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The Mechwarrior: Dark Age #3: Ruins of Power

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I can't begin to tell you how upset I am at this book. Vardeman should definitely stick to writing about Vor.

Something that threw me off very early in the story was that the main characters (Dale, Austin & Sergio) shared the same last name as Raul Ortega from 'A Call to Arms.' This universe is still in it's infancy, lets at least wait till we're about 15 novels into it before we start recycling surnames.

'Ruins of Power' had the potential to be a powerful story with the characters it introduced. Unfortunately, the author never takes any time to dig deep into any of the characters; many questions go unanswered. Why is Sergio Ortega so adamant a pacifist? What evidence is there that Sergio was a great mechwarrior in his past? Why does Segio not confide in his own son, Austin, as to what Dale and Hanna knew of Lady Elora's work to undermine his authority as governor? It is obvious Sergio can trust no one, so why not his son? Is it because he feels that Austin is incompetent? Well that can't because Austin is given a political postition alongside his father plus he spends a week outfitting a Centurion for battle (i.e. programming it, loading LRM ammo & AC ammo, and other superhuman feats). It seems Austin is more than ready for the truth; I hope you can sense the sarcasm. We are also introduced to Capt. Manfred Leclerc of the First Cossack Lancers charged with protecting the governor till they are handed over to the Legate's control. Manfred's relationship with Austin is never given much time so you can imagine my surprise when Austin deeply embraces Manfred (who has been in hiding). Does Austin look to Manfred as a surrogate father, a big brother, what?

Despite the many character flaws inherent in this book (don't get me started on Legate Tortorelli) there were some definite technical mistakes. As I mentioned before, Austin loads LRM & AC ammo into a Centurion locked in a museum. How in the world does he accomplish that without some sort of gantry or crane? Whatever. Also, the Centurion is capable of much more damage than it was allowed to dish out. It was taken out of battle early and Vardeman even wrote of Austin having to watch heat levels even after firing only two weapons/salvos. Unless the Centurion had no heatsinks, Austin should not have given heat a second thought until he was in the thick of battle. Besides, his long range weaponry should have taken out any mech-killing tanks well before he was in range of their guns. Lastly, is the mysterious Atlas that arrives with Envoy Parsons to save the day. Not only do we not know who is piloting the Atlas (Vardeman spends no time in the cockpit of the Atlas for the reader) it seems he is the worst pilot in all of the Republic. The Atlas is ordered to minimize collateral damage to the city and to fire only when fired upon. There was no mention that the Atlas even took any vehicles out! In fact, the Atlas was about to be felled by the Home Guard forces before the battle turned. It seems to me that the Republic would have sent along an elite pilot (a Knight or something), Vardeman should have given his name, and would be able to take out any vehicle with well-placed laser, gauss or LRM salvos. Please do some research before writing and/or talk to past BT authors.

Bottom line, this is a horrible story. I could have written it and I am not very creative. There were no 'levels' to the plot, the characters, the battles, etc. Buy this book just to add it to your collection. Read it once and never touch it again unless you have a wobbly table that needs fixing.

By the way, I thought Far Country was entertaining (but yes, it was dumb).

Some devoted BattleTech fans have been quite critical of Robert E. Vardeman's The Ruins of Power, the third book in the MechWarrior: Dark Age series. I am a newcomer to the BattleTech world, so I made a point of reading the two earlier entries in this series so as to put myself in a better position to judge the merits of this book. While The Ruins of Power isn't on par with its predecessors, I found this to be an entertaining, quite satisfying novel. Vardeman does tend to avoid certain questions about the background of events, fails to expound upon a few seemingly unlikely details, and leaves room for the questioning of several characters' motives and agendas, but the basic story holds together pretty well, certain explanations are rightly held back until the closing pages, and important aspects of society and leadership are addressed. BattleTech veterans may find fault with a number of things in these pages, but those new to the series stand a good chance of enjoying a pretty good story.

There is not a lot of military action to be found in The Ruins of Power. This is due in no small part to Mirach's governor's adamant pacifism and zealous commitment to diplomacy; such strong feelings on his part are ironic and somewhat hard to accept at face value for the reason that Baron Sergio Ortega was a celebrated MechWarrior in his youth. His two sons, Dale and Austin, plead with the governor to use the threat of force to quiet the growing unrest and riots springing up across the land. The destruction of the Republic's interstellar communication capabilities has not only isolated Mirach, it has led to growing economic problems affecting the entire population. Business leaders have gone so far as to begin converting IndustrialMechs into modified fighting machines in order to defend themselves from angry mobs should the social fabric of Mirach split completely asunder. The government's biggest problem, however, turns out to be the Ministry of Information and the virtual monopoly its minister, Lady Enora, has on the news now that there is virtually no access to interstellar communications. With the specter of civil war hanging over Mirach, only time will tell which important organizations and factions will support the Republic and which ones will betray the common good for their own selfish interests. Political intrigue, treachery, and galling lust for power all make their mark on this story.

The Ruins of Power does have its weaknesses, and some readers will find them more frustrating than others. Serious and committed BattleTech readers point to technical problems surrounding the equipping and utilization of BattleTech units in the novel. As a newcomer to the series, I am not familiar enough with the technical details of the machinery of war to question any such information, but this may be an issue for some readers. A much bigger problem is characterization - or, to be more blunt, the lack of it in some cases. Baron Ortega's unflagging commitment to diplomacy proves quite frustrating early on, and Vardeman really offers no sort of explanation as to why this former MechWarrior now refuses to resort to any show of force. Young Austin Ortega, for his part, fails to live up to the hype of a BattleTech novel hero, although he does develop into an interesting and sympathetic character. The main problem with the novel, though, is Vardeman's portrayal of "the bad guys." The most dangerous hornet in the nest of opposition all but declares her treachery time and again, making misstatements that call her loyalties into question from the very start. Her supposed motivation is hardly acceptable in and of itself, and this fact weakens her character greatly. Questionable characterization is only exacerbated by certain aspects of the plot; Vardeman sometimes jumps from point A to point B without explaining how he got from one to the other.

Suffice it to say that The Ruins of Power is not a perfect novel - far from it. It is, however, a perfectly interesting book that speaks to some of the basic values and concerns of any modern society. Obviously, not all BattleTech fans would recommend the book, but in my opinion The Ruins of Power is more than worth a look by prospective readers.

I'll start off by saying that out of 60+ Battletech books, I only thought one, Far Country, was dumb. That number has now increased to two. I don't know what Mr. Vardeman has written before but I do know that his first foray into the Battletech universe was not very good. My biggest complaint about the book is the lack of action. The last one hundred pages of the book are about the build up to this battle that never really materializes. Heck, the Atlas mech spends most of it's time seemingly just standing there getting shot at and nothing else. The reason for this is because the governor is a pacificst and doesn't want people to get hurt. Well, that's great but what do people want to see in a Battletech book? They want to see Mechs shooting at other Mechs and blowing stuff up. Now don't get me wrong, character development and plot are important too otherwise it's just a big Solaris match and that's it. However, this book didn't even have that. The conversations felt forced and the outcome at the end with regards to the "villians" was idiotic. If I was Austin Ortega I would have been extremely ticked at my father had he come up with a cockamamee scheme like that. As a matter of fact, the whole story seemed like a divergence and didn't have much to do with what's going on in the rest of the universe aside from some mentions of fighting on Achenar and some of the other factions. I was really looking forward to this book so I was extremely disappointed when it failed to deliver. I hope the next book, which is the first of a trilogy that sounds like it is going to be killer, is much better than this one was.

Having read most of the battletech books and both of the previous mechwarrior-dark age books, I was looking forward to this one. From the begining this book is simply melting pot of all the good vs. evil books ever written. The good guys are literaly "Prince Valaint" and the bad guys "Darth Vader", "Hannibal Lecter" and Osma bin Laden rolled into one. The plot is tiresom and I had correctly predicted how the book would end half way through reading it. Do yourself a favor and skip over this one, you won't miss anything.

After reading this book, I am left wondering, "how does this book have so many pages when I could match the depth of this author within 2 paragraphs?"

I know the new Dark Age novels are lacking mechs slightly but this one has approximately 2 mechs. Yep 2. 1 of which is apparently piloted by a complete bonehead and the other which breaks down within 3 sentances of fighting. I'm not sure if the author is new to mech combat but perhaps he should have read some previous novels in the same universe because his battle scenes are ABSOLUELY terrible. They do not inspire any imagination and practically nobody actually "dies" or loses anything.

I think he was just looking for an excuse to write a "Political Intrigue" novel which he also failed at with his terrible "Bad Guys".

Ugh I never write book reviews which goes to show just how much I hated this novel.

THE RUINS OF POWER has been lambasted by fandom, often being termed "The Ruins of Paper". Even at the time it came out, I didn't quite understand why it was so reviled; years later, I still don't.

I'll admit, it's not my favorite book of the series. It does have flaws; characters' motivations are often opaque, and there's a definite black/white divide with no shades of grey in-between. But plotwise Vardeman manages to tell a tale significantly different from the previous two books; where they show ambitious people invading other worlds, here Mirach manages to tear itself apart.

POWER is by no means perfect, and there are better BATTLETECH novels out there. But if you're just looking for a little standalone BATTLETECH fluff like the old MECHWARRIOR novels, it fits the bill nicely.

I'm not familiar with Battletech, Mechwarrior, Dark Age scenarios, but bought and read this book because of its author, Robert E. Vardeman. Not being able to judge what others might expect as a result of the above-mentioned affiliations, I can only evaluate it on a stand-alone basis as a work in its own right. In short, I found the book to be pretty good! Political intrigue turns out to be the core of the work, and here, as elsewhere, Vardeman has done a good job presenting institutional and governmental power struggles in a fictional scenario. This may not be the style expected by fans of Battletech, but from my end I'm impressed that the book is no mere string of shoot-em-up antics. Rather, it has a balance between presenting its characters, a broad political context, specific tactical information in a number of key action sequences, and also apparently fitting into a broader framework of tied-in games and novels. I think it does a good job of fitting into this web. It's main weaknesses, I suppose, would have to be in character development. I found all the roles presented to be interesting enough, but some of the key persons in the story weren't quite fleshed out enough to come across with full credibility. Main villainess Elora had motivations that seemed a mite too simple. Marta Kinsolving's character was never properly explored in this text. Most of the characters are intriguing and interesting to watch and listen to as they scheme and try to piece together what threats are building against them, but as characters are never truly round - effectively being defined merely in terms of the roles they're playing in the power struggles in a semi-isolated sector of the universe. This shortcoming wasn't enough of a drawback to sink the book too much, though. The book reads well enough and has a couple of extended action sequences that I imagine are aimed toward the Battletech crowd specifically. I was particularly impressed by the way that power struggles involved many social institutions - media, government, military, and business. For the scenario of intrigue alone, the book is well worth reading. I'm not sure who the typical Battletech reader is supposed to be, but I was impressed that this book was no simpleminded slugfest. The political intrigue was a lot better thought-out than I would normally expect from a series that sounds vaguely to be based on the appeal (?) of mechanized militarism, and this (plus an interesting counterpoint of a concern with pacifism) made the book a rewarding experience for me. In the end, I can't count it as any sort of a classic - mainly because of the limits of having to be squeezed into a broader scenario and series. But it was a refreshing change of pace to find these good elements within what looked like an action-dominated scenario. As for the action scenes themselves, I thought they worked quite well, too! But if you want something more than just another routine of action/combat events, check this book out! It does a good job of linking the combat into POLITICS!! 9:20

My problem with this particular novel was highly implausible behavior by main characters.

The father, sergio, is supposedly a former great mechwarrior and hero who has had a lifetime of public service. Yet throughout the book he adheres to a childlike pacifism, even when mobs are killing hundreds of innocent people. A real person with such a background could hardly adhere with such stubbornness to such a ridiculous policy.

As has been said elsewhere, the battle scenes are perplexing because characters are worried about the possibility of "collateral damage," and refuse to fire -- they are just big, lumbering targets.

Even the arch-villain, a witch-like woman, is trying to take over the planet to give it to the Steel Wolves clan. This is because her mother was raped by a Steel Wolf warrior-- resulting in a fanatical loyalty to the Steel Wolf clan in this woman. Wha? Yes, it's patently improbable. Too much of this very sort of far-fetched motivation -- or lack thereof -- starts to make the novel seem ridiculous.

As a final example-- A powerful official visited the planet, learned about the rioting and chaos, and then left in his ship. At a key moment late in the novel, this same official inexplicably returns, just a few days after he departed. He brings an Atlas battlemech, which he gives to one of the factions. Characters ask, "why did he return? He just left, didn't he?" This is never explained.

There are a few good things in the book. Some of the characters seemed interesting. The description of the Palace of Facets, which becomes the setting for much of the novel, and the way the museum offers tools of war for desperate characters, these are a few qualities which somewhat mitigate the deep flaws in the book.

On balance, however, not worth your trouble. There are so many better BattleTech novels out there.

Patrick Callahan

I just wanted to add my voice to the other reviewers who felt that this book lacked what is necessary for the MechWarrior Universe. I felt that none of the characters had much depth. Austin seems to be this Rambo-esque hero who pretty much has to be superman (I mean, who else among us can reprogram a Mech, then load it up with Autocannon and missile ammo singlehandedly). Yet, like all supermen, he seems to lack intelligence. Alas and alack, our villian also suffers from predictablity. Her ingenious plans to rule the planet are going to be foiled due to her grandiose ego. The book's finale did lack the fast and furious Mech action that we all love, and the conclusion did little to add closure to an otherwise lackluster novel. I must say, though, that Jerome Parsons is a character I'd like to see again, however. Overall, this is a book that can be skipped in the series.

As the third book in the new Mechwarrior Dark Age series, Robert Vardeman needed to maintain the high standards the two previous novels had set. Unfortunately, he fell short. A good one hundred feet short.
Character development was severly lacking, descriptions were ill attempted, and the normal Battletech/Mechwarrior combat scenes were robbed of their potency.
Additionally, conversations between characters and action sequences appear fragmented, almost as if the author forgot to describe something properly in the paragraph previously or skipped mentioning an action. Is this poor editing? Perhaps it is poor authorship? It is hard to tell and it is also very disheartening that a line of books with so bright a future has such a large belmish early on.