Scan barcode
A review by lkedzie
BattleTech Legends: Wolves on the Border by Robert N. Charrette
5.0
It's like duty vs. desire story about the love between a member of the Wu-Tang Clan and a crypto-fascist spy. Or the Healing of the Centurion's Servant but with giant robots.
Wolves on the Border is operatic. I do not mean space opera, as Battletech books occupy more of the mil sci-fi side of things; I mean that, when thinking about how this would be adapted, it would require a libretto.
It is also, technically, the first Clan book, as all the clues that Wolf's Dragoons are actually the Clan are there, usually as less as clues and more as unanswered nonsense and dangling plot.
The Dragoons, who, at this point, have worked for every house but Kurita, are hired by Kurita. This is a source of trouble within Kurita, as they seem to detest mercenaries so much that they'd never hire them, but I think that the plot contrivance is that Kurita is looking to get the better of the situation by cracking the secret sauce of the Dragoons. Minobu, a mechwarrior without a mech, is made the primary liaison, intended as a throwaway position, but things happen.
Calling Minobu and Jamie in a bromance feels insulting. The way to characterize it is to not characterize it, because how you choose to characterize is the question of the text.
There are some stellar moments here because Charrette knows exactly how to employ PoV. Like my eyes rolled at Jamie's test of Minobu at his walking into their staff meeting, but not only does its explication of Minobu's process do a lot for his and Jamie's characters, but the reprisal of the scene with other commanders, under their PoV, makes both scenes more meaningful as you see those commanders falling for the traps set, and gives more weight to what otherwise might be missed subtly different treatment by Jamie.
The text seems at or near the limit of fetish about honor in Kurita, and I cringe a bit every time they're referred to as "snakes," which feels too on the nose and somehow not comparable to something like 'fed rat' but it is not a uniquely Japanese ideal, and it is expressly one that classical Japanese narrative dwells in, as well as military and war narrative in general. You don't need to advance further in the Western corpus than the Iliad to find western versions of the conflict, so I am a little curious as to how it might be perceived, or at least perceived now, not in the 80s. And the invocations of Ki are just too much.
But Minobu being a black man takes some of the sting out, I think, of that trite presentation of bushido. Sometimes it feels like there is some order of racial essentialism, particularly with Liao, but here I take the emphasis as being on the adapted versions of things. All the houses are engaging in some sort of historical cosplay, be in the Teutonic one of Stenier or the...er....slightly different Teutonic eras of Davion, or the other other Teutonic one of Marik Look, basically, I want to think that this is lampshading all of that.
Because, as someone on record as not liking either faction that the main characters are from, this was a pretty darn good book. I found myself emotionally invested in their problems, because the authors gave the characters impossible problems, or ends with only sad solutions, and did a decent job as to convincing the reader that these people are good military commanders. Maybe it is a bit too stereotyped, but from beginning to end you have memorable scenes, from Minobu's home life on the edge to Jamie's Shakespearean moment with Takashi at the wedding reception.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I sometimes feel like I'm being overly critical of these pulp sci-fi novels made to sell cardboard and lead, but even with some lingering hesitations about the racism or whatever you want to call it, I think that this book proves you can take what is a sort of one-off irrelevance in the plot arc and deliver a five-star text, through what amounts to landing single after single with classic stories and hookable characters.
Wolves on the Border is operatic. I do not mean space opera, as Battletech books occupy more of the mil sci-fi side of things; I mean that, when thinking about how this would be adapted, it would require a libretto.
It is also, technically, the first Clan book, as all the clues that Wolf's Dragoons are actually the Clan are there, usually as less as clues and more as unanswered nonsense and dangling plot.
The Dragoons, who, at this point, have worked for every house but Kurita, are hired by Kurita. This is a source of trouble within Kurita, as they seem to detest mercenaries so much that they'd never hire them, but I think that the plot contrivance is that Kurita is looking to get the better of the situation by cracking the secret sauce of the Dragoons. Minobu, a mechwarrior without a mech, is made the primary liaison, intended as a throwaway position, but things happen.
Calling Minobu and Jamie in a bromance feels insulting. The way to characterize it is to not characterize it, because how you choose to characterize is the question of the text.
There are some stellar moments here because Charrette knows exactly how to employ PoV. Like my eyes rolled at Jamie's test of Minobu at his walking into their staff meeting, but not only does its explication of Minobu's process do a lot for his and Jamie's characters, but the reprisal of the scene with other commanders, under their PoV, makes both scenes more meaningful as you see those commanders falling for the traps set, and gives more weight to what otherwise might be missed subtly different treatment by Jamie.
The text seems at or near the limit of fetish about honor in Kurita, and I cringe a bit every time they're referred to as "snakes," which feels too on the nose and somehow not comparable to something like 'fed rat' but it is not a uniquely Japanese ideal, and it is expressly one that classical Japanese narrative dwells in, as well as military and war narrative in general. You don't need to advance further in the Western corpus than the Iliad to find western versions of the conflict, so I am a little curious as to how it might be perceived, or at least perceived now, not in the 80s. And the invocations of Ki are just too much.
But Minobu being a black man takes some of the sting out, I think, of that trite presentation of bushido. Sometimes it feels like there is some order of racial essentialism, particularly with Liao, but here I take the emphasis as being on the adapted versions of things. All the houses are engaging in some sort of historical cosplay, be in the Teutonic one of Stenier or the...er....slightly different Teutonic eras of Davion, or the other other Teutonic one of Marik Look, basically, I want to think that this is lampshading all of that.
Because, as someone on record as not liking either faction that the main characters are from, this was a pretty darn good book. I found myself emotionally invested in their problems, because the authors gave the characters impossible problems, or ends with only sad solutions, and did a decent job as to convincing the reader that these people are good military commanders. Maybe it is a bit too stereotyped, but from beginning to end you have memorable scenes, from Minobu's home life on the edge to Jamie's Shakespearean moment with Takashi at the wedding reception.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I sometimes feel like I'm being overly critical of these pulp sci-fi novels made to sell cardboard and lead, but even with some lingering hesitations about the racism or whatever you want to call it, I think that this book proves you can take what is a sort of one-off irrelevance in the plot arc and deliver a five-star text, through what amounts to landing single after single with classic stories and hookable characters.