Sword and Fire: Twilight of the Clans V (The Battle Tech Series , No 39)

Rating:
Summary: Worthy conclusion to the initial TotC series.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: sad
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: A pretty good book but...
Review: It is a good book, but it's a little slow till the end. You have to read it because it's book 5 of Twilight of the Clans and you get to find who killed Morgan. Toward the end the book get pretty cool.

Rating:
Summary: Bloody slaughter that leaves many questions unanswered.
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Worthy conclusion to the initial TotC series.
Review: So far the best and most entertaining novel of the Twilight of the Clans series. The plot involving the investigations of Morgan's murder is excellent and the fights to conquer Diana by Task Force Serpent are decent battletech war tales. I would have wished a more effective defense by the remaining CSJ forces, but in view of the following book of the series, the Inner Sphere units needed to get out of the initial assault rather unscathed.

Rating:
Summary: Not his best work
Review: Sword and Fire was an adequet ending to Twilight of the clans. The battle scenes wern't the best, but the scenes with the M16 teams were great, as well as the hunt for Morgan Hasek-Davion's killer. Gressman didn't put his all into this book, though it was fairly good. I recommend this for anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Gressman is new to the BT arena, however he is improving!
Review: The latest entry in the BT:Twilight of the Clans is a little slower than that of say, Mike Stackpole. Gressman is relatively new to this series and is a solid writer. I feel he will only improve if given a chance. I will not hesitate to buy another Gressman novel. The Twilight series has alot of potential and Mr. Gressman has to follow FASA's direction in this series so he has a "script" to follow. This allows for continuity and moves the BT universe in a specific direction.

Rating:
Summary: This book rocks!!!!!!!!
Review: this book is realy cool because it shows how clan smoke jaguire tries to deal with the invading inner sphere attackers.I am a huge fan of battle tech(I have ALL the books,games,and r.p.g.s)and I think this is one of the best works ever produced by FASA!!!

Rating:
Summary: An uninspiring but necessary sequel
Review: This book was a little slow in arriving, but don't get your hopes up. Until the end of the story, Gressman's writing style leaves you in a near-catatonic state as he repeats the objective of Task Force Serpent about every three or four pages. This could have been done so much better, by maybe taking more than a paragraph to resolve the assasssination of book 3, and also by getting to the invasion much quicker. As soon as the troops land, Gressman proves he can write. Problem is, he's out of ink! Next time, Tommy Boy, spend a little more than a 3-page chapter on each separate task force. Oops, he didn't even do that! The St. Ives Lancers, the Kathil Uhlans, and for the most part the Com Guards, are completely left out of the narrative. Considering the 100 + pages of filler in this book, seven or eight more chapters would have improved this it immensely. Well, at least, after five books, something is starting to happen...

Rating:
Summary: A good follow up story to "The Hunters"
Review: This book was well written and exciting. My only complaint is that it doesn't complete telling the story of Task Force Serpent. There will be yet another book in this story. Grrrrr. A must read!!!