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BattleTech Universe #40
Freebirth
Dispatch Horse to the planet Huntress! The orders to investigate the secret experiment being done by the Falcons on the Smoke Jaguar homeworld came down from the Jade Falcon Khan herself. But does the covert mission require the natural bravery of a freeborn warrior - or do Horse's genetically engineered comrades consider him expendable?
The perilous trek is dead-ended by a crash landing - right into a Smoke Jaguar trap. His 'Mech confiscated, his DropShip down, his Trinary imprisoned, Horse is duty bound to the enemy Jaguars - and closer to the core of the strange secrets of the Falcon stronghold than he ever imagined. For the Clan, the consequences could be explosive. For Horse, they could be fatal...
The perilous trek is dead-ended by a crash landing - right into a Smoke Jaguar trap. His 'Mech confiscated, his DropShip down, his Trinary imprisoned, Horse is duty bound to the enemy Jaguars - and closer to the core of the strange secrets of the Falcon stronghold than he ever imagined. For the Clan, the consequences could be explosive. For Horse, they could be fatal...
304 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published February 1, 1998
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180 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
August 7, 2024
A whole lot of crazy absurdities without enough explanation. Setting that aside, it’s an entertaining story about an underestimated character (or five). For all the silliness, it was an easy read.
January 3, 2026
In the logic of the text's universe, titling a book "Freebirth" is like titling a book "[insert slur here]".
Huntress, truly the Tattoine of the Battletech universe, is our setting as Horse, Freeborn Jade Falcon mechwarrior, is sent by his Khan on a secret mission. Spoilers: the secret mission does not start. We find out more about Horse's secret mission through Peri, who is also here, but it functionally remains a cliffhanger, in that his mission goes south immediately, after his capture by Clan Smoke Jaguar, who controls most of the world so that they can install Mount Rushmore-esque giant jaguar faces and host their genetic stockpile. The story then is that of his captivity and its resolution.
The writing is bad, the first time I feel like that is necessary to say. The author retains his odd sense of focus, giving a multi-chapter treatment to an uninteresting battle while yada yada yadaing the bigger parts. The new problem with the writing is the multi-paragraph internal thoughts of the characters. This appeared in some other variants in the earlier books, but here it is awful. The plot stops as people go on their Proust-like reveries. Mechanically, I never want to have to read a page of italicized text for any reason.
Our newest major character, Sentania Buhallin, tops out even Kai and Cassie for Mary Sue status. Outside of the prior history with an established character never discussed previously, she is an idea that would have been good at a 5, rather than the 11 that she is, seemingly learned Morgan Kell's invisibility spell in a way that, again, could be clever but becomes cloying. She is the one who gets the "Freebirth, I can call you that, right?" line.
Most of the plot is queer-coded torture-porn. Wait, let me back up a bit.
The saving grace of the book are the two commanders, Russou Howell for the Smoke Jaguars and Bren Roshak for the Jade Falcons. They are mutually unhinged. These are the way that I want antagonists in the Battletech universe, particularly Clan ones, unyielding yet broken people twisted by their society into utter alienness. Both pathetic in different ways, they become so pathetic that they flip into scary. We have encountered Russou previously and as such have better insight into how his mind flipped.
We spend more time with Russou, as he is the captor of Horse. And his actions are weird. He spends most of the book punishing Horse with intimacy. Now, something of this sort is something that this author did well with Ravill Pryde, starting as a Hegsethian character whose madness is found as method by the book's end. It is, to some extent, the way that Ulric Kerensky was employed. But the twist with Russou is much more subdued, and not as satisfying, at least to me, to the point that it hardly feels like a twist as much as a different level of rationalization to his madness.
So instead what we are left with is actions like Russou having Horse forcibly stripped, or moved into his private quarters. Neither text nor subtext are satisfying here for me.
I feel like one of the problems with the Clans in general is that there is an ongoing effort from the different authors to provide some degree of distinguishing between them, but different authors with different interests makes it difficult to maintain the threads, leading to something in between Clan Calvinball and a sort of antagonist disease, where negative behavior goes where it needs to go to make the story work.
So while I think that the book has brighter points than many of the Clan-centric works, they are washed away with all the weak efforts.
The whole thing ends with the Task Force being there but unseen about to attack, so presumably all these characters are going to die, and this book has done little to make me want to care.
Huntress, truly the Tattoine of the Battletech universe, is our setting as Horse, Freeborn Jade Falcon mechwarrior, is sent by his Khan on a secret mission. Spoilers: the secret mission does not start. We find out more about Horse's secret mission through Peri, who is also here, but it functionally remains a cliffhanger, in that his mission goes south immediately, after his capture by Clan Smoke Jaguar, who controls most of the world so that they can install Mount Rushmore-esque giant jaguar faces and host their genetic stockpile. The story then is that of his captivity and its resolution.
The writing is bad, the first time I feel like that is necessary to say. The author retains his odd sense of focus, giving a multi-chapter treatment to an uninteresting battle while yada yada yadaing the bigger parts. The new problem with the writing is the multi-paragraph internal thoughts of the characters. This appeared in some other variants in the earlier books, but here it is awful. The plot stops as people go on their Proust-like reveries. Mechanically, I never want to have to read a page of italicized text for any reason.
Our newest major character, Sentania Buhallin, tops out even Kai and Cassie for Mary Sue status. Outside of the prior history with an established character never discussed previously, she is an idea that would have been good at a 5, rather than the 11 that she is, seemingly learned Morgan Kell's invisibility spell in a way that, again, could be clever but becomes cloying. She is the one who gets the "Freebirth, I can call you that, right?" line.
Most of the plot is queer-coded torture-porn. Wait, let me back up a bit.
The saving grace of the book are the two commanders, Russou Howell for the Smoke Jaguars and Bren Roshak for the Jade Falcons. They are mutually unhinged. These are the way that I want antagonists in the Battletech universe, particularly Clan ones, unyielding yet broken people twisted by their society into utter alienness. Both pathetic in different ways, they become so pathetic that they flip into scary. We have encountered Russou previously and as such have better insight into how his mind flipped.
We spend more time with Russou, as he is the captor of Horse. And his actions are weird. He spends most of the book punishing Horse with intimacy. Now, something of this sort is something that this author did well with Ravill Pryde, starting as a Hegsethian character whose madness is found as method by the book's end. It is, to some extent, the way that Ulric Kerensky was employed. But the twist with Russou is much more subdued, and not as satisfying, at least to me, to the point that it hardly feels like a twist as much as a different level of rationalization to his madness.
So instead what we are left with is actions like Russou having Horse forcibly stripped, or moved into his private quarters. Neither text nor subtext are satisfying here for me.
I feel like one of the problems with the Clans in general is that there is an ongoing effort from the different authors to provide some degree of distinguishing between them, but different authors with different interests makes it difficult to maintain the threads, leading to something in between Clan Calvinball and a sort of antagonist disease, where negative behavior goes where it needs to go to make the story work.
So while I think that the book has brighter points than many of the Clan-centric works, they are washed away with all the weak efforts.
The whole thing ends with the Task Force being there but unseen about to attack, so presumably all these characters are going to die, and this book has done little to make me want to care.
May 18, 2023
This is a Clan story, but it is not their Twilight. Not yet. It is set in the Twilight of the Clans anthology, but has zero bearing on the rest of the story. Instead, if you know the BattleTech universe, this book is a standalone. It just happens to be set right in the middle between the Inner Sphere attacking Clan Smoke Jaguar's territory and the Inner Sphere's end-run up the Exodus Road.
Because the BattleTech universe has multiple authors, two authors may diverge on how to portray the same character. For example, Stackpole's Victor Steiner-Davion is a hothead but Pardoe's Victor is less so. In Freebirth, Pardoe's first book Exodus Road introduces Russou Howell, a man forced to kill his best friend, his only friend. Howell then gets fast tracked for command but has no time to process his guilt. Thurston turned Russou Howell into a martinet with a twisted sense of honor.
Unlike all frontline soldiers who deal with PTSD and survivor's guilt, you see none of that in any of the characters. The characters become flat. They're not predictable or one-sided; they're just boring. Like drinking a soda that has lost all its fizz.
Worse, there is no foreshadowing of the invasion of the Smoke Jaguar home world. No one looks up and wonder whose strange Dropships are making a high speed run on the planet. That would dovetail nicely into books 5 and 6. Alas, no...
Because the BattleTech universe has multiple authors, two authors may diverge on how to portray the same character. For example, Stackpole's Victor Steiner-Davion is a hothead but Pardoe's Victor is less so. In Freebirth, Pardoe's first book Exodus Road introduces Russou Howell, a man forced to kill his best friend, his only friend. Howell then gets fast tracked for command but has no time to process his guilt. Thurston turned Russou Howell into a martinet with a twisted sense of honor.
Unlike all frontline soldiers who deal with PTSD and survivor's guilt, you see none of that in any of the characters. The characters become flat. They're not predictable or one-sided; they're just boring. Like drinking a soda that has lost all its fizz.
Worse, there is no foreshadowing of the invasion of the Smoke Jaguar home world. No one looks up and wonder whose strange Dropships are making a high speed run on the planet. That would dovetail nicely into books 5 and 6. Alas, no...
July 26, 2024
Following The Hunters, the fourth novel switches over to the Clan side of things a couple years prior to the events in the third book to see how things are shaping up (or deteriorating depending on who you root for).
The main character, Horse (yes, that is his name. No, that is not his real name. Yes, he is a clanner. Yes, clanners are weirdos) is dispatched to a Jade Falcon research facility on the planet Huntress, Smoke Jaguar's home planet, to investigate their experiments on behalf of Jade Falcon's Khan, Marthe Pryde.
Unfortunately it is not as easy as it sounds and his mission is waylaid by a moody Jaguar Galaxy Commander. For those uninitiated, a freebirth is, for all intents and purposes, a normal human being. Clanners detest those "birthed" and view them as inferior to lab grown warriors (despite getting belt beat by the Ma Bell collection agents) and treat Freebirths as secondhand citizens at best and nothing more than slave labor at worst.
If you are lost entirely from the above, then I suggest reading several other BattleTech novels first or at least brushing up on the history before venturing forward.
For those that are here for BattleTech, yes, there is an operational Mackie in this novel.
The main character, Horse (yes, that is his name. No, that is not his real name. Yes, he is a clanner. Yes, clanners are weirdos) is dispatched to a Jade Falcon research facility on the planet Huntress, Smoke Jaguar's home planet, to investigate their experiments on behalf of Jade Falcon's Khan, Marthe Pryde.
Unfortunately it is not as easy as it sounds and his mission is waylaid by a moody Jaguar Galaxy Commander. For those uninitiated, a freebirth is, for all intents and purposes, a normal human being. Clanners detest those "birthed" and view them as inferior to lab grown warriors (despite getting belt beat by the Ma Bell collection agents) and treat Freebirths as secondhand citizens at best and nothing more than slave labor at worst.
If you are lost entirely from the above, then I suggest reading several other BattleTech novels first or at least brushing up on the history before venturing forward.
For those that are here for BattleTech, yes, there is an operational Mackie in this novel.
December 27, 2019
An interesting idea for an overall story. The LAM concept was unique in this universe and added an interesting twist to the final act. Unfortunately the characters are too over the top to be interesting, and the compelling parts of the story are too few and far between, making the book feel longer than it needed to be.
March 18, 2021
Solid clan book by Thurston.
Read
September 22, 2021BattleTech Book #40, Twilight of the Clans #4. Horse is sent to Huntress on a mission from Khan Marthe Pryde. Can he survive the surprises that await him there?
March 29, 2025
feels like a big diversion in the middle of the twilight of the clans series. Just fine.
March 3, 2017
Horse vs Colonel Klink.
May 21, 2018
I honestly don't remember a ton about these books. At the time (back in Middle School) we were playing Battletech regularly and these stories fleshed out a bit of the world beyond the paper maps and plastic mechs.
A mix of military novel, samurai tale, and twisting political narrative with betrayals and intrigues.
I'll add them to my ever growing "To-reread" list to hopefully give them a more thorough review.
A mix of military novel, samurai tale, and twisting political narrative with betrayals and intrigues.
I'll add them to my ever growing "To-reread" list to hopefully give them a more thorough review.
August 3, 2022
Twilight of the Clans book 4
The action moves back to the Clans, as the Jade Falcons send Horse and a freeborn company to the Smoke Jaguars homeworld where they have a small scientific outpost.
Horse and his command are captured by Smoke Jaguars on landing and he has to play along to their leader (Russou Howell from book 1) to protect his people.
The characters are well done, there's not much mech action going on but the different interactions keep it interesting.
The action moves back to the Clans, as the Jade Falcons send Horse and a freeborn company to the Smoke Jaguars homeworld where they have a small scientific outpost.
Horse and his command are captured by Smoke Jaguars on landing and he has to play along to their leader (Russou Howell from book 1) to protect his people.
The characters are well done, there's not much mech action going on but the different interactions keep it interesting.
August 13, 2012
The LAM project was especially exciting for me. I even parlayed continued the story line into my miniature website, and sculpted theoretical Jade Falcom LAMs, won by the Wolves in Exile.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews