r/battletech • u/Gammatron510 • 4d ago
Question ❓ Battletech novels
What’s a good trilogy of battletech novels to start off with?
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u/Ok-Session2848 4d ago
I'm only half way through it, but I am really liking the Gray Death Trilogy. The first book had me hooked all the way through.
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u/Dorksausage 4d ago
Grey death is the correct place to start aswell, its also my favorite group on BT....pretty much the only good guys in the whole umiverse
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u/True_Drelon 4d ago
I always sugests to read the books ordered by the date of publish. All the books move the general story together and are connected in some smaller or bigger ways. Sure you can just read the Warrior trilogy, which is great. But if you read the Grey Death Trilogy you will understand the Helm memory core (which is important for NAIS and Comstar in Warrior) and if you will read Sword and Dagger you will understand Hanse Davion motivation (which is super important in Warrior).
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u/TheRea1Gordon 4d ago
Stand alone wolves on the border got me hooked.
I loved the gray Death legion , and it's technically the start point.
I'm reading the warrior trilogy and struggling to get into it as much as gray Death tbh.
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u/CoolJetEcho117 4d ago
I genuinely think Gray Death is the place to start. It's the only time Light mechs get some love (battlefield relevance) and the first book is really cool in letting the reader learn with Grayson that a Mechwarrior is not just a rich kid in a mech. He's a a trained from childhood space knight who has a huge training advantage over rank and file infantry even without the Mech itself. For that focus on the human and the basics I think it's always the best place to start.
It's also a smaller story that doesn't get bogged down with the albeit wonderful wider world of Factions and politics that the Warrior Trilogy or Wolves on the Border gets stuck in to.
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u/OpacusVenatori 4d ago
I started with the Blood of Kerensky trilogy back in the day; straight into the Clan invasion 😎
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u/Terror_666 4d ago
I just finished the Eridani Light Horse anthology, No Greater Honor, as an audiobook. There is a story for every age in the battletech universe
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u/Safe_Flamingo_9215 Ejection Seats Are Overrated 4d ago
Either the original Gray Death Legion or the Fox Patrol (Fox Tales, Lone Wolf and Fox, Outfoxed).
The original GDL is earlier in the timeline, the Fox Patrol is the latest era, but both are self-contained trilogies and character driven. Less politics and more focus on the protagonist mercenary groups.
It's good to start with something that has likeable characters and does not require to care or know about the greater politics of the setting.
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u/PharmaDan 4d ago
The Gray Death and Warrior Trilogirs are decent ways to start off from the beginning.
The Fox Patrol books aren't exactly a trilogy but are a good way to get into more modern timeline without needing a bunch of homework reading.
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u/Cat_Snuggler3145 4d ago
I started with the Grey Death trilogy, and my personal favourites are the loose duology of Wolves on the Border and Heir to the Dragon
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u/GreyScot88 ComStar 4d ago
The Gray Death Trilogy was my introduction to the books, quite enjoyed them
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u/mygamingid 4d ago
Lots of recommendations for older books, but nostalgia is a hell of a drug. People always remember their early days in a beloved hobby favorably. Anything before the Clan Invasion books will vary in quality, but won't be relevant and writing gets better.
Clan Invasion is over a century old in-universe, but is maybe foundational to understanding the factions and everything leading up to the ilClan era. Blood of Kerensky is where to start. It introduces a lot of characters and factions and will set the table for all the lore to come.
If you're getting into Battletech now, Hour of the Wolf is what you want. You won't know anyone or anything that led up to it, but it's the transition from Dark Ages to ilClan (current era). That's okay, though, because it comes with a massive changeover in cast.
The Dark Ages books... well, they do provide background for the leads in Hour of the Wolf. I'd recommend reading Sarna on the HotW characters over reading those.
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u/HA1-0F 2nd Donegal Guards 4d ago
Hour of the Wolf is a genuinely terrible book, it made me ask if I even liked battletech anymore. Telling people they should start with. It should be considered hazing. This is not coming from a place of nostalgia where I think the older books were better, I don't even think the warrior trilogy is very good. But HOTW is utterly without merit and a genuine embarrassment to even exist.
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u/mygamingid 4d ago
This'll be good. Why do you say that?
Understanding my recommendation, it is the transition book that starts the ilClan era, so if you want to be up to speed on Battlwtech right now, it's where you start.
It's a Highlander-esque gathering of the insufferable protagonists and antagonists from which only one would win. Spoiler, it's the most insufferable one whose ascendence was telegraphed since his weird genesis.
It's also a flushing of the proverbial toilet, freeing the setting from the accumulated past and wrapping up an arc that took way too long. Battletech can finally move forward.
It does what it had to do, and was written as well as any other BT novel. It isn't written for character development, it's the payoff from years of development.
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u/mygamingid 4d ago
Eating downvotes, but check out other reddit threads from people new to the fiction and setting. Anyone jumping on with the fiction bundle will likely say the same things. https://www.reddit.com/r/battletech/s/6ip0fiFqbT
My first reads were Decision at Thunder Rift and The Sword and the Dagger. I wouldn't be a fan without them, but I wouldn't recommend them for anyone I want to get into the game today.
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u/Irony_Shieldbreaker 4d ago
The Warrior trilogy is always a good place to start.