson's Raider - as a protagonist! - with equally differing motives for helping the patriots. And at the conclusion of the story the planetary "patriots" themselves end up technically being separatists against Republic rule... which I think is where the novel is positioned in the overall lineup, demonstrating the breakdown in Republic rule post-Blackout.

The bad guys are no more 1-dimensional than most bad guys in most Battletech novels. That hired mercs make up most of the troops on both sides of the conflict throws some interesting nuances on the BT merc business, and the twist is that the thoroughly-professional mercs are the bad guys (mostly) and the reject mercs are the good guys.

For all that the novel plays up the jury-rigging of the patriots' homemade army, the superiority of military equipment is constantly highlighted - in one battle it takes 10 or so AgroMech converts to bring down a single real Mech, and not before significant loss of life. In fact it is the captured Mechs that win the real victory at the end of the novel.

In a universe where Mechs have become fairly rare, how does this guy get NEAR a rare assault Mech if he needs a post-it to determine what controls do what?

That question sort of answers itself - the guy had no Mech training. And the novel specifically mentioned that he had killed the Mechwarrior after pretending to hire him... something that was suggested on this board not too long ago, I recall.

IMHO these points, amongst others, make Patriot's Stand relatively unique in the BT novel lineup. That it is seems to be so universally panned I put down frankly to writing skill...

(Side note: Ghost War had its flaws and warts, but remains to this day the only Stackpole novel I've actually liked. Not Battletech- anything by him. For whatever reason, I enjoyed that book though.)

A unique point about Ghost War: correct me if I'm wrong, but it is the only BT novel told entirely in 1st-person.

If anything it is Ghost War that has pretty 1-dimensional characters, but the story is entertaining and twisty enough that it can be forgiven. Again: writing skill...?

[Lorcan Nagle]

As for Blood Avatar, Ilsa's writing is definitely a stark difference from the usual 'cerulean bolts of man-made lightning' stuff. Calling it 'dark' isn't quite cutting it, is it? (Skull-licking for fun and profit!)... that said, if you're going to go dark, be GOOD at being dark, and she's very good at it. As awful as the material was with things like the Bounty Hunter's perversions to begin with, she did a great job handling it.

I really liked Blood Avatar, but didn't care for her Katana Tomark novels at all.  It's not even that they were grim, but they were relentlessly so - chapter after chapter of horrible things happening to the protagonists for little reward at the end.  The short fiction she did at BattleCorps and in 25 Years of Art and Fiction are generally excellent, though.

(Side note: Ghost War had its flaws and warts, but remains to this day the only Stackpole novel I've actually liked. Not Battletech- anything by him. For whatever reason, I enjoyed that book though.)

I'll give Ghost War due for one thing especially - Stackpole did a lot to flesh out civilian life in the front half of the book.  The little touches like adding a selection of fast food joints and coffee shops were cool.

[Tyler Jorgensson]

Double down on Kidds reply to JadeHellbringers post there...

Field Marshal whatever his name may be (I'm away from my copy of the book) and his goons are just another representation of a certain stereotypical faction which caused a MAJOR problem for the world about 80-70 years ago. He's also meant to be a stereotypical bad guy in general so that the good guys can beat him up fairly easily. Sure he murdered a guy who had an Atlas: he's got a super weapon!!! Just like Tarkin he's scary in the outside and causes a bunch of problems for the main characters. But after one battle ( in which the Spider causes the most damage ( which in no way makes me extremely happy that the light mech does ( further tempered by the story's writing of such pilots)) the man is defeated by his own incompetence. The moral of the story being the old classic , " just because you bough the best on the block doesn't mean you are the best on the block".

So TL:DR it is just a bunch of stuff rehashed to serve as a plot point to get the heros an actual mech. But hey I know one company to invest in that will last a thousand years! Muwahahaha!

[Deadborder]

'M gonna make a stab at defending Patriot's Stand, FNAR :))

The novel hinted at various shady pasts for the motley crew of mercenaries: an outcast Spirit Cat, a lot of failed mercs, a Ghost Knight, and a Bannson's Raider - as a protagonist! - with equally differing motives for helping the patriots. And at the conclusion of the story the planetary "patriots" themselves end up technically being separatists against Republic rule... which I think is where the novel is positioned in the overall lineup, demonstrating the breakdown in Republic rule post-Blackout.

Except the good guys never rise above one-dimensional sterotypes themselves. It's especially odious in the Spirit Cat's case, as they're inexplicably depicted as being a cliche magical native American. And the former Bannson's Raider does nothing at all for the plot to the point where she's captured and effectively written out of the finale.

(For what it's worth, does anyone even remember the name of Lord General Moustachey McEvilface?)

[Kidd]

Except the good guys never rise above one-dimensional sterotypes themselves. It's especially odious in the Spirit Cat's case, as they're inexplicably depicted as being a cliche magical native American. And the former Bannson's Raider does nothing at all for the plot to the point where she's captured and effectively written out of the finale.

(For what it's worth, does anyone even remember the name of Lord General Moustachey McEvilface?)

True, but at least they aren't homogenously well-intentioned do-gooders, which is actually one-up over the actual Seven Samurai and Magnificent Seven(s).

Interesting. I'm Asian and I think the Spirit Cats' depictions in the Kurita-centric novels as mystic Asians is cliche. You're (I assume) American and think the Spriit Cat's depiction in Patriot's Stand as mystic native American is cliche. I think that says something doesn't it?

All of them were "captured", as part of their final gambit. The suspected Raider was there to highlight Bannson's takeover of the planetary corporations being run by Lord General McEvilface. Another point that makes the novel's ending more grey than black and white. But yeah, that this was reduced to a throwaway line is again poor writing.

I think I quite agree the novel is not well written enough to make the best of the various intricacies buried in the plot. But I personally find said intricacies sufficiently engaging all the same. It's like, yeah I know it's still pulp, but it's a different flavour of pulp from the usual BT range :D :D

[brother elf]

Clanners spend allot of time half-naked to completely naked, it's mentioned a few times that nudity is not really a big deal to them and I guess it highlights their more tribal nature in the narrative.

Or, OOC, it makes the books more appealing to a straight male teenage audience.  >:D

[MoneyLovinOgre4Hire]

Interesting. I'm Asian and I think the Spirit Cats' depictions in the Kurita-centric novels as mystic Asians is cliche. You're (I assume) American and think the Spriit Cat's depiction in Patriot's Stand as mystic native American is cliche. I think that says something doesn't it?

It's because the Spirit Cats' mysticism incorporates cliches from multiple cultures.