Customer Reviews

Battletech 54 Storms Of Fate

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I am addicted to the story of Victor Davion and the FedCom civil war. Unfortunately the only stuff that's going around is not very good. Coleman once again proves that he is afraid of characterization, while hiding behind endless droning battles. Perhaps if he stopped before each battle scene and asked himself "Does this battle serve any purpose whatsoever to this story?" and then did not write the battle after the inevitable answer of "no-this might have been a readable book.
I am very interested in finding out how the civil war ends, but I sincerely doubt I can stand another one of Coleman's putrid stories.

Like its sister book Patriots and Tyrants, Storms of Fate is a very solid book. As I have noticed, many Stackpole fans grieve his departure from FASA and criticize Coleman's work. I find Coleman's style much more interesting. He has a much more personal insight to his characters and, overall, I like his version of Victor Davion much better than Stackpole's. Storms of Fate begins with a bang with a terrible twist involving the assassination of a person very dear to Victor. It rises continually in action involving the politics of the Star League Council and it ends and leaves you hanging and hungering for more. The political issues in this book are masterfully created and I believe that Coleman lives up to, if not surpasses, Stackpole's legacy. Read this book. You will not be able to set it down. This is definitely worth your six bucks.

I've followed the Davion/Steiner drama for many years. This newest volume fits the bill. Loren Coleman does a good job in showing how Victor's forces don't always win and when they do, it's not always pretty. The loss of one of the BTech characters, though, seemed trite. Still, it adds a touch of realism to the BTech storyline and will (hopefully) provide some fireworks as the civil war appears to be winding down. Coleman remains a good author and provides BTech fans with a solid novel continuing the main storyline. I'm continually pleased to see the continuity between the Davion/Steiner novels over the past 5-10 years.

Well, since I have been reading/playing battletech for years now, I imagine I have some seniority on the matter. This book, while still the same civil war does much to keep it from tiring. In this novel specifically, we loose a charecter, see a charecter at their worst, and see an old charecter come back from the grave, such as it were. If you are not already an avid fan/reader of the Battletech series, this may not be a spectacular place to start, but as long as you have read one or two books in the series and know the politics and such in general, this is a spectacular book. It brings the current story closer to a close (which any good reader knows won't stay closed), and opens up new possibilites with the election of a "fair" Star Leauge ruler and the addition of two new member states to the leauge. Nobody does them like Coleman.

While not Stackpole, Mr. Coleman keeps the BattleTech series strong. It does tend to drag at points, and some of the characters seem to attack "weird" or at least not in the way Stackpole's earlier works had them. None of that is enough to hurt the book though. It will be sad to see the series end...

Great Classic Battletech novel. The story line continues its twists and turns between Victor and Katherine up til the last page. Loren L.Coleman really draws you into the story, enjoy!

The battletech series is one of the longer running and larger series out there. That alone should be enough to recommend this book. But New battletech and Old are now quite different. The stories are still great but some of the detail has been lost.

Take Storm of Fate. It is a very good Battletech book with all the great battles and intrigue that you would expect. The story line is also very gripping. But it isn't the space oddessy's that Stackpole wrote back in the day. One may argue that this book is almost as good but one thing about Stackpole(an origional B-Tech writer who is now on Star Wars) was his amazing detail. And the other B-tech writers were not far behind him. Now, they all seem to be letting it off some.

Can we move past the Civil war. Maybe I'm old fashioned, but it is nice to have the good guys occasionally win in the end. The 3 book series concept was great. The Gray Death, The Warrior Trilogy, The Blood of Kerensky, even the Way of the clans. Twighlight of the clans was pushing it with 8 or 9 books. This civil war feels like it is dragging on forever. (Spare me the reality speech. If I wanted reality, I wouldn't be reading so many books) Storms of fate, while well written, (I like Loren Coleman alot) does nothing but deliver more traumatic blows to the good guys. The whole story line has grown very stale, and is becoming unpleasant reading. I also believe the death of a certain character to be a sad mistake that removed a quality from the overall universe. The Assasin thing is also getting old. Surely, the leaders of these huge blocks of worlds can protect themselves better. It seems like they have "Assasins get in half price" night at the Luthien palaces. The only reason I would reccomend this book is because it is part of a series. This is not a book to get someone interested in Battletech. It is merely a stepping stone that I don't want to miss because I want to understand the ending to this line of events. (Lord, let it be soon please.)

Once again, I am disappointed with the shallow depth of the "progression" of the battletech story line. Coleman is a very capable writer, but the complete lack of main characters is ridiculous. Kai, Phelan, the Clans. Look, I know the Clans were beat up, but there is no way that they would stand by while a civil war continues. A must read for battletech fans, however, big storyline developements. Good battles.

*As a note to the guy from Ohio above, the Battletech license was sold to a company called WizKidz, and a new era of battletech has been created. Mike Stackpole has signed on to write a book in fall/winter of this year.

I have been a long time Battletech fan, I have all the games and all the old novels. Throughout the years I have missed Michael Stackpole's universe changing novels. In my personal opinion Loren Coleman has ably filled that gaping hole with his recent novels. Storms of Fate tops em all.

The good -- universe shattering changes... all characters well depicted.....amazing subplots....

The bad -- Omi -- i won't go into futher detail because it is a major spoiler.......

Overall almost at the levelof Stackpole's Btech novels