Book Report> BattleTech: I Am Jade Falcon

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You may recall I reviewed the one sourcebook I have for BattleTech, based on the animated series. BattleTech is a tabletop role-playing game set in the future where a group of space colonies are cut off from far off Earth. The game franchise started with the colonies degrading into civil war based on various houses, but at some point a new enemy is created for the “Inner Sphere” in the form of the Clans. These are remnants of the original peacekeeping force for the Inner Sphere known as the Star League who got pissed off at what these idiots were doing and went off to start their own group. Now they’re back and ready to conquer the Inner Sphere with superior mechs, giant robot-like combat vehicles, and a method of combat rules that makes Marquis Of Queensbury look like anarchy. This is where the show got their stories from and where our book review comes from.

BattleTech: I Am Jade Falcon features the more well-known of the Clans thanks to their appearance in the cartoon as the main antagonists, the Jade Falcons. Written by Robert Thurston and published by Penguin Books “ROC SF Advance” chapter (no pun intended) in 1995, the book follows one particular former falconer–the Falcons’ term for a trainer–looking at the twilight of her life and looking to die on the battlefield as a warrior. It follows her struggles but are they worth following? I mean, this is essentially one of the bad guys in the franchise, right?

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Book Report: Battletech: 1st Somerset Strikers sourcebook

I saw ads for the Battletech role-playing game in some of my comic books growing up but I never saw any evidence of it. Dungeons and Dragons was the big game in the ’80s and you weren’t likely to see anyone else playing it. I had my own issues with D&D and never had time for any of the other “pen and paper RPGs”, including this one.

However, an animated series was produced in the ’90s and aired in syndication. (I’ve seen a source peg it as a Fox show, but the only place I saw it was a then unaffiliated station that was never part of Fox.) While I didn’t get interested in the RPG I have wanted to play the video game (and it’s spinoff series, MechWarrior). So why do I have this sourcebook?

It’s based on the animated series, but also works to correct factual errors to set events in the main Battletech universe. In-canon the cartoon is an error ridden summary of the events of the Clans first arrival (I’ll explain all that in the article) and the effort to repel them my uniting units of formerly opposing forces. In world, the show is considered poorly regarded, but in the real world I very much enjoyed it. They even found a way to shoehorn in the CG by introducing “enhanced imaging” for the Mech pilots (or “Mech Warriors). That’s why I picked up the book. Over on my other site I’ve gone through my Battletech comics and I thought I would finish my “Battletech Week” here at The Clutter Reports with a look at this book.