Loren L. Coleman

Where Ghost War served to introduce readers new and old to the current state of the BattleTech universe, A Call to Arms dives straight in, letting readers follow and try to catch their breath.

This approach mostly works, with Stackpole having set up much of the background for the reader in Ghost War. But some elements of BattleTech—mainly the Clans—went untouched in the prior book, and here Coleman uses them without much of an introduction.

But while A Call to Arms may be slightly show more confusing to a first-time reader, that's no obstacle to someone familiar with the universe. The book remained just as good as it did when I was a first-time reader; better, perhaps, now that I've seen the fates of some of these characters 20+ books down the line.

A Call to Arms, despite the name, is far more than a book of combat scenes. (If you want that, try Endgame.) Instead, Coleman spends much of the time developing the characters and the relationships between them. While the lines between "good guys" and "bad guys" and "worse guys" are fairly clearly drawn, he still takes the time to explore them and their motivations in depth. Even though it's hard to sympathize with Erik Sandoval-Groell and Star Colonel Torrent, it's no secret why they're acting the way they are.

A Call to Arms was a fun book to come back to, seeing just how much it sets up for other authors to play with down the line. While there's not much here for someone not interested in the BattleTech universe, it's definitely an interesting and essential book for someone who is. show less

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?

Set in Cimmeria and closely following the setting established by Robert Howard in his Conan series, Loren had created a new Cimmerian hero, Kern who sets out to defend Cimmeria from invasion. He gathers several followers in his quest as he chases a small group holding prisoners.

Loren set out to create a character similar to Conan, this book did not feel that much like the original series. Conan was mostly a loner, occasionally gathering one or two friends for an adventure. Kern feels more show more like a leader of groups. His followers are more like members of his clan than his close friends. To me, that is a big difference.

The setting does feel like Conan's world. Conan is still alive, King of Aquilonia, and the characters frequently talk of his exploits. Even to the point of exaggerating their own adventures and retelling them as if performed by Conan. I found this fun.

The book has a lot of battles, described in moderate detail. It includes the supernatural and giants. Very much in the style of Howard.

The book was enjoyable, maybe I was expecting too much. Perhaps it if actually was Conan, I would have liked it more. I think Kern will grow on me. If you like the individual adventurer style of sword and sorcery, you should enjoy this book. show less

I found this book difficult to read because of all the sentence fragments. At least one out of three sentences are fragmented throughout this novel (and the series). While I understand that the use of a sentence fragment can be effective when used sparingly, this author has written an entire trilogy comprised almost entirely of fragments!

Honestly, it makes the author look as though he has no command of the English language at all.

His Cimmerians wear ponchos, which seem wildly out of place show more for the culture, and the author misidentifies the Shemites as a black race. Twice in the trilogy he mentions the ebony skin of Belit - a woman Robert E. Howard described as having ivory skin.

The fragments really ruined the novel. show less