Battletech 39: Sword and Fire (Twilight Of The Clans) [Paperback]

Thomas S. Gressman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1998

The Inner Sphere's Task Force Serpent stands poised on the brink of the greatest military operation since the liberation of Terra in 2277. Their target is Huntress, the Smoke Jaguar Clan's homeworld. Their mission is the total destruction of the Jaguar's war-making ability. Will the Inner Sphere's assault signal the end of decades of bloody conflict--or cause violence beyond either side's imagining?.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Roc; First Thus edition (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0451456769
• ISBN-13: 978-0451456762
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #685,445 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Bloody slaughter that leaves many questions unanswered., January 15, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Battletech 39: Sword and Fire (Twilight Of The Clans) (Paperback)

Of all the books of the Twilight of Clans series, this is for sure the most martial one. Sure, some of the other books really lacked mech combat, but in this case, mass didn't mean style. Okay, a point was to be made: Warfare is brutal, bloody and no sports and in order to justify Victor S-Davion's campaign of annihilation of CSJ, his message had to be delivered with such a slaughter (on both sides) on CSJ's homeworld. And the timeline of the fierce battle and the dynamics of such brutal fights are a good base to get the reader's attention. But, the way Gressman describes mech combat seriously lacks the originality and depths of other btech authors (like i.e. the early Stackpole warrior trilogy). Here it's simply a chaotic string of oftenly unrelated scenes of mech combat. This woulda been accetable if Gressman had stuck with a few main characters, but alas he more than once introduces combatants in a passage and never mentions the same character again, leaving the reader wondering what happened to them. Even worse, he neglects the fate of main characters and of complete mech units. For example Russou Howell, who had been built up as main protagonist in 2-3 of the former novels just gets 2 short appearances. Or, what happened to saKhan Brandon Howell, who was skilled enough to be the only CSJ leader not to completely fail at Tukayid (does Gressman read Btech source books?)? What impact did the IS' reserve units have after they got summoned to reinforce the 2 main groups? Etc... Questions over questions - and not every one gets (satisfactorily) answered in the short final passages when Victor's forces arrive and the battle is decided rather abruptly. Contrary to other reader's comments I liked Gressman's detailed logistical descriptions in 'The Hunters' and he was good at that. But here, I just got the impression that Gressman either had to hurry to finish the assault on Diana or that he simply lacks the skill to span a coherent story line for large scale mech combat. And that's what Btech is about: Mech combat. And therefore just 2 stars.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Uneven Stuff, November 7, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Battletech 39: Sword and Fire (Twilight Of The Clans) (Paperback)

Well, Gressman is certainly improving which is a blessing. He still makes mistakes in here but they appear to be the result of tight deadlines leaving little time for proofreading, rather than his earlier factual mistakes and improbable events. Still, after reading this novel I feel it would have done wonders to compress his three novels into two. That way the obvious filler spaces would disappear and more thought put into whether an event was probable and/or really needed or just included to impress the readers in some way. The battles were generally much closer run things than before and even going in the Jaguars favour at times. Still, the number of troops that came back from the IS is surprisingly low (doesn't mesh with other sources) and with artillery blasting so many omnimechs and elementals to pieces, before the mech to mech battles have begun, I'm really wondering how the Jags suddenly are doing so well with such small numbers. Looks like over compensation for earlier easy IS victories. Yet all the battles do make SoW much more enjoyable than The Hunters with its long drawn out buildup. One more thing I did get annoyed at is how IS troops are written as almost all heart (Only the Nekekami proved to be coldblooded killers) while the Jaguars are almost always painted as complete bastards. The only tenderness exhibited by a Jaguar happened when an Elemental carried IlKhan Osis to an ambulance. A less black and white view of the people involved would have been nice. I hope that Gressman can turn into a good solid all around author since he does have the potential. At the moments his books are marred by some serious flaws which occasional bursts of brilliance can barely make up for. But these are only his first three books after all. Even Stackpole made some serious mistakes in his first trilogy.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars sad, October 17, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Washington,USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Battletech 39: Sword and Fire (Twilight Of The Clans) (Paperback)

I have been reading Sci-Fi, (Battletech in general) for many years. And, I think that this is the poorest example of Battletech writing since 'FAR COUNTRY' which i don't consider a Battletech novel at all.