BattleTech - The Board Game of Armored Combat
BattleTech Player Boards => Novel and Sourcebook Reviews => Topic started by: BaachicLitNerd on 12 December 2023, 20:02:59
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With the new Shrapnel out in the wild early as a holiday gift from Phil, here's the traditional space to say what stood out amongst the double length BattleTech goodness!
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To Jason Schmetzer: A simple thank you from this long time GDL fan. Your use of an obscure vintage GDL story as the backdrop of an ilClan-era tale made me smile. :smilie_happy_thumbup:
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Hat's off to Philip and John for editing six months of work in three months, and kudos to that cover artist, 'cause damn does he make the Hounds look cool.
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I also want to mention the artist who did the piece for my Silent Reapers story. Because that moment in the story is represented extremely well.
That being said: finally got my name on the cover :smilie_happy_clapping: :drinking01: :smilie_happy_clapping: :smiley_star:
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You love to see it. My piece was super fun to write, so hope y'all have as much fun reading it! My only problem is deciding which story to read first.
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Third part of Bryan's serial.
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wait, did they really just retcon the Mauler as a capellan mech?
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I'm not so sure it's a "retcon" so much as smoothing over some conflicting lore from conflicting sources: https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Linesman
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wait, did they really just retcon the Mauler as a capellan mech?
Note the full page illustration of a Mauler in the McCarron's Armored Cavalry scenario pack, which is dated 3044.
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Third part of Bryan's serial.
Why thank you! This was such a fun serial to write.
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Can someone share the Table of Contents?
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Here you go
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This is awesome.
Such a great volume to be a part of... of course they all are.
And hey, someone threw me on the cover :smiley_star:
I've been going through it. Fantastic work to all.
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This issue has first of what I hope will be a set of stories for the Crescent Hawks in the Dark Age.
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My first piece of published fiction, Indomitable, is in this issue as well. Feels weird spending over 20 years as a fan of this franchise and suddenly finding myself on the cover of a published product, but it's a good kind of weird.
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"Unit Digest: Blazing Aces"
Well crap, I guess I've gotta squeeze some more blood from the stone after all.
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Here you go
Thank you so much! I wish this was on the websites where they were sold for every issue.
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Thank you so much! I wish this was on the websites where they were sold for every issue.
Usually there is a preview available where you can see the first few pages on Amazon.
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Let's leave a few words about my story in there.
I started the Silent Reapers about 10 years ago when I pitched them to Ulisses Spiele for a German BT novel. From there, I had a rough idea where I'd like to take them and the first novel (released as an eBook serial before the full novel) was supposed to have a follow up. That never happened, because Ulisses suddenly stopped supporting Battletech and only did the barest minimum.
The Silent Reapers then sat around for a long time, unfinished and not canon, since the German novels aren't canon.
They finally got their first canon mention in TRO Irregulars and later in Shrapnel 8 with Tales from the Cracked Canopy: Silent Roar they had their first canon fiction debut. In the meantime I had also managed to pester John enough to sign off on me translating my German novel so it could be released by Catalyst and as actual canon (release is going to happen next year, if nothing happens).
Shrapnel 15 now finally gave me the chance to finish the story of these Silent Reapers more or less in the way I had always planned it (since the original plan was a second novel, the route to that finale was very different, also I am ten years more experienced by now). A few things are different from my original plan, but the basic idea remains the same.
And that makes me tremendously happy.
Ten. Freaking. Years!
And I am finally there.
And next year, you guys will be able to read the original novel (director's cut) and get the whole story of these Silent Reapers.
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Your stuff was excellent, as always. Looking forward to more.
Some notes on my articles:
- Planet Digest: Le Blanc - For the mercenary issue, I wanted to flesh out its role in the mercenary trade and in exploring its unusual decision to declare itself an open world. It's an interesting alternative to Galatea and Outreach, for mercs interested in the FedSuns and Combine markets. I recall being intrigued by Robert Charrette's portrayal in Heir to the Dragon, back in the day.
- Unit Digest: Lacadon Vengeance Legion - When the Second Succession War SB was being created, they asked fans to submit names to get canonized as merc units in that book. This was my submission. Now I can finally tell their story, moving them beyond just a name on a roster. You want know why so many Capellan March worlds died during the Second Succession War? These guys.
- Unit Digest: Outer Reaches Disciples - Looking all the way back to the Outer Reaches Rebellion, I wanted to mine the lore (thanks, XTRO Primitives!) to show what an interstellar mercenary unit - perhaps even the first interstellar mercenary unit - could have looked like.
- They Walk Alone: Mercenary Freelancers - Some helpful resources from Profiting from the Suffering of Others: A Ten Step Guide for mercs considering striking out as a mercenary on their own. Gave me a chance to bring back the Mech-it-Lube from the Crescent Hawks' Inception. Can mad genius Dr. Tellhim be far behind?
- Rainmaker - I'd wanted to do a follow-up to the Snord's Irregulars vs. Clan Hell's Horses clash I set up in Tamar Rising. Lesson learned - don't press the big red button on the mysterious lostech device. Imagine the randomized pylons and walls of Steiner Stadium...then add lightning.
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Your stuff was excellent, as always. Looking forward to more.
Thank you
Good background info on yours :) (haven't gotten around to reading your articles yet, so can't comment on them)
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As sad as it sounds, I am extremely happy with just how much new info this issue has for my pet project over on Sarna (the family trees).
Thank you folks :grin:
Also whilst I am here, are James Kirtley and Tom Leveen on these forums?
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YES!!!
"Unit Digest: Blazing Aces"
Well crap, I guess I've gotta squeeze some more blood from the stone after all.
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What an amazing issue!
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11 ways to ruin your mercenary unit was a fun read.
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If we're talking writer's notes...
As soon as they added "double-sided mercenary issue of Shrapnel" to the Kickstarter, I immediately knew I was gonna pitch something about how mercs get paid in the Dark Age and beyond, which became Getting Paid in an Uncertain Age. I submitted my pitch and immediately sat down to write it in a sprint of creativity. So I'm glad the pitch got accepted and I didn't stay up to 1AM writing for nothing! The format of a vox pop quickly came out where you'd have different people talk about the advantages or disadvantages of each option, and it struck me that adding a framing device and a rant about the Sea Foxes would be a nice way to tie it to events in Dominions Divided and Riptides. Amusingly I got feedback on the bit about stock options from two different people saying they didn't think stocks could work that way, but it was based on a personal experience with options I got in my last job when the company I work for. The last of them hadn't vested by the time I quit five years later!
By comparison The Truth About The Bounty Hunter? was almost random, it came about from a discussion with some other freelancers and I mentioned something like "It'd be fun to do something where a bunch of people are talking about the Bounty Hunter's origin and the only thing they agree on is that he was never Vic Travers", and it kinda went from there. Phil was in that chat and was a bit reluctant about the idea at first on account of possibly stepping on the toes of the Bounty Hunter anthology which is coming from the Kickstarter, but was more on-board when I said it'd be more conspiracy theory than anything factual. I didn't do any writing on it until the pitch was accepted though. This one was a bit harder to do, the stuff I had in my mind filled out maybe half of the word count - having someone suggest things we know to be true from the novels, someone suggest the Hunter travels slower-than-light (shamelessly ripped off borrowed from Natural Selection where someone suggests the Red Corsair did it), and then suggesting he's a vampire... or Nicolas Cage. I had the idea that as the discussion would go on that the reader should feel that this is a serious show only to discover it's the equivalent of ancient aliens by the end, and I added the person going on about cthonian urges to lean into that. And then I was still 70 words below the limit and I threw a few more jokes and the oddball segments for the next show in at the end.
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For my story, this was really a fun, key moment from Tamar Rising that I really wanted to bring to life. This strife between mercenaries and clan culture and the trial and everything was so fascinating to me. It was one of my key inspirations when I assembled the original idea for this story.
And the new cliffhanger... man... I really want Katie to learn so much and sort of have a reality check and I think she's getting there.
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I haven't quite finished reading through this issue, but I can't help but feel that the Second to None story should have a spoiler warning for those who have yet to play the HBS BattleTech game.
Yes, I know it's been a few years since the game was released, but not everyone who wishes to has had a chance to play it - or rather, has not owned a PC capable of running it since the time it was released.
For that same reason, I've not yet read the House Arano sourcebook: I only recently got a device capable of playing the game, and I planned to wait until after completing the story mode (if I can) before reading a book set in its aftermath.
This isn't intended to be a major criticism of the story itself, I should add - just a warning for anyone else who might be in a similar situation.
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While we're talking about our motivations for writing things, I wrote Raptor's Requiem solely to address a bit of errata. When I wrote the Spotlight On for the Crescent Hawks way back in like 2016, I created Jezebel Youngblood to be the new leader of the unit for the modern era. I wrote that every other Youngblood had been killed when the Jade Falcons invaded Arc-Royal in 3146, leaving her the last of her name. But...the print edition of TRO 3150 added a few new notable pilots that weren't in the PDFs, including one Jen Youngblood, working for the Kell Hounds and piloting a Hollander III. I missed this tidbit, and so did the fact checkers. Rather than errata the product, i thought I'd make a story out of it. So, seven years later...
But I'm most interested in how people react to the last scene of the story, which sets up the next part.
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I want to know more about the Spector in The Alexandria Job. Has to be one of the last functioning ones in the IS in 3020, and it has a semi-functioning Guardian ECM. Seems like Patti could just sell it off and make more than 2 million C-bills, but of course the sentimental value is incalculable.
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i need an alert system so i know when writers drag extinct unit off the scrap pile...
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Thanks for your interest in The Alexandria Job. My earlier pieces in Shrapnel have tended to tackle more serious subject matter, the morality of rule by military, the pitfalls of believing your own myths, and the complicated nature of wars among family members. This was a nice change to do something a bit more straightforward and light-hearted, with a heist story featuring BatteMechs. Anyway, as to your question, in a BattleTech Forums E X C L U S I V E I'm happy to reveal here the fates of all the characters from the story:
Chesterfield "Chuck" Stevenson: KIA on Alexandria. Buried with his beloved collection of cigars.
Lemmy "Lemmy" Lemmonson: Used his payback from House Marik to retire from mercenary life and bought a home on New Delos, where nothing bad ever happened to anybody ever again.
Onomatopoeia "Janis" Davidson: After becoming dispossessed, opened an artisanal bakery shop on Alexandria, and maintained an active hobby in collecting amusingly-shaped root vegetables that were regularly featured on the planetary newsnet.
Mithras Li: Dishonorably discharged from the militia following the incident, although he shortly thereafter came into a mysterious source of money which he used to build a palatial home on Alexandria and lived out the rest of his days in comfortable indulgence.
Faith Tam: Rose to become a Colonel in the planetary militia, and was widely viewed by her men to be steady, competent, and absolutely No Fun At All.
Lee "Patti" Patterson: Sadly died in a freak DropShip crash a few months later, in which her BattleMech was also destroyed. The only survivor of the crash was an orange tabby cat called "Jones." Jones was briefly held on suspicion of being a SAFE agent, before being released into the custody of Snord's Irregulars.
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While we're talking about our motivations for writing things, I wrote Raptor's Requiem solely to address a bit of errata. When I wrote the Spotlight On for the Crescent Hawks way back in like 2016, I created Jezebel Youngblood to be the new leader of the unit for the modern era. I wrote that every other Youngblood had been killed when the Jade Falcons invaded Arc-Royal in 3146, leaving her the last of her name. But...the print edition of TRO 3150 added a few new notable pilots that weren't in the PDFs, including one Jen Youngblood, working for the Kell Hounds and piloting a Hollander III. I missed this tidbit, and so did the fact checkers. Rather than errata the product, i thought I'd make a story out of it. So, seven years later...
But I'm most interested in how people react to the last scene of the story, which sets up the next part.
VERY COOL. I absolutely loved the story, I loved the fight and the honor and ALL of it. Seeing this backstory, that it sort of started as an error that you then used as a nugget for this? NICE. Just, very, very cool. :-)
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i need an alert system so i know when writers drag extinct unit off the scrap pile...
To be fair, I asked first. ;-) hahaha
(The choices were between a Galahad, a Hercules, and the Paladin, so I took the one with the coolest story hooks. ;-)
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Peeks in
I hope people enjoyed Signing Bonus!
This was another story that got kickstarted (hah) by the announcement of the special Mercs issue during the last KS.
We see a lot of stories of Mercenaries in combat or starting / ending contracts, but I couldn't really think of any stories of a unit trying to get a new contract, and the headaches that might come up. I also wanted to dabble in a different time period since my first (and hopefully upcoming) stories for the magazine have been set in the DA / ilClan eras.
That period between the first and second Succession War is interesting to me because of the general exhaustion of the Successor States and how relatively quickly things flare up again. With so many facilites and resources lost, it made sense to me that mercenary units would be incredibly valuable to help fill out the ranks for defense and offense, and putting a tiny little nod in there towards Mark Hill's Paper Tiger was fun. :)
Hopefully people liked Mark and Iris. I think there's a chance I might revisit them sometime in the early days of the 2nd war, too.
-BZ / Jaymie
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- Unit Digest: Outer Reaches Disciples - Looking all the way back to the Outer Reaches Rebellion, I wanted to mine the lore (thanks, XTRO Primitives!) to show what an interstellar mercenary unit - perhaps even the first interstellar mercenary unit - could have looked like.
I've always felt like the post-Outer Reaches Rebellion, Protostate period had a sort of Red Dead Redemption feeling to it. When the colonies started to form actual governments, that was like the end of the Old West. The telegraph line goes up and the train comes through. Some mercenaries threw in with a state, but your guys kept going despite the prospects getting slimmer. Also, trying to stand up against the Terran Hegemony? Shows they had a real love for taking contracts with underdogs rather than safe bets. Having their colors get taken up by bandits was the last little tragic bit.
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I've always felt like the post-Outer Reaches Rebellion, Protostate period had a sort of Red Dead Redemption feeling to it. When the colonies started to form actual governments, that was like the end of the Old West. The telegraph line goes up and the train comes through. Some mercenaries threw in with a state, but your guys kept going despite the prospects getting slimmer. Also, trying to stand up against the Terran Hegemony? Shows they had a real love for taking contracts with underdogs rather than safe bets. Having their colors get taken up by bandits was the last little tragic bit.
They had kind of an ace in the hole by not having to rely exclusively on contract payments - they continued to get bankrolled by the Ryan Cartel, which maintained a strong antipathy for Terran authority.
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If you're interested in the Outer Reaches Rebellion, my story "Inverted" in Shrapnel #4 is set on Freedom during the rebellion.
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I love this issue. It's chock full of awesome. And I even got on the cover!?
With "Picking the Bones" I got to look at some of the immediate aftermath of what Republic troops were thinking. Where would they go? What would they do? Would they even remain as a unit? What did they manage to take with them, and what price would others pay for it?
It was fun to write and even more fun to explore a less straightforward fight.
Hope everyone enjoyed.
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VERY COOL. I absolutely loved the story, I loved the fight and the honor and ALL of it. Seeing this backstory, that it sort of started as an error that you then used as a nugget for this? NICE. Just, very, very cool. :-)
Thank you! It's always a pleasure to write something for Shrapnel. This is one of the products that BattleTech needed, and I'm glad it's doing so well.
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Something I really appreciate about Shrapnel (besides that they once published something I wrote) is that they're willing to run stuff in the eras BT didn't typically focus on. Having multiple Age of War stories, when that had been something that nothing had ever really touched outside the House sourcebooks, is very cool.