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BattleTech: Kell Hounds Ascendant: A BattleTech Collection
567 pages, Paperback
Published December 1, 2023
4 people want to read
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January 12, 2025
Morgan and Patrick Kell are putting together their own mercenary company. The perfect place to start is on Galatea, a world devoted to mechwarrior mercenaries. It's pretty much a one-stop shop to find mechwarriors, techs, infantry, and support personnel. What they don't count on is finding a corrupt government, a thriving underworld, and religious zealots. Even the Archon's influence may not be enough to help them through this mess!
Kell Hounds Ascendant is essentially four connected novellas that string together well to form a novel. Each story progresses the Kells through their early days founding the Kell Hounds. It's a nice introduction to the world of merenaries in the Battletech universe, but also provides some early insights into House Steiner and the Lyran Commonwealth. It serves as a nice prequel to the Warrior trilogy and sets the characters up for their future appearances.
The Kell brothers get the lion's share of attention, of course, but Veronica Matova has a nice turn in this book as well. In fact, she may have the most development of any character in the book. She's spotlighted nicely in the last story, but her background and history is spread throughout all four. Stackpole clearly has an interest in her and illustrates that as she aids Morgan several times throughout the book as well as beginning a relationship with him that's more than business. She's definitely a character that will catch reader's attention.
For the action fans, there's a good amount of that as well, but not as much as I expected. Each story has a set piece battle - ranging from an arena fight to a full-on 'mech engagement, but this book focuses more on the people than the machines. And that's not a bad thing at all! i just caution you that there is not tactical discussion or engagement on every page here.
i had a lot of fun reading this book. It's a great introduction to a lot of things in Battletech and kept me engaged through each story and pulled me into the next. I kind of hope Stackpole continues these early days of the Kells through future novellas.
Kell Hounds Ascendant is essentially four connected novellas that string together well to form a novel. Each story progresses the Kells through their early days founding the Kell Hounds. It's a nice introduction to the world of merenaries in the Battletech universe, but also provides some early insights into House Steiner and the Lyran Commonwealth. It serves as a nice prequel to the Warrior trilogy and sets the characters up for their future appearances.
The Kell brothers get the lion's share of attention, of course, but Veronica Matova has a nice turn in this book as well. In fact, she may have the most development of any character in the book. She's spotlighted nicely in the last story, but her background and history is spread throughout all four. Stackpole clearly has an interest in her and illustrates that as she aids Morgan several times throughout the book as well as beginning a relationship with him that's more than business. She's definitely a character that will catch reader's attention.
For the action fans, there's a good amount of that as well, but not as much as I expected. Each story has a set piece battle - ranging from an arena fight to a full-on 'mech engagement, but this book focuses more on the people than the machines. And that's not a bad thing at all! i just caution you that there is not tactical discussion or engagement on every page here.
i had a lot of fun reading this book. It's a great introduction to a lot of things in Battletech and kept me engaged through each story and pulled me into the next. I kind of hope Stackpole continues these early days of the Kells through future novellas.
Displaying 1 of 1 review