Service for the Dead (Mechwarrior Dark Age, 6)

Rating:
Summary: Good conclusion for a good trilogy
Review: Martin Delrio's Proving Ground trilogy does an excellent job at advancing the Mechwarrior Dark Age storyline. Not only does the story bring together some of the Unique and Limited Edition figures from the game, but it is interesting to boot. This novel, the conclusion of the trilogy finds Tara Campbell, Countess of Northwind and leader of the Northwind Highlanders, fighting to save Terra from the Steel Wolves, led by Anastasia Kerensky. Tara must deal with the rogue Paladin, Ezekiel Crow, an unbelieving Exarch, and the wily Kerensky. Paladin Jonah Levin of the Limited Edition Atlas figure fame is introduced as well.

I appreciated the fact that Delrio included some character depth in the form of some of the Higlanders infantry; the three seargents, Will, Jock, and Lexa, are a nice reprieve from the "powers that be" residing on high and making decisions that could affect the entire Republic. Ezekiel Crow's character also is well-developed, and his fate within the Republic seems to have taken a turn for the worse, but makes for a much more interesting read than a Paladin whose loyalty belongs solely to the Republic.

One thing that I would like to see is more development of One Eyed Jack and his mercenaries. We're getting hints of Bannson's game, but I'd like to see more direct focus on Jacob and his megalomanical schemes.

Overall, though, this is a very satisfying conclusion to Dark Age's first trilogy. Hopefully, the success of this trilogy will induce WizKids to allow more of them as storyline development seems to proceed better when the same author has a chance to really go into the details without other authors slipping in books between with sometimes unrelated material.

Looking forward to the next novel.

Rating:
Summary: Not enough depth
Review: Overall, I loved the trilogy by Delrio. There were some impressive twists included in the books and I enjoyed seeing a trio of books devoted to the new Mechwarrior string.

My main concern, however, is that the depth of each plotline as well as each battle is not nearly sufficient. It could just be that this is the first Battletech-genre writing for Delrio. The fight sequences were over way too quick and had some unrealistic results that would be hard to duplicate in the actual gaming scenario.

I remember speaking with Stackpole about eight years back at a book signing and asked him why his battles were so accurate. He explained that he actually gamed them out and would rarely change the results of a battle. If a secondary character died, he wrote it into the story. The only time he would alter the results is if a main character integral to a plotline he was trying to write died.

Also, while Delrio has some seriously wicked twists in his plotlines, the amount of development to each twist just doesn't seem sufficient. The chase scenes in the book could have been drawn out and the possible swerves could have been built up for an even more impactful result.

Regardless, I am happy to see the franchise is back up and running. I understand that these books are the seeds for the depth and breadth of the upcoming epic books that will continue the new story.