What do you think?
Rate this book
BattleTech Universe #56
Patriots and Tyrants (Battletech) by Loren L. Coleman
Fierce rivalry within the Star League threatens to plunge the entire Inner Sphere into chaos as Victor Steiner-Davion and his sister, Katrina, embark on an epic power struggle, and their younger brother, Arthur, begins to gain his own supporters.
Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2001
About the author
Loren L. Coleman
110 books39 followersLoren L. Coleman (born 1968) is a science-fiction writer, born and grew up in Longview, Washington.
He is known for having written many books for series such as Star Trek, Battletech/Mechwarrior, Age of Conan, Crimson Skies, Magic: The Gathering and others. Former member of the United States Navy, he has also written game fiction and source material for such companies as FASA Corporation, TSR, Inc. and Wizards of the Coast.
In early 2010s, he began writing The ICAS Files series, science fiction short-stories. [wikipedia]
He is known for having written many books for series such as Star Trek, Battletech/Mechwarrior, Age of Conan, Crimson Skies, Magic: The Gathering and others. Former member of the United States Navy, he has also written game fiction and source material for such companies as FASA Corporation, TSR, Inc. and Wizards of the Coast.
In early 2010s, he began writing The ICAS Files series, science fiction short-stories. [wikipedia]
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
February 7, 2016
As the Classic Battletech series heads to a conclusion, civil war is finally declared between Victor Davion's Federated Suns and Katherine's Lyran Alliance.
Lots of action in this book as it follows events leading up to the war and the first year of fighting.
Lots of action in this book as it follows events leading up to the war and the first year of fighting.
September 13, 2026
A solid political thriller.
My second Battletech book, but my first actual novel. I decided to skip some of the first classic novels due to the... prose, and I was hoping to find something of a more manageable quality with the later works, and well, Loren L. Coleman was a pretty decent choice. Patriots and Tyrants feels like a more mature attempt at creating the stage for a brutal war to come. Rather than focusing on mech porn and overly militaristic detail vivisection, Coleman does a pretty damn good job at actually making a believable political plot with high stakes and dynamic characters that act and react accordingly to the different new situations and challenges they are faced with.
The two main protagonists are enjoyable to read about. Their friendship and dialogues are entertaining and are interesting clashes of ideologies as different ideas and goals are thrown around. On the other hand, the rest of the cast is a little less memorable, and I couldn't really remember all of them since there's a considerable bunch, but Victor, Tancred and Adam are all solid, with grounded goals and just a smidge of personality to make them distinguishable enough, although, they do mix a bit at times.
As for some bad aspects of the novel: it does feel a little self-indulgent, particularly with some prose moments that are just unnecessary. One scene a character is walking, but instead of just saying "walking" the author says "shifted his weight one leg at a time", which was odd and kind of funny. There's several small instances like that that could've been better with a good editing cut, but the prose itself was favorable, and I was happy to not see exclamation marks being abused.
Overall, I enjoyed the political intrigue, the interesting dialogues as different ideologies come into play, and how it slowly unravels to reveal a massive scale conflict. While there's some rough edges, this was better than I expected and I'll continue reading the series.
My second Battletech book, but my first actual novel. I decided to skip some of the first classic novels due to the... prose, and I was hoping to find something of a more manageable quality with the later works, and well, Loren L. Coleman was a pretty decent choice. Patriots and Tyrants feels like a more mature attempt at creating the stage for a brutal war to come. Rather than focusing on mech porn and overly militaristic detail vivisection, Coleman does a pretty damn good job at actually making a believable political plot with high stakes and dynamic characters that act and react accordingly to the different new situations and challenges they are faced with.
The two main protagonists are enjoyable to read about. Their friendship and dialogues are entertaining and are interesting clashes of ideologies as different ideas and goals are thrown around. On the other hand, the rest of the cast is a little less memorable, and I couldn't really remember all of them since there's a considerable bunch, but Victor, Tancred and Adam are all solid, with grounded goals and just a smidge of personality to make them distinguishable enough, although, they do mix a bit at times.
As for some bad aspects of the novel: it does feel a little self-indulgent, particularly with some prose moments that are just unnecessary. One scene a character is walking, but instead of just saying "walking" the author says "shifted his weight one leg at a time", which was odd and kind of funny. There's several small instances like that that could've been better with a good editing cut, but the prose itself was favorable, and I was happy to not see exclamation marks being abused.
Overall, I enjoyed the political intrigue, the interesting dialogues as different ideologies come into play, and how it slowly unravels to reveal a massive scale conflict. While there's some rough edges, this was better than I expected and I'll continue reading the series.
July 10, 2020
This book covers some of the biggest events in the FedCom Civil War - the death of Arthur Steiner-Davion, Victor Steiner-Davion's call to arms against his sister and a few other points. In terms of this larger meta-plot, the books does a decent job for most except for Katrina Steiner-Davion, who seems to be getting crazier and crazier given her irrational actions.
But as a story with some sort of a narrative structure, a larger part of the book just feels like a series of battles that happen with little character progression between them. Yes, these are important to depicting the early part of the civil war as Victor begins to gather forces to his cause. But you don't really feel any consequences as we jump from battle to battle. There are some great combat sequences, don't get me wrong. But one can't help but wonder if there should have been more to it to help the characters move forward.
But as a story with some sort of a narrative structure, a larger part of the book just feels like a series of battles that happen with little character progression between them. Yes, these are important to depicting the early part of the civil war as Victor begins to gather forces to his cause. But you don't really feel any consequences as we jump from battle to battle. There are some great combat sequences, don't get me wrong. But one can't help but wonder if there should have been more to it to help the characters move forward.
October 20, 2021
I am trying to finish the Battletech novels. This one was okay. It jumped around too much though without any explanations of the missing gaps.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 10, 2026
Nice to get back to the core story with all its intrigue and subversive action.
November 7, 2011
The main storyline rereaches the epicness it's known for - when the FedCom civil war finally begins. It was about time something Important happened again! 8)
February 20, 2020
I liked it but I was told that the I liked it, showed more about Katrina and Victor.
April 9, 2008
Fun, but fun fluff!
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews