I’m relatively familiar with the setting, but I’ve never actually sat down and read any of the books.
I’d prefer something either in the Succession Wars or the Clan Invasion eras.
Can’t go wrong with the Twilight of the Clans books. 7 book series, each of them a different story. Really great IMO. It’s been a while, but I think Blood of Kerensky series (3 books) is also pretty great.
Sounds good. I prefer mostly stand alone stories to running series, so I’ll try the clan books.
@setsneedtofeed The best battletech books are the sourcebooks. The novels… well, anything by Stackpole will be readable, at worst.
The Warrior trilogy is a great starting point if you ignore Morgan Kell somehow having superpowers.
Like superpower superpowers or just unreasonable plot armor?
Kind of half way between the two.
It kind of works, and kind of doesnt. It never happens again in the entire BT universe as far as I’m aware. Its an old part of canon that the fanbase and writers generally think is a bit shit and largely ignore.
https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Phantom_'Mech
If you want to know, that link will give you plenty of info but will include spoilers.
I see what you mean. On paper this kind of works as a rumor that exists in-universe, but I wouldn’t want to actually witness it happening as an objective observer in a book.
Like I said, the books are great and I genuinely believe that they are the best starting point. They give you a LOT of personality to the parents of the main players throughout most of the clan invasion arc. When you get to that bit just mentally file it away as “didnt really happen” and keep going.
Some of my favorite BT moments are from those 3 books.
Great doc maintained on various reading order preferences here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/11Eual8pX2RqwNcA2f4WuwjiNxRA5CGG61VzlaWqzGNI
For Succession Wars I’d suggest starting with the Gray Markets Anthology. It doesn’t hold your hand and tell you everything that’s going on, but you will tacitly gain information from these stories that will help in later books. Plus they’re all just great stories.
@setsneedtofeed fwiw, I’ve enjoyed Stackpole’s Warrior and Blood of Kerensky trilogies and Thurston’s Jade Phoenix trilogy. Maybe I’m partial to the first nine I read. IMO some of the Twilight of the Clans novels were less fun.
