Mechwarrior: Dark Age #6: Service for the Dead: (Book Three of the Proving Grounds Trilogy)

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...Read more

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...Read more

SERVICE FOR THE DEAD brings THE PROVING GROUNDS TRILOGY to a close, if not a conclusion.

The novel breaks from the loose format of the previous two books; rather than spending time further exploring the character of Tara Campbell (who, truth be told, was quite well fleshed out in the earlier books), it picks the plot up right where Truth and Shadows left off and runs with it.

Northwind is no longer the battlefield; this time, Anastasia Kerensky is headed for Terra. And with The Republic's force reductions, Terra's defense forces alone won't be enough to stop the Steel Wolves. The battered Northwind Highlanders must rise to the challenge once more, defending not their own world, but the capital of the Republic.

While the basic premise seems plausible, the book relies on a chain of coincidences to...Read more