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BattleTech Universe
Shrapnel: Fragments From The Inner Sphere
Shrapnel, those unexpected bits of hot metal that strike by chance. Soldiers in combat philosophize that when their time is up, that's it - there's no avoiding a bullet that "has your name on it."
But when Shrapnel arrives, it is addressed, "Occupant: To whom it may concern."
This collection of short stories are fragments, unexpected bits of life and death in the Inner Sphere. The sudden salty taste of blood. The acrid smell of scorched metal. A hot cup of coffee after a long night's battle.
Shrapnel is images and experiences frozen in the mind of the observer.
But when Shrapnel arrives, it is addressed, "Occupant: To whom it may concern."
This collection of short stories are fragments, unexpected bits of life and death in the Inner Sphere. The sudden salty taste of blood. The acrid smell of scorched metal. A hot cup of coffee after a long night's battle.
Shrapnel is images and experiences frozen in the mind of the observer.
- GenresScience FictionFiction
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1989
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
March 9, 2021
Probably more in the 3.5 range.
Full discloser, I'm usually not a very big fan of the short story approach. I really do tend to prefer novels, but in my quest to read everything BattleTech, I'll dive into the short stories. Having William H. Keith Jr. and Michael Stackpole throwing their hands in the wring is definitely a benefit, since I quite enjoyed their novels by the time I'm reading this. Their contributions really made a lot of this a pretty worthwhile read.
Shrapnel was, if I remember correctly, supposed to be a "magazine" of sorts covering stories of the Inner Sphere. And to a decent degree they achieved that feel, even including an interview with the infamous Natasha Kerensky. I actually wish they had included more of these things, because I really did like the way it added to the "magazine" feel. There are so many great characters, Morgan Kell, Grayson Carlyle etc. would have been really cool to read about and really added to that atmosphere. This volume was printed in the large sourcebook style, rather than the standard novel format, so it feels more like this belongs on my shelf of sourcebooks than with the lore. The major reason for the large format is because this book is loaded with all kinds of BattleTech art! Much of it is pretty good, but if you collected a lot of the BattleTech material from the 80's there wasn't much new art in here. A lot of it is taken from the House Books or technical readouts that many people probably already had. However, there was some art that clearly fit with the stories, not sure which came first, but I thought this was really wonderful. It's one of the few things I miss from that first Gray Death Legion trilogy, they stopped including sketch art in the future novels. I know, it's probably more expensive to print, but it was a really cool feature nonetheless.
First off William H. Keith rather dominates the story content for this installment, so if you were not a fan of his writing to begin with, then a lot of this content will be disappointing. However, I like Keith's books, so it was nice to see him expand on some areas. The three stories he contributed are like extra tales from his trilogy. Remember when Carlyle met up with Tracy Kent? Well, I always sort of felt like her character was never fleshed out very much and there was more to her story, and it seems Keith agrees. Here we get a whole story dedicated to her character development "Legion Team", which was pretty nice. "Dance of Vengeance" is kind of a side story involving the infamous Duke Ricol, which is a recurring character in Keith's tales. "Where Lies the Honor?" is this sort of random one off set on a Combine planet. It was only okay.
The other big names was Michael Stackpole with his story "Judas Blind" and this is a side story involving Patrick Kell. Given Patrick's fate in the novels maybe Stackpole figured he deserved at least one last adventure! I completely agree. Here Patrick is playing the role of spy as they try to infiltrate an area of a Combine planet. I thought this was, easily, one of the better short stories, it was also one of the longest, so there was a lot more time to flesh out a good tale. Surprisingly there was basically no 'Mech combat in this tale and instead it focused on more of a black-ops kind of feel infiltrating a Combine facility.
The other stories ranged from being pretty good to only okay. "Old MechWarriors Never..." by Ken St. Andre was a pretty good tale involving the game world Solaris VII, so people that liked that setting will most likely find that enjoyable. He did a great job crafting an interesting story with pretty solid characters under such a small page count.
"Black Cats Cross Your Path" by Tara Gallagher and James Lanigan was a pretty cool perspective of how the infantry deal with things. You would think a lot of this magazine would be 'Mech combat oriented, but they actually had a really good balance of stories in this. I don't think their story was super memorable, but it was a decent tale. It was more of a one off combat scenario than anything else, just that it was infantry oriented made it feel pretty different from much of the novels so far. They also took on the task of writing the interview with Natasha Kerensky and this is truly wonderful. I really liked reading this, so much so, that I wish they had included more of these!
"Think Like a Liao" by Susan Putney was a true high-light in this collection of stories. In this story we get some serious insight into Tormana Liao, Maximillian's son. Tormana was just loosely mentioned in Stackpole's Warrior Trilogy, so it was really interesting to see a tale strictly involving him and his adventures when it comes to dealing with his crazy father. I think only one point seemed kind of stupid when the villain explained the plans, a fairly tiring mechanic, but since the story was good overall I'll let it pass.
"And then there was the Time..." by Mark O'Green, is kind of a throw away tale. It's barely a page long and just a conversation. I guess it fits the setting... but since it doesn't really involve any major characters it feels an awful lot like filler. His other contribution "Painting the Town" was not just simple filler, it was actually a full on short story. This tells the tale of a Combine force on a desert planet that comes under fire of three Marauders. This is another infantry centric tale about their struggle to survive against near impossible odds and how they made it through. It was pretty good, I liked the characters and I'm glad he was able to redeem himself from senseless filler content.
"Dispatch" is another filler element involving Cranston Snord. It's just an intercepted transmission log. This filler content is much better, because it really fits that magazine aesthetic, even though it doesn't really tell much of anything interesting in the grand scheme of things.
Bear Peters gives us two stories "The Race is Not to the Swift" and "Final Exam". "Final Exam" is sort of senseless filler, at least it involves a major personality in the lore Anton Marik. It's just a quick excerpt of him doing something in a military academy for a simulated exam. It was okay. Unfortunately, "The Race is Not to the Swift" was also just okay. I feel like the BattleTech creators have basically forgotten about the existence of the Free World's League and suddenly remember that a fifth great house exists. So, they rush to throw together something involving the worlds of Marik in the end. Bear Peters story is primarily just 'Mech combat the whole time. The characters are bad, but there's no drama and there's no insight into the Marik worlds or what it's like there. The closest we've ever gotten is from Keith with The Price of Glory, but then Ricol shows up again and then it starts feeling like it's about the Combine all over again! So, I applaud Bear Peters for trying to include the worlds of Marik... but it would have been nice to have something beyond general 'Mech combat.
So, sadly this was the last issue of Shrapnel to be made, even though I think they planned on making more. In 2019 they resurrected the concept and have been releasing a quarterly version of short stories, but they're not in the large source book format like this and they don't have art aplenty like this either. It's nice to see them revisit this idea.
Full discloser, I'm usually not a very big fan of the short story approach. I really do tend to prefer novels, but in my quest to read everything BattleTech, I'll dive into the short stories. Having William H. Keith Jr. and Michael Stackpole throwing their hands in the wring is definitely a benefit, since I quite enjoyed their novels by the time I'm reading this. Their contributions really made a lot of this a pretty worthwhile read.
Shrapnel was, if I remember correctly, supposed to be a "magazine" of sorts covering stories of the Inner Sphere. And to a decent degree they achieved that feel, even including an interview with the infamous Natasha Kerensky. I actually wish they had included more of these things, because I really did like the way it added to the "magazine" feel. There are so many great characters, Morgan Kell, Grayson Carlyle etc. would have been really cool to read about and really added to that atmosphere. This volume was printed in the large sourcebook style, rather than the standard novel format, so it feels more like this belongs on my shelf of sourcebooks than with the lore. The major reason for the large format is because this book is loaded with all kinds of BattleTech art! Much of it is pretty good, but if you collected a lot of the BattleTech material from the 80's there wasn't much new art in here. A lot of it is taken from the House Books or technical readouts that many people probably already had. However, there was some art that clearly fit with the stories, not sure which came first, but I thought this was really wonderful. It's one of the few things I miss from that first Gray Death Legion trilogy, they stopped including sketch art in the future novels. I know, it's probably more expensive to print, but it was a really cool feature nonetheless.
First off William H. Keith rather dominates the story content for this installment, so if you were not a fan of his writing to begin with, then a lot of this content will be disappointing. However, I like Keith's books, so it was nice to see him expand on some areas. The three stories he contributed are like extra tales from his trilogy. Remember when Carlyle met up with Tracy Kent? Well, I always sort of felt like her character was never fleshed out very much and there was more to her story, and it seems Keith agrees. Here we get a whole story dedicated to her character development "Legion Team", which was pretty nice. "Dance of Vengeance" is kind of a side story involving the infamous Duke Ricol, which is a recurring character in Keith's tales. "Where Lies the Honor?" is this sort of random one off set on a Combine planet. It was only okay.
The other big names was Michael Stackpole with his story "Judas Blind" and this is a side story involving Patrick Kell. Given Patrick's fate in the novels maybe Stackpole figured he deserved at least one last adventure! I completely agree. Here Patrick is playing the role of spy as they try to infiltrate an area of a Combine planet. I thought this was, easily, one of the better short stories, it was also one of the longest, so there was a lot more time to flesh out a good tale. Surprisingly there was basically no 'Mech combat in this tale and instead it focused on more of a black-ops kind of feel infiltrating a Combine facility.
The other stories ranged from being pretty good to only okay. "Old MechWarriors Never..." by Ken St. Andre was a pretty good tale involving the game world Solaris VII, so people that liked that setting will most likely find that enjoyable. He did a great job crafting an interesting story with pretty solid characters under such a small page count.
"Black Cats Cross Your Path" by Tara Gallagher and James Lanigan was a pretty cool perspective of how the infantry deal with things. You would think a lot of this magazine would be 'Mech combat oriented, but they actually had a really good balance of stories in this. I don't think their story was super memorable, but it was a decent tale. It was more of a one off combat scenario than anything else, just that it was infantry oriented made it feel pretty different from much of the novels so far. They also took on the task of writing the interview with Natasha Kerensky and this is truly wonderful. I really liked reading this, so much so, that I wish they had included more of these!
"Think Like a Liao" by Susan Putney was a true high-light in this collection of stories. In this story we get some serious insight into Tormana Liao, Maximillian's son. Tormana was just loosely mentioned in Stackpole's Warrior Trilogy, so it was really interesting to see a tale strictly involving him and his adventures when it comes to dealing with his crazy father. I think only one point seemed kind of stupid when the villain explained the plans, a fairly tiring mechanic, but since the story was good overall I'll let it pass.
"And then there was the Time..." by Mark O'Green, is kind of a throw away tale. It's barely a page long and just a conversation. I guess it fits the setting... but since it doesn't really involve any major characters it feels an awful lot like filler. His other contribution "Painting the Town" was not just simple filler, it was actually a full on short story. This tells the tale of a Combine force on a desert planet that comes under fire of three Marauders. This is another infantry centric tale about their struggle to survive against near impossible odds and how they made it through. It was pretty good, I liked the characters and I'm glad he was able to redeem himself from senseless filler content.
"Dispatch" is another filler element involving Cranston Snord. It's just an intercepted transmission log. This filler content is much better, because it really fits that magazine aesthetic, even though it doesn't really tell much of anything interesting in the grand scheme of things.
Bear Peters gives us two stories "The Race is Not to the Swift" and "Final Exam". "Final Exam" is sort of senseless filler, at least it involves a major personality in the lore Anton Marik. It's just a quick excerpt of him doing something in a military academy for a simulated exam. It was okay. Unfortunately, "The Race is Not to the Swift" was also just okay. I feel like the BattleTech creators have basically forgotten about the existence of the Free World's League and suddenly remember that a fifth great house exists. So, they rush to throw together something involving the worlds of Marik in the end. Bear Peters story is primarily just 'Mech combat the whole time. The characters are bad, but there's no drama and there's no insight into the Marik worlds or what it's like there. The closest we've ever gotten is from Keith with The Price of Glory, but then Ricol shows up again and then it starts feeling like it's about the Combine all over again! So, I applaud Bear Peters for trying to include the worlds of Marik... but it would have been nice to have something beyond general 'Mech combat.
So, sadly this was the last issue of Shrapnel to be made, even though I think they planned on making more. In 2019 they resurrected the concept and have been releasing a quarterly version of short stories, but they're not in the large source book format like this and they don't have art aplenty like this either. It's nice to see them revisit this idea.
September 7, 2019
As a collection of odds and ends stories set in the Battletech universe, these were pretty good. A couple of the stories stood out while only about 2 fell flat. My problem, however, was the terrible editing. Perhaps it was just my copy but there were loads of grammatical and spelling errors and funky issues with sentence structure. If you are a hard core Battletech fan, check this one out, otherwise move along, nothing to see here.
March 9, 2021
I always listed this in my mind as a source book, but realistically it is a collection of short stories, some of the short stories were interesting to read, others not so much. I believe there are other Shrapnel collections of short stories out now, this particular one is the oversized source book numbered FASA 8611.
November 13, 2022
I'll never actually finish this. The editing is terrible, and you spend huge amounts of time trying to figure out what the sentence was actually supposed to be. I gave up halfway through and have moved on to a different Battletech book.
I'll give them one more try before I bail on learning about the universe.
I'll give them one more try before I bail on learning about the universe.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews