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The Books of the Raksura #Birthright
Mech: Age of Steel
MECH: Age of Steel is a collection of 24 mecha-inspired short stories in the spirit of Pacific Rim, Macross, Transformers, Robotech, Gundam, Evangelion, and more. MECH features a vast array of tales featuring giant, human-piloted, robot war machines wreaking havoc in blasted cities, or on dystopian landscapes, or around space stations and asteroids against a cosmic backdrop, or wherever, you-name-it! MECH is anchored by authors such as Kevin J. Anderson, Ramez Naam, Jason Hough, Jeremy Robinson, and Jody Lynn Nye. This anthology features illustrations for every story and is the perfect companion to its sister title, Kaiju Rising: Age of Monsters.
658 pages, Paperback
First published June 20, 2017
22 people are currently reading
279 people want to read
About the author
Tim Marquitz
105 books214 followersTim Marquitz is the author of the Demon Squad series, The Enemy of My Enemy series (Kurtherian Gambit) along with Michael Anderle, the Blood War Trilogy, co-author of the Dead West series, as well as several standalone books, and numerous anthology appearances alongside the biggest names in fantasy and horror. Tim also collaborated on Memoirs of a MACHINE, the story of MMA pioneer John Machine Lober.
"Horror becomes art when it flows from the pen of Tim Marquitz." ~ Bobby D. Whitney - BookWenches
"Witty, sarcastic and hilarious." Michelle - Publishers Weekly
"Horror becomes art when it flows from the pen of Tim Marquitz." ~ Bobby D. Whitney - BookWenches
"Witty, sarcastic and hilarious." Michelle - Publishers Weekly
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 31, 2018
This is a collection about stories of GIANT ROBOTS.
It is EXACTLY what it says on the tin, so first of all, if that concept doesn't appeal to you, then you probably aren't going to like this book. So I'm assuming if you're reading any further you like giant robots.
There are dozens of stories here in the genre. The collection DOES have some really riveting gems - look for the pizza delivery mecha - but unfortunately it has more whiffs than whams. There's a fair number of bland gruff white guys doing bland gruff military white guy things, a pleasing number of kaiju that need some punchin, and a lot lot lot of stories that build up to UNLIKELY HERO GETS INTO MECHA AND PUNCHES SURPRISE DANGER.
Look, I *am* the target audience for exactly that - I literally am querying a giant robot novel. But that being said, that doesn't lend itself well to a short story format, and too many stories are trying to do too much of the same thing. They aren't BAD stories, they just don't land quite as well as the authors would like because a lot of them are trying to resonate in the same place.
There are two other nuisances that dig bother me. One - a minor quibble - is that several of the stories felt more like prologues to novels instead of complete stories. That bothered. Second, a major quibble, is that two or three times I got two pages into a story and then
"This story was a Kickstarter Reward. To finish it, go to this website here _______ ".
....
I was not amused, and no, I never did bother going to hunt down those stories to read them.
Still, I want to be clear, these stories didn't quite resonate the best in places, but they DID have an interesting variety of stories involving mecha. You have Roman legions fighting alongside Archimedian contraptions against druidic monsters; Native American stone golems fighting oil refineries, Odin-esque mythical mecha fighting against frost giants, people stopping Nazi's from getting mecha, super robots, and yes, a pizza delivery woman who flies a mecha.
So if seeing a short story collection about mecha makes you salivate because you're secretly (or not so secretly) 12, by all means pick this up, just temper your expectations.
It is EXACTLY what it says on the tin, so first of all, if that concept doesn't appeal to you, then you probably aren't going to like this book. So I'm assuming if you're reading any further you like giant robots.
There are dozens of stories here in the genre. The collection DOES have some really riveting gems - look for the pizza delivery mecha - but unfortunately it has more whiffs than whams. There's a fair number of bland gruff white guys doing bland gruff military white guy things, a pleasing number of kaiju that need some punchin, and a lot lot lot of stories that build up to UNLIKELY HERO GETS INTO MECHA AND PUNCHES SURPRISE DANGER.
Look, I *am* the target audience for exactly that - I literally am querying a giant robot novel. But that being said, that doesn't lend itself well to a short story format, and too many stories are trying to do too much of the same thing. They aren't BAD stories, they just don't land quite as well as the authors would like because a lot of them are trying to resonate in the same place.
There are two other nuisances that dig bother me. One - a minor quibble - is that several of the stories felt more like prologues to novels instead of complete stories. That bothered. Second, a major quibble, is that two or three times I got two pages into a story and then
"This story was a Kickstarter Reward. To finish it, go to this website here _______ ".
....
I was not amused, and no, I never did bother going to hunt down those stories to read them.
Still, I want to be clear, these stories didn't quite resonate the best in places, but they DID have an interesting variety of stories involving mecha. You have Roman legions fighting alongside Archimedian contraptions against druidic monsters; Native American stone golems fighting oil refineries, Odin-esque mythical mecha fighting against frost giants, people stopping Nazi's from getting mecha, super robots, and yes, a pizza delivery woman who flies a mecha.
So if seeing a short story collection about mecha makes you salivate because you're secretly (or not so secretly) 12, by all means pick this up, just temper your expectations.
January 14, 2018
Still working my way though the second half of it, but I've got the gist of what this collection offers.
I was wondering, in my own writing, how to translate the visual language of Super Fightin' Robots into prose. MECH shows you that there's no one way to go about it, and there's not really a clean way, either. The more memorable stories use supernatural or down-to-earth storytelling ('The Cold and The Dark' and 'The Tempered Steel of Antiquity Gray' are my favorites for this reason), while the ones that blur together take the more hard sci-fi, mechas-as-inanimate-weaponry route. Similarly, a few stories have the same structure of Set Up Conflict, Introduce Mecha, Final Battle, and the few to venture away from this are the most entertaining. That said, the ones that venture away from that structure seem like they could be novellas, and as short stories, they feel a bit rushed.
I'm a little bummed that the stories are sticking to pilot-inside-the-armor style robots. Those are the most iconic, for sure, but it would be nice to see some pilot-outside, robot-semi-sentient ones, or even a straight-up Ultraman homage thrown in the mix.
I was wondering, in my own writing, how to translate the visual language of Super Fightin' Robots into prose. MECH shows you that there's no one way to go about it, and there's not really a clean way, either. The more memorable stories use supernatural or down-to-earth storytelling ('The Cold and The Dark' and 'The Tempered Steel of Antiquity Gray' are my favorites for this reason), while the ones that blur together take the more hard sci-fi, mechas-as-inanimate-weaponry route. Similarly, a few stories have the same structure of Set Up Conflict, Introduce Mecha, Final Battle, and the few to venture away from this are the most entertaining. That said, the ones that venture away from that structure seem like they could be novellas, and as short stories, they feel a bit rushed.
I'm a little bummed that the stories are sticking to pilot-inside-the-armor style robots. Those are the most iconic, for sure, but it would be nice to see some pilot-outside, robot-semi-sentient ones, or even a straight-up Ultraman homage thrown in the mix.
August 31, 2017
Turns out.. i like the occasional Mech story.. not a whole book of them. The continuous war theme really dragged on me.
March 20, 2019
The description reads "in the spirit of Pacific Rim, Macross, Transformers, Robotech, Gundam, Evangelion, and more", but to be honest, there are ZERO stories inspired by Macross (aka Robotech), Gundam or Transformers. This is book was inspired by solely Pacific Rim and possibly Evangelion. For potential readers not familiar with the mecha genre, or those only familiar with Pacific Rim, this means this collection is packed with stories about giant robots versus monsters (aka kaiju) -- which is a fine if that's what you like. Unfortunately, that's not the whole genre, only a subset. Nor is it really all that appealing to the fans like myself who are enamored with the space opera aspect ala Macross, Gundam, L-Gaim, Dougram, Votoms, et al.
I wanted this book to be so much more. I backed it on Kickstarter and waited for it for the longest time (and then I had problems loading my preferred version into my phone, and it took months of working with the publisher to get it to work). And it is a flat disappointment. I couldn't get through more than 30% of this book. I'm going to jump to the back and read Martha Wells (who always spins a great yarn), but I'm not hopeful as it seems even Kevin J. Anderson phoned in his story. That said, no matter how good it is, it will NOT be able to save this collection...
It. Stinks.
I wanted this book to be so much more. I backed it on Kickstarter and waited for it for the longest time (and then I had problems loading my preferred version into my phone, and it took months of working with the publisher to get it to work). And it is a flat disappointment. I couldn't get through more than 30% of this book. I'm going to jump to the back and read Martha Wells (who always spins a great yarn), but I'm not hopeful as it seems even Kevin J. Anderson phoned in his story. That said, no matter how good it is, it will NOT be able to save this collection...
It. Stinks.
December 11, 2017
When I was a kid, we had a game called “Rock ’em Sock ’em Robots”. There was a red robot and a blue robot in a boxing ring, you controlled the arms with a couple of yellow buttons. The object was to knock your opponents block off. Why am I telling you this? Well flash forward around forty or so years, and my block was knocked off by Mechs: Age of Steel!
If you are a fan of the following franchises: PACIFIC RIM, ROBOTECH, GUNDAM, EVAGELION, BATTLETECH, or if you fell in love with the AT-ST in Star Wars, then this anthology is for you! Among the contributing authors are: Matt Forbeck, Peter Clines, James Swallow, Kevin J. Anderson & David Boop, Anton Strout, Jason M. Hough & Ramez Naam, Martha Wells, and Jeremy Robinson just to name a few, and the stories are as tall as the robots they represent!
For the most part, each story is excellent, but that also depends on your taste. This collection also falls into one of Ninetoes Reading Rules: You will find a new author to enjoy in an anthology. That’s what I love about this book, among the heavy hitting names, there are also unknown authors you will come to appreciate. This is definitely an anthology worth investing in.
All in all I give this 5 bookmarks out of 5!
If you are a fan of the following franchises: PACIFIC RIM, ROBOTECH, GUNDAM, EVAGELION, BATTLETECH, or if you fell in love with the AT-ST in Star Wars, then this anthology is for you! Among the contributing authors are: Matt Forbeck, Peter Clines, James Swallow, Kevin J. Anderson & David Boop, Anton Strout, Jason M. Hough & Ramez Naam, Martha Wells, and Jeremy Robinson just to name a few, and the stories are as tall as the robots they represent!
For the most part, each story is excellent, but that also depends on your taste. This collection also falls into one of Ninetoes Reading Rules: You will find a new author to enjoy in an anthology. That’s what I love about this book, among the heavy hitting names, there are also unknown authors you will come to appreciate. This is definitely an anthology worth investing in.
All in all I give this 5 bookmarks out of 5!
November 21, 2023
A decent collection of short stories all revolving around hulking Mechs. Most of the stories are pretty good, but there are definitely some contenders that make picking up this anthology worth it. My favourites are:
Integration by Steve Diamond
Lady and The Wolf by Scott Sigler
The Bonus Situation by Jeff Somers
But a good chunk of the stories are just 'alright'. There's only one story that I genuinely disliked, so for a short story anthology that's a pretty good track record!
I seriously hated the whole baiting people into visiting the website of the publisher though; only sharing short snippets of a story and then going 'want more?' It pulled me out of the fiction immediately. I know it's to drive up web traffic, but at least leave that for the end of the collection instead of in the middle of it.
Overall, if you like gigantic man-made automatons being piloted by humanity's finest, it's worth picking up! But if you're not into the Mecha genre and seeing it being stretched to the creative limit, then there's always better stuff out there.
Integration by Steve Diamond
Lady and The Wolf by Scott Sigler
The Bonus Situation by Jeff Somers
But a good chunk of the stories are just 'alright'. There's only one story that I genuinely disliked, so for a short story anthology that's a pretty good track record!
I seriously hated the whole baiting people into visiting the website of the publisher though; only sharing short snippets of a story and then going 'want more?' It pulled me out of the fiction immediately. I know it's to drive up web traffic, but at least leave that for the end of the collection instead of in the middle of it.
Overall, if you like gigantic man-made automatons being piloted by humanity's finest, it's worth picking up! But if you're not into the Mecha genre and seeing it being stretched to the creative limit, then there's always better stuff out there.
April 28, 2018
Great stories. I am baffled by the random short previews in the middle. Either include the whole story or don't. Or if you insist on putting previews in, put them at the back. Other than that, worth reading.
November 20, 2018
Quite the interesting takes on stories in one of my favorite sci-fi subgenres. Great way to find more works I would enjoy by looking for new authors!
June 24, 2022
I am giving this a one star review as a product because it is a bad product. Some of the stories are behind a paywall, ie the book gives you the first few pages and then gives you a link to the rest of the stories. I backed this thing on Kickstarter, I should have access to the stuff behind the paywall already, but the links don't work anymore.
As for the stories themselves, I'd give it three stars for them. It's a fairly standard anthology in that some are very good, most are fine, and a few are bad. I loved "Toy Soldier" by James Swallow (what if Gundam but some of the adults are actually responsible and are justly horrified that children are piloting war machines), "Lady and the Wolf" by Scott Sigler (what if mechs get PTSD just like pilots do), and "Birthright" by Martha Wells (set in her Three Worlds universe, featuring the crew of the Escarpment). Some of the others will stick with me even if they didn't make my top three.
Others are the very epitome of the "wow, cool robot" meme, and therefore very disappointing.
As for the stories themselves, I'd give it three stars for them. It's a fairly standard anthology in that some are very good, most are fine, and a few are bad. I loved "Toy Soldier" by James Swallow (what if Gundam but some of the adults are actually responsible and are justly horrified that children are piloting war machines), "Lady and the Wolf" by Scott Sigler (what if mechs get PTSD just like pilots do), and "Birthright" by Martha Wells (set in her Three Worlds universe, featuring the crew of the Escarpment). Some of the others will stick with me even if they didn't make my top three.
Others are the very epitome of the "wow, cool robot" meme, and therefore very disappointing.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews