A. I have heard that much of the line is kind of... mediocre. I also heard it gets better.
Yes, after the first four or five books they start getting better. They really start nailing things around
The Scorpion Jar (which is, IIRC, book 13).
1. What happened to David Lear?
Not answered in the novels. That info is in either
Era Digest: Dark Age or
Era Report: 3145. or maybe mentioned in both, I forget.
2. Do any of the books focused on Tucker Harwell and ComStar reveal anything more than what is concluded in Bonfire of Worlds? Anything worth checking out?
Target of Opportunity introduces Tucker and him figuring out how to restart HPGs. Of course, as you know if you've read
Bonfire, his method isn't always successful. I guess there's not really much in that book that you can't glean from
Bonfire.
3. Any more information about the mysterious forces involved in Clarion Call that took out the HPG network? Is it just seeded throughout the books or does it come up only a few times?
Nope, not really. A little bit of info in
Blood Avatar references the logo seen on the mysterious attackers. There's a brief discussion of the attackers in
Ghost War that talks a bit about their
modus operandi. And that's about it.
Also, I realized last night the Latin in the RotS insignia is all sorts of wrong. So I can't imagine the RotS is all that competent.
That's pretty much par for the course when it comes to foreign phrases in BattleTech, unfortunately.