BattleTech: A Bonfire of Worlds

As a loosely tied together series of parallel short stories I feel cheated to see battle tech on the top. It comes to a head with every power anti-spinward of Skye and the Capellan Confederation burning in their former shells, toppled in meatgrinder warfare or just outright forgotten in the blaze of these adrenaline enfused scribblings of fan fiction quicker than the jihad apocalypse.It pays respect to and for the BattleTech name but could never live up to it.Out of this respect, I respectfully give it 2 stars. Which is a star more than it deserves. Please do not take this as hateful or trolling and let us be civil; somebody had to get the dirty job of giving their low honest opinion. Please do not delete this, ban me, hate message me or what have you.

I put it off reading this book for years. Even after having read almost anything else in the series. Because there have been too many duds already and this book was from an author that was an unknown quantity to me.However, once I started I couldn't put it down. Others have mentioned that this book is a bit rough as far as spelling, grammar and a couple of contextual things go. But: In the true sense of things this is a thoroughbred Battletech book as good as they come. Stackpole and Pardoe have disappointed me too often with novelized short stories where you think you got a book, but it's only a quarter of a real book. This one is fast paced, full length, universe spanning and advances the story along several plotlines without any of them coming too short. You get battles, intrigues, inner-spherian political machinations and a good dose of clan-intrigues. And of course it ends with a bang that wraps up the "Dark Age" cycle by answering several (but not all) fundamental questions.I liked it and I want more. Big thumbs up to Steven Mohan Jr.

In 2002, BattleTech was taken over by Wizkids Game, who rebranded it Mechwarrior, and jumped it 70 years into the future (From 3067 to 3132). For 6 years, 30 novels were released advancing the storyline further. Then, the novels stopped. Bonfire of Worlds picked it back up around 2010, and this is a POD version of that novel.This novel really advances the story. You find out what happened to Tucker Harwell, last seen in Target of Opportunity #15, and his Comstar abductors. You get a quick glimpse into House Davion and the Crazy First Prince Caleb Davion. And you see the culmination of House Steiner's ill-advised alliance with Clan Wolf. Tons of action in this novel, tons of fan-favorite characters all interacting, some for the first time. Probably one of the best Dark Age novels they wrote.

I'd put off reading this for years and now I am sorry that I did. For those who follow the MechWarrior: Dark Age novel timelines, this brings to close a lot of lingering questions and plot arcs. Nonstop action is expertly combined with the political intrigue that the universe is famous for. I couldn't put this book down.Now that BattleTech novels are being published again with new stories, I can see how this novel has set up for events that are coming or might be coming. I can't wait to see what comes next!

I will admit I did not read any of the Dark Age Books. I stopped reading at Endgame and have only started reading the recent ebook publications released by Cataylst.A Bondfire of Worlds takes place roughly 70 years after Endgame(the last Classic Battletech Novel). As most people would expect, most of the characters that you grew up with are dead. The World of Blake Jihad has left the Innersphere in shambles. There is a HPG blackout cutting off communication between worlds and the once proud Great Houses have been savaged.This novel for the most part follows two characters. Tucker Harwell, a HPG genius who seems to be humanity's only hope for restoring the HPG network. Tucker has been kidnapped by Comstar and is being held prisoner until he fixes the HPGs.The other character featured prominently is Alaric Wolf. The wolves have decided to leave their occupation zone and carve out a new empire from the weakened Lyran Commonwealth and Free Worlds League.I docked the novel a star because the interesting characters in my opinion were not featured or developed enough like Julian Davion. On the other hand, the evil characters are completely insane. Malvina and Caleb are Caligula insane. So crazy that some the chapters didn't feel like I was reading a battletech novel. That being said, I would recommend reading this as it does provide the reader a cliff notes version of the big bullets points of what has transpired since the end of the FedCom Civil War.It was nice to read a "spine" novel that had far reaching affects on the Innerphere and is about the length of the standard novel. I like the majority of the short stories Catalyst has published but I have really missed reading feature length novels.

"Bad things happen to good people: the book" about sums this up. For the most part, I can accept that - this is supposed to be at a genuinely dark time for the good guys - but it feels like there's far too little pushback; that, essentially, it's too one-sided. Which leads to the biggest problem, and it's one for the whole setting, not just this book.Malvina Hazen.I am fine with the idea that she's, even by Clan standards, a psychotic murderer who's managed to get into command of the Jade Falcons by being good at killing people; that is a flaw of the Clan structure as it is. The _problem_ is that nobody ever reacts to this; despite the fact that for more than a decade she's constantly demonstrated that every Clan rule of engagement means nothing to her, and that she has less regard for the norms of restraint in warfare within the Inner Sphere than the Word of frickin' Blake, _everybody_ always acts surprised at her latest act of mass murder and never considers responding in kind (when the reason that people in the Inner Sphere don't go to first use of orbital bombardment and WMDs is because then the other side'll do the same - except when dealing with Malvina, apparently. It sure would've messed up her massacring the Kell Hounds if the LCAF had nuked her cruiser).As well, her tactics are insanely wasteful of her own troops, which she has far less of and can replace far less easily than the Lyrans or Republic can. Again, this has always been a problem with the Clans, but previously their approach of restraint and limited warfare helped make that less of a problem and there was less attention drawn to it, while Malvina just seems to pull new troops straight out of her capacious backside whenever she needs it. Alaric has plenty of problems, but at least we get some idea of where he manages to produce three new Galaxies from for the Wolves' new offensive.

Ich war selten so dankbar für die Fortsetzung einer Buchreihe, wie in diesem Fall. Zuerst will ich anführen, warum diese Kehrtwende so bitter nötig war. Ich erinnere mich noch an die Einführung der Dark-Age Serie. Wie wohl die meisten Battletechfans, die die 61 Bände des Vorgängers gelesen hatten, habe ich jeden Band der neuen Serie verschlungen. Das Problem war, es war einfach nicht mehr Battletech. Das was die Vorgänger, und die Jihad-Serie, auszeichnete, nämlich glaubwürdige und markante Führungscharaktere, war einfach nicht mehr vorhanden. Devlin Stone kannte man überhaupt nicht, weil die Jihad-Serie einfach noch nicht soweit war. Trotzdem richtete sich alles an diesem sogenannten Helden aus. Der, wenn man die Jihad-Serie gelesen hat, auch gar keiner war. Sondern nur dazu gemacht wurde, um WoB zu besiegen und die Schaffung der Repuplic of the Sphere zu rechtfertigen. An dieser Stelle sei gesagt, wer die Jihad-Serie noch nicht gelesen hat, sollte das unbedingt nachholen. Auch wenn der Schreibstil ein ganz anderer ist, so erhält man doch sämtliche Informationen über die riesige Zeitlücke zwischen der alten und neuen Battletech-Serie. Zudem ist sie spannend geschrieben, und die neue Serie ohne diese Informationen nicht wirklich naachzuvollziehen.Dieses Buch, A Bonfire of Worlds, macht alles richtig, was seine Vorgänger falsch gemacht haben. Endlich gibt es wieder richtige Helden und Schurken. Es scheint, als wären die Hauptfiguren endlich erwachsen geworden. Alaric ist kein kleines Kind mehr, sondern inzwischen ein echter Krieger und Commander in Clan Wolf.Es macht einfach Spaß zu lesen, und sich wieder an die guten alten Zeiten mit Ulric Kerensky und Vlad Ward zu erinnern. Denn sowohl der Wolf-Khan, als auch Alaric, füllen diese Rollen mehr als nur glaubwürdig aus. Malvina Hazen ist endlich zu einer echten Anführerin der Jadefalken geworden, und steht Maerte Pryde in Puncto Gerissenheit und Brutalität in nichts nach. Tucker Harwell gelingt es den Schuldigen für den Blackout (letzte Seite des Buches) zu finden und sich mit Hilfe von Alexi Holt zu befreien. Leider beginnt sein Leidensweg damit erst. Sollte es dem Nachfolger dieses Buches gelingen, Liao, Davion und Kurita genauso glaubhaft und spannend in Szene zu setzen, dann ist The Dark Age endlich richtig im Battletech-Universum angekommen. Mit anderen Worten, wir steuern mit riesiegen Schritten auf den nächsten Nachfolgekrieg zu. Zum Glück wieder im alten Stil der erfolgreichen ursprünglichen Battletech-Serie.Dieses Buch ist eine echte Kaufempfehlung für alle Battletechfans, auch wenn es momentan nur im Kindle-Format erhältlich ist. Dies ist aber kein Hindernis, da sowohl die App für den PC, als auch für das Ipad fehlerfrei funktionieren. Außerdem sollte man zusätzlich noch die komplette Battletech Jihad Hot Spots Serie dazu lesen. Denn nur so kann man denn Sinn der Repuplic of the Sphere wirklich verstehen. Wer die Jihad-Serie nicht lesen will, dem kann ich diesen Link ( [...] ) nur empfehlen. Dort sind sämtliche Informationen nachzuschlagen. Aber wenn man nicht weiß, warum alle so ein Aufhebens um Devlin Stone, Paladine und Ritter machen, kann man The Dark Age auch nicht verstehen.Und nun viel Spaß beim Lesen.