7 replies to this topic

[Toast001]

15 20 years ago i read Main event and DRT and i really loved them, then i read this other mechwarrior book about house kurita and it was just really boring. Basically i shelved mechwarrior reading after that. So over holiday vacation i got bored and tried out choas born and am almost done, and it kinda revitalized me on the books.

I am looking for a book that is hardcore mech on mech fighting with less political stuff, I am not sure if dark ages stuff is political but i didn't buy it because i was worried it would be. The one thing i don't like much about choas born is that almost all the mechs in it are medium and light mechs. Since i love heavies and assaults i would like to read a book that focuses on more of them.

[Thom Frankfurt]

That be a tough one because we all know that warfare and politics usually go hand in hand... Not sure, but maybe one of the Clan Heavy books would be your best bet. I think 'Roar of Honor' would suit you nicely.

[Karyudo ds]

I only really read the first Dark Age book but it wasn't very political really. More like a spy-story. Not one of Stackpole's better novels though. Didn't have really heavy mechs in it either since those are hard to come by at that point.

Otherwise when it comes to combat I remember Bloodname specifically was pretty good for that. I think the rest of the Jade Phoenix Trilogy was but that one stood out to me.

Edited by Karyudo ds, 11 January 2014 - 08:36 PM.

[Tyrnea Smurf]

A lot of the merc centric books are fairly divorced from the political squabbles, or at least as far from the political squabbles as BattleTech tends to get as the setting strongly is wedded to the idea of "politics is warfare by other means".

In the classic Btech novel series try the Victor Milan books or William Keith Jr Grey Death Legion books. Although for harder heavy centric battles, the Robert Thurston Jade Phoenix Trilogy might be up your alley.

A rundown can be found here of Btech pulp fiction: http://www.sarna.net/wiki/Novels

[Stormwolf]

Most of the novels have a lot of non-mech action in them, hell, books like "Way of the Clans" don't have any real action till you are 3/4 of the way through.

My advice here would be the original GDL trilogy, it pretty much starts with one medium mech fighting 3 lights, 1 heavy and a dropship (yeah it doesn't end well).

[Pht]

The earlier DA books are table-setting with some mech action. Further down the storyline the DA books pick up on the combat... though do stay away from blood avatar and pretty much any of the other books published by Illsa bick.

Basically, the books pretty much seem to hold to the ethos of "politics start, fall apart, fighting ensues." You could stick it under the adage of "combat is just politics by another means."

I have no idea about the battlecorps e-books.

[SunTzu Liao]

Most of short stories in the Battletechnology magazines are purely mech on mech action...

[donjr777]

Yeah, all the books pretty much develop the characters a bit before they get into detailed descriptions of combat.
Having been a scifi reader all my life, this really adds to said combat in my opinion.
In some of the better books the combat sequences are really entertaining and detailed...very immersive.

Once you read a few of those you'll realize how fast paced and bare-bones combat oriented MWO is and
I would contend that reading some good Battletech novels will enhance your experience of MWO.

For instance...Yen Lo Wang is a cool mech to pilot but in Btech lore there is only one Yen Lo Wang and it has nearly a hundred year history in the novels...a very colorful history beginning as an arena fighter where Justin Xiang installed titanium "claws" on it's left arm in 3027...all the way to it being an ax wielding, shield bearing melee' fighter in the 3120's living up to it's name as the Chinese "God of Death"....

The "spine" novels are probably the best...starting with Stackpole's Warrior triology (Yen Lo Wang's story begins there) and then The Blood of Kerensky trilogy by the same author (this begins in the time frame of MWO before the clan invasion).
The BofK trilogy details the early battles between Inner Sphere and Clan mechs but there still will be quite a bit of back story support fleshing out the BT universe.

Battletech is a highly detailed and developed genre that's been around for decades now and I would guess that a lot of the hard core Mechwarrior game series fans have read some (or many) of the novels.
For me it satisfies my fascination with armored combat in addition to full on hard core scifi.

You might even start with a book like Measure of a Hero or Call of Duty by Blaine Lee Pardoe....both are good stories, easy to get into, and have good action...taking place during the period of time covered by MW4 Mercs.

The Dark Age novels are cool but they're set in a time with a reduced number of battlemechs.

Read Lethal Heritage to come right in where MWO is taking place.

Sorry to ramble here...I've loved this genre since 1997 and I can go on and on.