Kavinay
Interesting catch up on Clan life. In fact, all the Jade Falcon stuff is pretty good. However, the actual prose itself is quite clunky, as if it was dictated first. The voice is choppy at points and makes you wonder if the book could have benefited from some more editing.
Really engaging, especially if you're a big fan of TNG. It's interesting to see how the creative staff saw the subsequent sequels and films become more erratic in quality too.
The only bad thing to say is that the new Kelvin-timeline movies are basically given a pass compared to the in-depth autopsies on the TNG films.
I sincerely wish that all the dark ages books could be like this. I don't care about backwater inner sphere nonsense. High stakes clan plotlines and action make up for everything that makes dark age otherwise a frustrating era.
Jasek Kelswa-Steiner. He's so dreamy. Every woman wants him.
Meanwhile, Tara Bishop dies off the page and we return to women pining for Jasek.
Blergh.
Hard to feel sympathetic for the Inner Sphere, unless that was the point?
A bit of a rosy look at Gygax's life and career. Not a bad book, but the interesting bits are details about Gary's non D&D life, like the fact he loved chess and the Chicago Bears. The issues with Dave Arneson and even the conflicts within TSR aren't covered that deeply, in large part because we get mostly Gary's point of view.
An interesting way to set the table for the 4th succession war.
Like a lot of Battletech fiction though, the handling of culture and race in the 80s hasn't aged well. It's a thousand years in the future and race relations in the Inner Sphere are so silly that you're left practically welcoming the eventual clan invasion to wipe the slate clean of racially segregated interstellar empires. Argh.
Still the plotting is interesting enough and Stackpole is at worst a bit corny and at best a great weaver of wide-ranging cast.
Argh. Good ending, but most of the Imperial Fist narrative is completely mind-numbing.
As always, Alpha Legion > than anything else. Eliminate Dorn's boring Legion and the Alpha Legion alone would make this an engaging story.
This is a frustrating book. It's not even the author's fault. The premise of the whole novel is a bit of a bore: Operation Serpent's trip into CSJ space. There's an interesting surprise at the end, but really, Gressman's given the thankless task of making something interesting happen during an exercise in logistics.
No Clan interaction of merit, the Marik Knight Paul Masters is portrayed as a chivalrous buffoon and the rest of the Inner Sphere members of the task force are respectively true to stereotype. There's just not much to like besides a single chapter our of nowhere about a quick-thinking Clan bondsman.
The novel comes after a good start to the series and a serviceable “great game” plot for book 2, so it's a really tough slog in comparison when the plot is non-existent and the characters are basically having meetings and planning sessions for the duration of the book.
Bit of a strange subject, but it's stories like this that make you realize how dull the Marvel and DC fare are compared to homages like Busiek's.
Bit of an odd way to pace the resolution to Operation Bulldog and Taskforce Serpent. Basically, the second half of the novel could easily have been it's own book.
A tough read. Started using it as a night-time book to put myself to sleep thanks to all the military pedantry.
A slight drop-off from the last collection, but still some of the better Star Wars comic material you'll find.
Agent Terex is quietly the best character in the series.
Once you figure out the tone of the series, it's both a lot of fun and an extended nerd whistle to 80's nostalgia.
Extremely sad that this is Thurston's last book in the universe. He has such a great way of communicating how clan culture is psychotic and pragmatic at the same time.
If only Michael Bay used this for his shooting script. The film would still be crazy, but a good and creative crazy.
Pretty straight forward 40k fluff, but well-written and whets the appetite for more Talos in the The Night Lords trilogy.
Up till now, Dan Abnett's Prospero Burns was my high-water mark for 30k/40k ficiton. Soul Hunter is really good. It may even better than Prospero Burns and I'm a Space Wolves fan.
In a sense, Dembski-Bowden pulls of a Soprano's maneuver with Talos and the Night Lords. You know they're the bad guys, but inch by inch you get pulled into seeing the Imperium and the long war through their crimson lenses. It's not just Octavia who's on their side by the final chapter.
It's a really clever bit of writing. Especially in regards to CSM politics. They could easily be slavering morons, but even Abaddon is depicted with more nuance than you'd expect. The Exalted in particular–well I really didn't see his arc coming to be honest.
I'm generally interested in BT for the Clans and their psycho-culture. The 3025 and Succession War campaigns generally are just grist for the Kerensky mill for me (i.e. this is why you needed Operation Revival).
That being said, Charrette's depiction of Minobu Tetsuhara is deceptively good. The novel isn't really about Wolf's Dragoons. It's actually a really good take on the noblest of Inner Sphere warriors set against the Game of Thrones style politics of the Successor Lords and pretenders. Even when you know how the book will end, it's still a very compelling read and develops so much of the DCMS culture beyond the otaku-ness of Stackpole's novels.