Mechwarrior Dark Age 04 A Silence In The Heavens (Mass Market Paperback)

The story itself is not bad, but the action is little ridiculus.

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In case anyone cares, the title is taken from a line in Shakespeare's Hamlet. Much of the book's fascination comes with the clash of two well-drawn woman characters-- Anastasia Kerensky, who is also known as Tassa Kay, and Tara Campbell, the beautiful Dutchess of Northwind. The character of Tassa Kay comes forward from another "Mechwarrior: Dark Age" novel entitled "Call to Duty." She was the most interesting character in that novel, and she loses little of her luster here. Tassa/Anastasia is a warrior, but also a rather hot number with a flair for passionate, extracurricular love affairs.

Since I really enjoyed this book, I will very much look forward to the second and third volumes of the trilogy. Yup, that's right-- this is the first book of a 3-volume trilogy.

Probably the trilogy structure accounts for one of the greatest faults of "A Silence in the Heavens," which is the lame, unsatisfying ending. It is more a hiatus than a true ending, since the writer is priming us for the second novel.

It probably should be mentioned that the book well balances "palace intrigue" against battle action. Two major battles are portrayed in detail as the author skillfully incorporates several points of view -- an infantryman's view, a tank commander's view, a mechwarrior's view, and the supreme commander's view. Some readers have complained about particular BattleTech novels as being starved for action scenes-- they will surely be satisfied with "A Silence in the Heavens."

A good book. I eagerly await the remaining volumes of this trilogy.

Patrick Callahan

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Any way, Amazon.com would like me to review 'Silence in the Heavens.' Delrio does an excellent job unraveling some of what the "Dark Age universe" is all about. He explains the HPG breakdown, the role of prefects & prefectures, role of paladins (no Knights though), etc. We are also introduced to characters with a lot more depth (i.e. Tara Campbell, Paladin Crow, Will Elliot, Colonel Griffin, Anastasia Kerensky, etc).

The book begins with a look at the life of Will Elliot; a knowledgable wilderness guide put out of work due to cutbacks (the HPG network has slowed business down as less offworlders are likely to visit). He finds work in the military where he becomes a scout and befriends Jock & Lexa making for an unlikely but entertaining trio. I hope all 3 survive the trilogy. The only thing I don't like about Will's character is his vocal assurrance to his friends that he knows the surrounding forest like the back of his hand. I found myself saying, "I think Jock & Lexa know by now that you know where you are going even when it is dark, you don't have to keep telling them."

Duchess Tara Campbell is Prefect of Prefecture III after the previous Prefect decides to take off and start her own faction (the Dragon's Fury). Delrio explains through the voices of the clan characters that Tara Campbell is a formidable warrior and such but I am still unclear as to the politics involved in electing one to the rank of Prefect. I don't mind that kind of explanation, it's what made the original BT series so interesting; a balance of action & politics.

Without spending too much more time on this book, go pick it up. The end battle is written in an intersting manner. When one side does soemthing, you are immediately in the opposite camp reading how they reactt to it and what their next move is and it goes on like this back and forth. It could be annoying by not leaving anything to our imaginations but the battles are so small (relatively speaking; it's not like full RCT's fighting) that the story would be much, much shorter if you told it from one side only. But I do see that that could give you the opportunity to go into greater detail.

Bottom line, I look forward to the other two books in this trilogy. Maybe the title will make more sense to me (Proving Grounds? Silence in the Heavens?).

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