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BattleTech Universe #32
Malicious Intent
With the Lyran Alliance beset by two threatening enemies, Vlad of the Wards and the Jade Falcons, Katrina Steiner finds her only hope in her brother and political rival Victor Davion, who may be destroyed if he assists her. Original.
320 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published April 25, 1996
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 20, 2024
Another solid battletech novel. At first I thought it was going to be about Vlad Ward and while he is a main character in this book, it does not focus solely on him (thank god). The premise of the book is the clans are regrouping after the Clan Wolf and Jade Falcon conflict. During this regrouping Vlad of Clan Wolf returns to the scene after nearly being killed by Jade Falcon treachery. He starts off another conflict within the clans that leads to Jade Falcon invaliding the Lyran Alliance. The rest of the book focuses on this conflict and how politicians try to take advantage of it, while soldiers try and survive it. I liked this novel a lot more than I thought I would, I especially liked Doc Trevena, a washout turned field commander. I usually slogged through the politics just to get to his parts. Overall enjoyable and a good addition to the series.
November 2, 2024
I think that I liked it?
Malicious Intent, and now we are just picking random terms for titles, is about the battle of Coventry, specifically a Clan Jade Falcon invasion onto this Lyran Alliance world.
Unfortunately, the first third of the book is not about this, but about Vlad. Vlad is supposed to be the character that you love to hate. Instead, Vlad feels like a jumped up miniboss, where the actor of that named mook got popular for some other role entirely and the writers bumped him up to the main antagonist of Season 4.
This early part of the book, with Vlad as our POV character, is about Clan politics, specifically that around the election of the new ilKhan, the assumption of Clan Wolf into Clan Jade Falcon, and the new Khan of...
...ugh, I can't go on with this. It is a bunch of characters I am disinterested in, fighting for stakes that I feel antipathy towards. You cannot convince me that is better than any possible alternative. The manuvering and high-level political schemes are fun to read about, but, well, put a pin in that.
Most of the rest of the book is about Coventry, telling what amounts to my favorite type of military science fiction story, where a disgraced commander is put in charge of a ragtag group of misfits and makes them into a fighting force. You can hear the tropes. It brings out the singular way that I think the Clans an interesting opposition, which is when you have people tweaking their code, and there is a lot of strategy discussion as each side tries to out-think the other. There is even spectacular flirting. This is all I want out of Battletech.
Now, the beginning is prologue to this. It does give context, and there is a 'payoff' in the sense that something comes back around to lead the book to its resolution. And here is that pin coming up, because as much as the beginning makes the end make sense, it is not a lot of sense. The notion of the Clans following a particular set of rules is interesting in the tabletop skirmish game context, even if often not realized. It is also total Calvinball.
The unrealistic thing about the Clans is their successful eugenics program. The culture is weird but a lot of human cultures are weird. But it feels like broomball or whatever they call that Harry Potter thing where, upon scrutiny, nothing about the way that it works is the way that it would work. I am seeing nothing but one long Trial of Refusal going on for centuries. It could be a way to run a society. It is not a society that would prosper like it is here without some other factor. And maybe that will come up later, but not now.
Both of the highest moments of tension in the book are resolved thorough the savvy application of Clan rules. Objectively it is cool; subjectively it is boring. Or it is the kind of plot that I like the best, a clever one, yet it feels boring because the arbitrariness of those rules makes the resolution feel less meaningful. Imagine reading an Asimov book with the Three Laws of robotics, where new subsections kept appearing. Yes, the law is do no harm to humans, but you did not mention the bit where human importance is ranked based on the colors they are wearing.
The thing I personally dislike the most is what Stackpole does to my girl.
I do think that this book helps me clarify something that I feel about his writing. He is a good writer who writes bad vilians. The way that Katrina is treated is downright lousy. I know it smacks of entitled fanboy...look, I have earned some of that 30 books in or whatever - but it is as if Stackpole does not understand what is cool about Katrina and how here character works when written by someone like Keith Jr., and can do nothing other than set her up being evil for evil's sake.
Not to mention the whole Axis thing of her with , which was an interesting twist at one point but now make up the weakest scenes of the book, two people As You Know Bob-ing with malice aforethought. The scenes with are the most squicked out I have been during this entire project, inclusive of the rapey scenes in Mercenary's Star. I think the goal is to write an , but instead it feels like sorting through someone's psychosexual baggage.
I return to my initial question. I guess I liked it? It does what I want a novel like this to do, but none of the 'big' moments have anywhere the payoff that they should, or could.
Malicious Intent, and now we are just picking random terms for titles, is about the battle of Coventry, specifically a Clan Jade Falcon invasion onto this Lyran Alliance world.
Unfortunately, the first third of the book is not about this, but about Vlad. Vlad is supposed to be the character that you love to hate. Instead, Vlad feels like a jumped up miniboss, where the actor of that named mook got popular for some other role entirely and the writers bumped him up to the main antagonist of Season 4.
This early part of the book, with Vlad as our POV character, is about Clan politics, specifically that around the election of the new ilKhan, the assumption of Clan Wolf into Clan Jade Falcon, and the new Khan of...
...ugh, I can't go on with this. It is a bunch of characters I am disinterested in, fighting for stakes that I feel antipathy towards. You cannot convince me that is better than any possible alternative. The manuvering and high-level political schemes are fun to read about, but, well, put a pin in that.
Most of the rest of the book is about Coventry, telling what amounts to my favorite type of military science fiction story, where a disgraced commander is put in charge of a ragtag group of misfits and makes them into a fighting force. You can hear the tropes. It brings out the singular way that I think the Clans an interesting opposition, which is when you have people tweaking their code, and there is a lot of strategy discussion as each side tries to out-think the other. There is even spectacular flirting. This is all I want out of Battletech.
Now, the beginning is prologue to this. It does give context, and there is a 'payoff' in the sense that something comes back around to lead the book to its resolution. And here is that pin coming up, because as much as the beginning makes the end make sense, it is not a lot of sense. The notion of the Clans following a particular set of rules is interesting in the tabletop skirmish game context, even if often not realized. It is also total Calvinball.
The unrealistic thing about the Clans is their successful eugenics program. The culture is weird but a lot of human cultures are weird. But it feels like broomball or whatever they call that Harry Potter thing where, upon scrutiny, nothing about the way that it works is the way that it would work. I am seeing nothing but one long Trial of Refusal going on for centuries. It could be a way to run a society. It is not a society that would prosper like it is here without some other factor. And maybe that will come up later, but not now.
Both of the highest moments of tension in the book are resolved thorough the savvy application of Clan rules. Objectively it is cool; subjectively it is boring. Or it is the kind of plot that I like the best, a clever one, yet it feels boring because the arbitrariness of those rules makes the resolution feel less meaningful. Imagine reading an Asimov book with the Three Laws of robotics, where new subsections kept appearing. Yes, the law is do no harm to humans, but you did not mention the bit where human importance is ranked based on the colors they are wearing.
The thing I personally dislike the most is what Stackpole does to my girl.
I do think that this book helps me clarify something that I feel about his writing. He is a good writer who writes bad vilians. The way that Katrina is treated is downright lousy. I know it smacks of entitled fanboy...look, I have earned some of that 30 books in or whatever - but it is as if Stackpole does not understand what is cool about Katrina and how here character works when written by someone like Keith Jr., and can do nothing other than set her up being evil for evil's sake.
Not to mention the whole Axis thing of her with , which was an interesting twist at one point but now make up the weakest scenes of the book, two people As You Know Bob-ing with malice aforethought. The scenes with are the most squicked out I have been during this entire project, inclusive of the rapey scenes in Mercenary's Star. I think the goal is to write an , but instead it feels like sorting through someone's psychosexual baggage.
I return to my initial question. I guess I liked it? It does what I want a novel like this to do, but none of the 'big' moments have anywhere the payoff that they should, or could.
August 29, 2023
Loved reading it again
March 17, 2024
A lot of parts to keep track of in the beginning, but Stackpole pulls it all together very nicely. Really enjoyed the surprises at the end!!
October 14, 2010
This took me a bit to get through mainly because of how the story jumps around. It would seem as soon as I got into the story with one set of characters it jumped to another set. I also had a bit of problem with identifying certain characters. Within a chapter the same character seemed to be referenced by either their title or name. I think the author should of kept the characters a little more consistent for identifiable purposes.
Overall not a bad read. The battle descriptions were very vivid and entrancing. For the most part the characters were believable. It was hard though to connect with any of them since you couldn't quite "get to know them".
The last 1/4 of the book was the most enjoyable for me. here it stayed consistent with a set of characters so I was able to enjoy the ending.
Overall not a bad read. The battle descriptions were very vivid and entrancing. For the most part the characters were believable. It was hard though to connect with any of them since you couldn't quite "get to know them".
The last 1/4 of the book was the most enjoyable for me. here it stayed consistent with a set of characters so I was able to enjoy the ending.
October 29, 2015
The Wolves and Jade Falcons need to regather their strength after Clan in-fighting almost tears them apart.
In the Inner Sphere, Doc Trevana is assigned an under equipped, green bunch of troops stationed on t dead end planet of Coventry.
To show they still have some worth, the Falcons attack the planet Doc is stationed on.
The mech action is good when it happens, but there's quite a bit of politicking going on in this book.
Katherine/Katrina Steiner is trying to extend her grip on the Lyran Alliance while her brother Victor watches over the remains of the Federated Commonwealth.
Stackpole writes a good Battletech novel as usual - this book would have suffered with the lack of action by many of the other authors.
None of the characters are superfluous, and this is a good lead in to the Twilight of the Clans arc.
In the Inner Sphere, Doc Trevana is assigned an under equipped, green bunch of troops stationed on t dead end planet of Coventry.
To show they still have some worth, the Falcons attack the planet Doc is stationed on.
The mech action is good when it happens, but there's quite a bit of politicking going on in this book.
Katherine/Katrina Steiner is trying to extend her grip on the Lyran Alliance while her brother Victor watches over the remains of the Federated Commonwealth.
Stackpole writes a good Battletech novel as usual - this book would have suffered with the lack of action by many of the other authors.
None of the characters are superfluous, and this is a good lead in to the Twilight of the Clans arc.
July 1, 2017
Stackpole is sheer genius when it comes to accurately capturing the feel of combat, even for near-mythical 100 ton battlemechs. But it's not just the action which makes this story good but the complexity of the plot development and how deftly he manipulates the characters to come up with unexpected resolutions.
July 19, 2021
Book 29 of the BattleTech Series. The Jade Falcons invade deep into the Lyran Alliance, all the way to the Clan Truce line, Vlad Ward resurrects the remnants of the Crusader Wolfs. Victor brought in to assist on Coventry, will he fall into Katherine's trap?
April 24, 2017
hnnnnnnnnnnngggggggg so damn good. A fantastic mix of political intrigue and action.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews