Daughter of the Dragon

BattleTech Universe #79

by Ilsa J. Bick

Between The Republic of the Sphere and the Draconis Combine stands the military unit known as the Dragon's Fury. Claiming worlds in the name of the Combine without House Kurita's support and threatening the entire Inner Sphere, the Fury pursue their leader's agenda with fanatical devotion...

Katana Tormark bears the burden of disgrace. A traitor's actions against her father discredited her family. Now, to regain the respect the Tormark clan deserves, she openly challenges the Coordinator's policy of nonaggression with The Republic, hoping to push House Kurita into a conflict - a conflict the Coordinator apparently doesn't want.

Warlord Mitsura Sakamoto believes Katana is making House kurita look weak, and he is determined to turn the situation to his advantage. For he has his own designs on ruling the Combine, and he's not going to let the daughter of a dishonored samurai stand in his way...

Genres: Science Fiction, Fiction

304 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 2, 2005

About the author

Among other things, I was an English major in college and so I know that I'm supposed to write things like, "Ilsa J. Bick is ." Except I hate writing about myself in the third person like I'm not in the room. Helloooo, I'm right here . . . So let's just say that I'm a child psychiatrist (yeah, you read that right)as well as a film scholar, surgeon wannabe (meaning I did an internship in surgery and LOVED it and maybe shoulda stuck), former Air Force major—and an award-winning, best-selling author of short stories, e-books, and novels. Believe me, no one is more shocked about this than I . . . unless you talk to my mother.

Reviews

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the sixteenth book in the Mech Warrior Dark Age series. This series is a continuation of the Battletech series. The books in this series, like the books in the original Battletech series, are by various authors. This one is by Ilsa K. Bick. The Republic of the Sphere has known a long period of peace and prosperity. Then the interstellar communications network a.k.a. the HPG net is destroyed by terrorists and many planets in the Republic find themselves cut off from the rest of the galaxy with communications taking weeks or even months. Unrest leads to several factions on several planets trying to overthrow the local governments and seize power for themselves.
I was looking forward to reading this one because it was supposed to be about Katana Tormack. It is about her but it has so many other characters that the story is very fragmented. I don't mind when there are two or three main characters but this book has so many minor characters and their viewpoints of events that it made the book unenjoyable for me.
In this one Katana Tormack is taking back worlds from the Republic for the Combine against the Coordinator's policy of nonaggression against the Republic. Warlord Mitsura Sakamoto is also taking back worlds supposedly for the Combine but his ultimate goal is to take over the Combine and replace the Coordinator.
As I mentioned the story is told from many viewpoints and in the end is somewhat confusing. I hope that anyone who reads this book enjoys it more than I did. The series as a whole has been very good so far.

[Mike · Rating 1 out of 5]

Ugh. It should be noted that while I am finished with this novel, I did not finish it. It is terrible. It's like the author doesn't know her audience for this book as it feels terribly out of place. It is overly adult and overly sexual, unsexy sexual. It's like bad softcore erotic Battletech fanfiction at points. To quote a review elsewhere "Like the twisted Bounty Hunter who had a psycho-sexual obsession with his half-sister Katana Tormark and a penchant for murdering prostitutes."

I could probably finish it, but I found myself just skimming through pages for anything of interest or meaning, and to avoid parts that just made me cringe. Easily the worst BattleTech/Mechwarrior novel in the series so far.

[J Murdock · Rating 2 out of 5]

The wasted words

Could have been much better. The struggle of battle vs wardrobe..... More time spent on clothing and culture than actual story line.
It's unfortunate that every story involving The Combine centers around wasted words on the culture over and over. The waste of words and repetitive descript the clothing could be put to much better use, a strong story line thats not painful to read.

[Simon · Rating 1 out of 5]

What fresh hell is this? Certainly not Battletech/Mechwarrior. A disjointed mess of minor characters circling around one central title character. Fanfic tripe backed with psychopathic eroticism. Dialogue filled with American clichés and slang banter or pages of Japanese words padding out homo-erotic chapters. How this flaming garbage got past an editor I'll never know. Did they just not care at this point? Had this author ever read anything in Battletech from the past? If I wasn't trying to make it through this series I'd give this a hard pass and toss in the incinerator. What target audience was she trying to write for?

[Josh Murphy · Rating 1 out of 5]

"So You've Decided to Read Battletech: Dark Age" - Review 16

The writing style itself is quite good and a refreshing change of pace. But the material is very morbid. As someone who is easily disturbed, I had to duck out of this one early on. There's a lot of psycho-sexual murder going on here.

My one-star rating is a personal statement of, "I did not like it." Emphasis on the "I." It is not a judgment on the author's ability or the quality of the story for folks who can stomach the dark moments.

DarkAge Tier List
from favorite to least favorite

Scorpion Jar
Service For the Dead
A Silence in the Heavens
Flight of the Falcon
Sword of Sedition
Target of Opportunity
Blood of the Isle
Fortress of Lies
By Temptations and By War
A Call to Arms
Truth and Shadows
Ghost War
The Ruins of Power
Daughter of the Dragon

In a special list all its own for being the absolute worst:
Hunters of the Deep

Skipped:
Patriots Stand

[Nikki Ramey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Jumped around too much and left too many parts unfinished