Just finished reading this as part of my ongoing "catch-up" efforts, found the old thread about it but an alarming pink box tells me to consider creating a new thread instead, so here one is.
So the bar for success here was in some ways kind of low. As the first print BT novel in over a decade, I think a lot of readers would be favorably inclined to this book regardless of its actual quality. On the other hand, centering the plot on a battle which we already knew the canonical outcome of all the way back in 2004 could have made this a dull affair. Overall, I think Jason Schmetzer not only did what he needed to do here but went above and beyond. This is a good read.
One of the things I like about it is that it does a good job of showing why the Allied Mercenary Command was in many ways a terrible idea. I mean, yes, you can understand Jaime Wolf and friends' increasing alarm and frustration as the Word of Blake builds a power base for themselves around Terra while every Inner Sphere state seems utterly uninterested, and yes obviously
the AMC turned out to be more correct about the Blakists than even they knew. But this book shows how the AMC's efforts were probably doomed even if they hadn't gotten such a late start. The whole idea of a bunch of mercenary groups forming a faction unto themselves lacks credibility. When the Chaos March has been a bonanza for mercenaries for ten years, and now the Word is seemingly bringing stability to the Chaos March, the AMC just looks like an attempt at profiteering, trying to stop anybody from putting the brakes on the gravy train. (Although in fairness Chaos March stuff is way below the Dragoons' league.) Plus even though as readers we know the Blakists are actually up to some shit on Hall, John Marik-Johns and the AMC
still come off looking sort of like wild-eyed paranoids for a large portion of the book, so imagine how they look to the "average" person in-universe.
Another thing I like is the subtle but significant efforts to bring BattleTech "into the 21st century" so to speak. Obviously there's too much "the future of the 1980's" canon now to go back on, but I appreciate how recent BattleTech fiction has incorporated little touches of technology that are fairly commonplace in the real world that were seemingly absent from the BT universe. Troll posts on message boards play a role in the plot here! Imagine!
Ezra Payne isn't super well-developed as a protagonist, he doesn't really have traits besides being a Good Guy and being loyal to the Stealthy Tigers' colonel and having a crush on Capt. Ortiz from the Dismal Disinherited. This is decidedly a plot-driven rather than character-driven book, and at least Payne doesn't get in the way by being actively dislikable.
A bigger issue is the antagonists. I give the book some credit for portraying internal rivalry and tension between different Word of Blake sub-factions here, although I don't feel like there's really any resolution for Adele Estwicke as a character? The Markoja twins though... aside from the idea of two Jardine-trained operatives spending years in deep cover as officers in a decidedly second-tier mercenary unit seeming a little far-fetched, my problem here is that very few people in the Tigers seem to like or respect them, and yet they've somehow gotten into a position where they're a heartbeat away from command. Granted we could attribute some of this to seeing things from Ezra's perspective, but Col. Rauschenbusch presumably promoted them to where they are and never sees any reason to doubt them it's too late, so you kind of question his judgment?
Another thing that stuck out to me, and which the book never really addresses aside from one throwaway line when Ezra is wondering how the Tigers ended up turning on each other, is that the Raiders were a terrible idea. To be clear, I mean a terrible idea in-universe, not a terrible idea on the part of the writer. An elitist cabal within the unit, open to new members only by invitation, holding meetings outside the chain of command? And the "ins" even wear their own insignias to set themselves apart from the "outs", rubbing it in their faces? This would have bred resentment and divided the unit sooner or later even if the Markojas hadn't stirred up tension over it for their own ends.
It felt a little bit like Schmetzer couldn't decide how to end this, or like maybe plans changed, because the conclusion seems like an obvious "Ezra Payne will return in..." hook, and of course the story's never been followed up. We're, um, presumably supposed to presume that Payne & Co. either died on Outreach, or as part of the AMC shortly thereafter (Sarna treats this as fact, citing unspecified "latter publications"), but it almost makes you wonder what the purpose of writing an ending where Payne even survives the battle was.
In the end I would put Embers of War in the same category as books like Flashpoint or Illusions of Victory in doing an entertaining deep dive on events in the early stages of or at the periphery of a major conflict unencumbered by the narrative baggage of using POV characters whose names are Steiner-Davion or Liao or Kell.
