Part 743: Let's Read Ghost War - Part 2
Let’s Read Mechwarrior Dark AgeA Brand New Era, A Brand New Saga!
GHOST WAR
a BattleTech novel
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING AUTHOR
MICHAEL A. STACKPOLE
Part 2
Chapter 2
Ghost War posted:
When you cannot clothe yourself in a lion’s skin, put on that of the fox
—Spanish Proverb
(I’m going to be using this emote a lot)The main character wakes up the next morning and takes a shit, because this book is classy. The lumber company’s been given an extension and the main character makes beating up environmentalists from the Space Sierra Club OK by pointing out that they’re protecting an invasive species. We then learn that the main character is a `Mech jock, piloting one of the most dangerous machines in ClickyTech: the ForestryMech.
He waxes poetic about how any `Mech that came looking for a fight would come away from his ForestryMech looking like it’d been in a fight (when really they’d just potshot it from 500 meters until the fuel tank exploded). He then finally reveals that the GGF is spiking trees in an effort to murder lumberjacks (but it’s not like iron spikes will stop an AgroMech so the only people in danger are the guys de-limbing the trees). He’s also put his coworker in the hospital (the one he kicked in the balls) and somehow isn’t fired for it. His boss makes fun of the other guy so I guess it pays to be less hated than your coworkers.
Oh, and it turns out the company Sam is working for is totally awesome and green using every splinter of wood and replanting immediately after chopping stuff down. Good for them, gotta establish that moral high ground just in time to chop up some environmentalists with a giant robot chainsaw. He chops down a few acres of forest while joking about donuts and then some idiot attacks him with a satchel charge. Stackpole then takes a dig at the “Old Gray Death Legion Adventures.”
He threatens the bomber with his giant robot chainsaw and then the cops show up. Sam immediately starts making fun of them (for being fat useless pigs, go figure). Then the cops get attacked by ecoterrorists in hovertrucks with heavy machineguns who are just there all of a sudden. Of course the first cop to die is a woman (so that you will hate the ecoterrorists who, again, have a lot of heavy and polluting heavy equipment). Ecoterrorists bomb the cops so OUR HERO ™ drops a tree on them since, for some reason, a 30 meter tree is faster than just walking over or shooting them with the ForestryMech’s “Pruning Laser.”
Chapter 3
Ghost War posted:
Don’t make yourself a mouse, or the cat will eat you.
—Federated Suns Proverb
So the lead cop lives and is pissed at Sam for dropping a tree on him (understandable). This is played up as the officer being completely unreasonable (even though Sam dropped a fucking tree on him). Sam’s in trouble so he immediately starts burning bridges with his coworkers and then has a PTSD flashback which might’ve been sympathetic if it weren’t for the fact that I know it’ll never come up again and was simply used to deliver a line akin to: when guns and people fight, guns win. Except Stackpole, so wordier.
Ghost War posted:
But when an antivehicle weapon is used on a human, the human usually comes out worse for the experience.
The cops bring Sam to their HQ for interrogation because he’s a filthy terrorist. We finally find out that Sam’s full name is Sam Donelly and in order to make him seem incompetent the chief of the local space police drops a hamfisted “if that’s your real name” (it isn’t, but that’s beside the point). Sam immediately starts antagonizing the Space Police Chief because that’s always a good thing to do (if you’re
And when I say ‘antagonizes’ I mean he pretty much leads into the conversation by calling Superchief incompetent. Our hero.
Anyway, the Knight of the Sphere (whom I will henceforth refer to as ‘Douchebags’ to avoid confusing them with Thomas Marik’s Knights of the Inner Sphere) enters and Sam pretends he doesn’t know who she is. Being a classy novel that has to describe every female character’s physique in detail, the book then proceeds to describe her in excruciating detail. I mean it goes on for the better part of two paragraphs which, while description is nice, so far every man who’s been described has gotten a line or two description culminating in “and they’re fat.”
The Douchebag joins in on Superchief’s interrogation, and has “clearly” bought the cop’s story hook line and sinker (which is what we’re supposed to believe since this book’s narrator is completely unreliable (while simultaneously being Always Correct)). They can’t hold him in Space Jail but Superchief gets Sam fired, so he’s no longer a Space Lumberjack.
Cue Sam joining the GGF in the next chapter or two, because every secondary and tertiary character in this novel is going to be a drooling cretin.
Oh, and because I haven’t really quoted anything significant, here:
Ghost War posted:
She walked past me on the left and casually dropped a bottle of cold water into my lap. I’d not expected that and had to scramble to catch it before it hit the floor. I did, then pressed it to the back of my neck as I looked up at her. It was a long way to look, but well worth the effort.
You’ve already gotten she was tall, and you can add slender to that. Great shoulders, too, tapering down into a narrow waist, a gentle flare of hips and seriously long legs that weren’t hurt by her wearing knee-high riding boots. She wore them much better than Reis. The rest of her outfit, from black leather skirt to dark blue blouse and black blazer, looked sharp enough to distance her light-years from the reality that was Helen [the planet Sam’s on].
She had a creamy complexion, which combined with her straight black hair and emerald eyes to make one believe in the supernatural. She moved easily, almost casually, but I could read purpose in her steps. The way she’d dropped the bottle had been simple, but I knew it was a test.
I smiled. “I wanted water. How’d you know?”
She smiled and parts of me started to melt. “I know your type, Mr. Donelly.”