Craig A. Reed

This was very interesting book, especially since it is part of the Battletech universe.

Why, you may ask? When you think about Battletech stories, you cannot but think about the large mechanized vehicles, large caliber ammo and missiles zooming around and in general total mayhem, not unlike W40K titan machines clashing and pulverizing everything in their way.

And then you get book like this. It is story of clandestine operation triggered by Wolf Clan during the bloody Wars of Reaving on Strana show more Mechty . What started as a daring gene-material recovery, main operation, stealing the body of Aleksander Kerensky, hits the glitch and leaves Elemental strike team stranded on the planet surface, in the middle of the enemy territory with Wars of Reaving raging all over. And this is where story shines, at least for me, considering I am not that much knowledgeable in Battletech lore.
Elementals, genetically engineered super humans (at least physically, there are some Clan's jokes about their mental state - which IMHO are not true, considering Elementals do keep some of the very powerful positions in Clan military) finally show their human side. These giants, biological war machines, are equivalents to W40K Space Marines, but unlike the detached W40K warriors they have standard human urges and they are capable of having relationships and everything that comes from that. So watching Garmen entering relationship with somebody who he did not expect (wont spoil anything here :)) was truly heart warming. Work with criminal elements on Strana Mechty, operations of Wolf Watch and information on weapons caches left behind (which reminds me so much of Alpha Legion operating in the universe where no one trusts anybody), recruitment of old (worse than death for Clanners) and disgraced Mechwarriors, and most important, slow but precise planning and organizing everything to be ready when their target is at most vulnerable, which starts to take so much time that even Garmen's team becomes restless ..... All of this is beautifully presented.
And then ....... this must be some of the most desperate military actions I ever read about. What started as commando raid, evolved over time into full scale escape with lot more people, communities whose faiths are now completely tied with Garmen and his team.

Considering that this is not simple operation, structure of the novel with multiple very short chapters truly lends a cinematic look and feel to the novel, as we switch between Wolf Elemental teams and their allies striking the spaceship holding Kerensky's body, veteran's striking ground targets to give Garmen team valuable time to escape, Ebon Keshik and new ilKhan's forces scrambling to neutralize this ground force dealing devastating blows. And then we get to the very realistic space combat, where everything takes place in hours and days, not in minutes (it takes time to accelerate gigantic warships and then avoid all the ordnance thrown around) and where light flyers just cannot be targeted due to their speed and maneuverability (again, physics related to large caliber weapons meant to strike slower, more inert warships) and keep destroying warship armor layer at the time.

Ending is great - it shows that posterity and ones bloodline must be protected so it can survive and thrive. This has much more meaning for Clans than for everyone else, and this happens on both micro and macro plan (again, will not spoil it :))

Excellent war novel, highly recommended. show less