The Ruins of Power

I'm not familiar with Battletech, Mechwarrior, Dark Age scenarios, but bought and read this book because of its author, Robert E. Vardeman. Not being able to judge what others might expect as a result of the above-mentioned affiliations, I can only evaluate it on a stand-alone basis as a work in its own right. In short, I found the book to be pretty good! Political intrigue turns out to be the core of the work, and here, as elsewhere, Vardeman has done a good job presenting institutional and governmental power struggles in a fictional scenario. This may not be the style expected by fans of Battletech, but from my end I'm impressed that the book is no mere string of shoot-em-up antics. Rather, it has a balance between presenting its characters, a broad political context, specific tactical information in a number of key action sequences, and also apparently fitting into a broader framework of tied-in games and novels. I think it does a good job of fitting into this web. It's main weaknesses, I suppose, would have to be in character development. I found all the roles presented to be interesting enough, but some of the key persons in the story weren't quite fleshed out enough to come across with full credibility. Main villainess Elora had motivations that seemed a mite too simple. Marta Kinsolving's character was never properly explored in this text. Most of the characters are intriguing and interesting to watch and listen to as they scheme and try to piece together what threats are building against them, but as characters are never truly round - effectively being defined merely in terms of the roles they're playing in the power struggles in a semi-isolated sector of the universe. This shortcoming wasn't enough of a drawback to sink the book too much, though. The book reads well enough and has a couple of extended action sequences that I imagine are aimed toward the Battletech crowd specifically. I was particularly impressed by the way that power struggles involved many social institutions - media, government, military, and business. For the scenario of intrigue alone, the book is well worth reading. I'm not sure who the typical Battletech reader is supposed to be, but I was impressed that this book was no simpleminded slugfest. The political intrigue was a lot better thought-out than I would normally expect from a series that sounds vaguely to be based on the appeal (?) of mechanized militarism, and this (plus an interesting counterpoint of a concern with pacifism) made the book a rewarding experience for me. In the end, I can't count it as an actual classic - mainly because of the limits of having to be squeezed into a broader scenario and series. But it was a refreshing change of pace to find these good elements within what looked like an action-dominated scenario. As for the action scenes themselves, I thought they worked quite well, too! But if you want something more than just another routine of action/combat events, check this book out! It doe

I'm not familiar with Battletech, Mechwarrior, Dark Age scenarios, but bought and read this book because of its author, Robert E. Vardeman. Not being able to judge what others might expect as a result of the above-mentioned affiliations, I can only evaluate it on a stand-alone basis as a work in its own right. In short, I found the book to be pretty good! Political intrigue turns out to be the core of the work, and here, as elsewhere, Vardeman has done a good job presenting institutional and governmental power struggles in a fictional scenario. This may not be the style expected by fans of Battletech, but from my end I'm impressed that the book is no mere string of shoot-em-up antics. Rather, it has a balance between presenting its characters, a broad political context, specific tactical information in a number of key action sequences, and also apparently fitting into a broader framework of tied-in games and novels. I think it does a good job of fitting into this web. It's main weaknesses, I suppose, would have to be in character development. I found all the roles presented to be interesting enough, but some of the key persons in the story weren't quite fleshed out enough to come across with full credibility. Main villainess Elora had motivations that seemed a mite too simple. Marta Kinsolving's character was never properly explored in this text. Most of the characters are intriguing and interesting to watch and listen to as they scheme and try to piece together what threats are building against them, but as characters are never truly round - effectively being defined merely in terms of the roles they're playing in the power struggles in a semi-isolated sector of the universe. This shortcoming wasn't enough of a drawback to sink the book too much, though. The book reads well enough and has a couple of extended action sequences that I imagine are aimed toward the Battletech crowd specifically. I was particularly impressed by the way that power struggles involved many social institutions - media, government, military, and business. For the scenario of intrigue alone, the book is well worth reading. I'm not sure who the typical Battletech reader is supposed to be, but I was impressed that this book was no simpleminded slugfest. The political intrigue was a lot better thought-out than I would normally expect from a series that sounds vaguely to be based on the appeal (?) of mechanized militarism, and this (plus an interesting counterpoint of a concern with pacifism) made the book a rewarding experience for me. In the end, I can't count it as any sort of a classic - mainly because of the limits of having to be squeezed into a broader scenario and series. But it was a refreshing change of pace to find these good elements within what looked like an action-dominated scenario. As for the action scenes themselves, I thought they worked quite well, too! But if you want something more than just another routine of action/combat events, c