Customer Reviews

Battletech 44: Threads of Ambition: Book 1 of the Capellan Solution

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

As a fan of the Capellan Confedration and Sun-Tzu Liao this book really appealed to me. Mostly all the other b-tech book portray Sun-Tzu and the Confederation as fanatics and as an evil that must be stopped by the heroic Federated Commonwealth. This book tells a Capellan side of the story and portrays Sun-Tzu not as a maniac but as a great leader who wants to regain his lost realm. If your a fan of the Confederation GRAB THIS BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

The Capellan Confederation and the St. Ives Compact have mainly been ignored by the Btech series... since the Warrior series no book has really concentrated on this part of the Inner Sphere except maybe Binding Force which was hard for me to enjoy because the book was about Sun-Tzu whimsically feeling, hey lets flex our military muscle b/c I find it arrogant of Sarna to set up their own government... Anyway this book finally reopens this area to readers... Sun-Tzu plans certainly live up to his namesake with ingenuity as he makes the St. Ives dance to his tune... the battle scenes though sporadic engender a feeling of impending hopelessness making the reader wonder- When will Kai get back to kick some a**? Will Sun-Tzu succeed? Will the people of the Compact continue to fight or voluntarily assimilate back into the Confederation? The story-telling and the characters are very enjoyable and I see this as Loren L. Coleman's best work so far (though Double-Blind was also a very good book) This book has me aching for the sequel and I can't wait to see if Sun-Tzu the puppetmaster's strings will be cut by a returning Victor and Kai.

Is it not hard to imagine the Capellan Confederation rising up as a strong Successor State again? Loren Coleman is striving to make it believable.

Sun-Tzu Liao has decided to make a sort of movement, Xin-Sheng (rebirth in Chinese). He is increasing patriotism across the Confederation, and has just started a campaign to reclaim lost worlds from the 4th Succession War: the St. Ives Compact.

The story revolves around the struggles of Aris Sung, Maurice Fitzgerald, Warner Doles and Cassandra Allard-Liao, with Sun-Tzu and Isis Marik providing the backbone of the plot.

A must for all BTech readers!

I just can't get into the Capellans, but that aside, its a well written story with just the right amount of credible mech battles (as credible as mech battles can get!), which is what I mean by "Stackpole-ish."

Like it or not, Stackpole is *the* BTech measuring stick, and no-one's measured up yet. Some have come close, and I'd have to include this novel and author. The difference is Stackpole clearly writes to an adult audience, the other authors are less clear in who they're writing to. Mostly adolescents I'd speculate.

This one falls into the latter category too. Some of the main characters aren't more than two-dimensional, and it's just an overall light read, but hey, this is BattleTech, a series based on a game; we don't read it expecting Tolstoy, we read it for a quick diversion and visit to a "cool" universe where "giant robot-like" war machines blow each other to smithereens.

This one's a good lunch-time read.

This book is filled with action and intrigue and was a delight to read. Fans awaiting the sequel can get a preview of the first chapter at FASA's Battletech website.

I will start the review by saying I can't stand Sun Tzu, and I still think this is a very good book. So I am not ranking the book high because I like the Capellan Confederation. I like the focus on a part of the inner sphere that is typically not covered in the novels. The Capellan Confederation finally makes its move to regain worlds lost to the Federated Commonwealth and St. Ives Compact. Anyone who follows the literature knows that this war has been brewing ever since the Clans invaded and major parts of the Federated Commonwealth military are occupied in areas far from the Capellan border.

I have always thought the St. Ives Compact was a very interesting part of the battletech universe and wondered if they would expand south into the periphery. Justin Allard and his wife Candace Liao are major characters in the warrior trilogy and characters in the blood of kerensky trilogy, so the founding of St. Ives and the characters have a rich history.

The invasion was set up nicely and the politics and battles are interesting. Only thing I didn't like was a rookie unit, Hustaing Warriors hanging with the 2nd St Ives Lancers.

This was a great book; it showed how Sun Tzu Liao had to be both politically and militarily successful in his campaigns. The author was also able to put a couple plots into one story. This was helpful because it let you see how the St. Ives compact saw the Capellan Confederation. The battles were also well described and the main characters were not invincible. Although sometimes confusing, I think this book is still one of the better books of the Battletech series.

This book depicts the events leading to the invasion of St. Ives Compact by the Capellan Confederation. As such the story unfolds through strategy and political measures taken by both sides. There were few mech combats and I found them rather uninspiring and lack the depth of tactical combat. The story also jumps back and forth between the Capellan and St. Ives point of view, which gets confusing at times.

I whole-heartedly recommend this book to those people who enjoys political thriller. But if u r like me and enjoys intense tactical combat actions, this book is not worth your time!

Coleman has written a great book and a cliffhanger to boot! I bought this book when it came out and by the time I had finished it I was already waiting anxiously for the next one to come out. The book portrays a side of Sun-Tzu Liao that we have not seen in the Battletech books before. I hope the conclusion was as good as this one was.

The book was written well, but overall...it was really a VERY non-important part of the BTech universe. I kind of see the book as a waste, becuase it kind of re-covers events during Operation Serpant that really didn't matter. The whole book could have been summed up in a few sentances. No surprises or big events here...really a yawn. However, it was written well...if that means anything. But, i you enjoy the would-be exploits (there really were only a ew skirmishes) of some no-name pilots from Liao...you may enjoy it.