Download Warrior: En Garde (BattleTech, No. 37) eBook

I paid a little over the odds for this book, but it was out of print and I needed it to finish the warrior trilogy collection.

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One of the best battletech trilogy written. The author has also done a lot of star wars and I would recommend those books as well

I wouldn't recommend Warrior: En Garde, as there are much better pieces of sci-fi out there. Having played the actual Battletech board game and read over a dozen sourcebooks for the RPG and tabletop strategy game, the novel doesn't seem to match the mood of the setting. First off the antagonist's mech units are classified as elite or at the very least veteran (the Sword of Light, Genyosha or ISF jumptroops), but you wouldn't guess that as they can never accomplish their missions, hit their targets and are equipped with the weakest of mechs (panthers anyone?). While the protagonists and the Kell Hounds in contrast come off as invincible and morally superior.

By the end of the novel the battle scenes had become repetitive as one after another enemies are obliterated, with little to no loses for the protagonist's side. Easily by the first third of the book you get this feeling that no matter what the other side throws out the protagonist have no chance of loosing. And I'm not even going to go into what strangeness happen with Patrick Kell at the final battle. Most of the characters in the novel, who've grown up in a galaxy engulfed by centuries of the Succession Wars and their associated destruction, seem overly emotional. It comes off as a cross between bad anime and adolescences who've skipped their medication. Parts of the story read as an obvious morality play that repeats the same message over and over again. Yeah, I get it there's racism in the Inner Sphere. Which get me to my next point, good science fiction at least in my opinion should be about other worldly, fantastical settings and ideas. This novel could have easily been set as a 1980's cold war spy novel with mercs running special opts in some third world hot spot. The story elements were very predictable.

An element that makes the Battletech universe so compelling was totally missing. Nowhere did you get the impression that collectively humanity has sunk into a techno Dark Age, where certain technologies have become lost. Everything read like it was new and in perfect working order, which contradicts the settings gritty nature of old machines who's inner working have become lost to the savageries of war. The story plays out more like Saturday morning cartoon for 12-year-olds then hard science fiction. If you like the mech battles, play the table top or computer games and if you like the setting get the sources books, but don't waste your time with this novel.

Around 1996 I discovered the universe of BattleTech, by FASA -- both the board game and the collectible card game. Soon after that I discovered the novels written by various authors.

Over the next 5 or 6 years, I bought about twenty of paperback editions. Michael Stackpole's "Warrior" trilogy is among the best of those books, especially with regard to "Inner Sphere" history and politics.

For a good understanding of the invading Clans, the "Jade Falcon" trilogy by Robert Thurston is basic reading.

I've been an ardent fan of BattleTech since I was first introduced to it at my Air Force Tech School by my roomate back in 1991. BattleTech is a tabletop wargame which came about in the mid 80's and quickly grew in popularity due to it's near-future (and yet at the same time far-future) feeling, diverse and colorful Battlemechs to blast at opponents with, an unbelievably rich history to draw from, and best of all: ease of play. How many weekends I spent tossing dice down to see how many of my LRM's hit that blasted Kurita Jenner (or whatever other adversary I was facing that night) I may never know, but I can tell you that it gets into your blood and you will develop a lifelong love of the game and it's wealth of accompanying source material.

So when I realized that there were actual BattleTech novels I was overjoyed and grabbed all of them that I could lay my hands on. The first book I purchased was "Wolves on the Border", which was an excellent standalone book about the experiences of Wolf's Dragoons while in service to the Draconis Combine. My second purchase was this book, "Warrior: En Garde" by Michael Stackpole, and is an excellent followup to the former.

The plot centers around several primary characters: MechWarrior Justin Allard, son of Quintus Allard (head of the Federated Suns intelligence division), who is stationed on the Capellan March world of Kittery and training a group of green MechWarriors up to expert level. Dan Allard, his brother, serves with the legendary mercenary outfit, the Kell Hounds, on the backwater Lyran Commonwealth world of Pacifica, and Andrew Redburn, Justin's second in command, who manages to turn a surprise Capellan ambush into a turnaround victory for he and his troops. Interspersed with this are the notable characters of Hanse Davion, head of the Federated Suns, Melissa Arthur Steiner, heir to the Lyran throne, and a very deranged Maximillian Liao, who is intent on throwing the proverbial wrench into the inner workings of his Davion neighbors.

The storytelling is very good and anyone half-familiar with the BattleTech universe will be able to follow the story as it unfolds. There's an even mixture of political intrigue combined with notable amounts of Mech' mayhem, and truth be told at no point does it go over the reader's head. The main plotline involves Hanse Davion's plans to consolidate the Inner Sphere by marrying Melissa Steiner, thus fusing the two powerful Successor States into one gigantic one. This prospect puts the other Houses on edge as it obviously presents a military threat to them. When the Draconis Combine discovers that Archon-Designate Melissa Steiner happens to be within their borders, they mount an operation to apprehend her and thus stall any future developments. But the Kuritans weren't counting on the presence of the Kell Hounds...

This is a wonderful book, written in a very easy to read manner. Stackpole is very gifted with putting a cohesive plot together and maintaining it with wonderfully descriptive imagery. If there is any one downside to the book it is that he tends to use some of the same conversation devices repeatedly. For instance, there is not a single character (save for Tsen Shang with his poison laced Lee press-on supernails) that at some point does not run their fingers through their hair. Each one reacts to surprises using imagery you'd see on the board game. "Dan felt like he'd taken a PPC shot to the head", or "Justin felt like a laser had hit his stomach", etc. And I don't know, having played umpteen million games of BattleTech, I can tell you it's pretty darned uncommon to get as many headshots as his characters are in this book. The battle narratives read almost like what you'd see after 3 rounds of the tabletop game. You can almost imagine Stackpole might have been rolling the dice and firing the various Mech weapons in sequence at opposing Mechs on an actual hexmap while writing out the dialogue.

But, in truth, these are very minor quibbles, and this is one heckuva book that any BattleTech fan can tell you is wonderful and a must-read. The series gets even better with the two sequels, and even ties in really well with the previously mentioned "Wolves on the Border". The bottom line is that the Warrior Trilogy is a must-have for any fan of the game, and perhaps even for sci-fi buffs in general.

Long live Hanse Davion!

I have loved Stackpoles Battletech novels since I was a child. I even wished there was a data reader available then so I could carry more in my pocket. See, Stackpole made me envision the Kindle!
That said, why is the Warrior series and the Excellent Blood of Kerensky series not on Kindle?
The thing about Stackpole is he stays within the constraints of the series, but still keeps to the laws of physics. He researches how things work and how the events would unfold in real life.