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BattleTech Universe #21
Blood of Heroes
Melissa Steiner's assassination ignited the fires of civil war, and now secessionist factions clamor for rebellion against the Federal Commonwealth. The rebels' plans hinge on gaining control of the Skye March, and thus controlling the crucial Terran Corridor. Throughout the March, civil and military leaders plot to take up arms against Prince Victor Steiner-Davion.
The final piece of the plant requires the secessionist forces to gain access to the planet Glengarry and the mercenary group that calls it home: the Gray Death Legion.
When Prince Davion summons Grayson Death Carlyle and his wife, Lori, to the Federated Commonwealth capital, the rebel forces seize their chance to establish a garrison on Glengarry.
The rebels didn't expect the legion's newest members to take matters into their own hands...
The final piece of the plant requires the secessionist forces to gain access to the planet Glengarry and the mercenary group that calls it home: the Gray Death Legion.
When Prince Davion summons Grayson Death Carlyle and his wife, Lori, to the Federated Commonwealth capital, the rebel forces seize their chance to establish a garrison on Glengarry.
The rebels didn't expect the legion's newest members to take matters into their own hands...
96 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
25 people are currently reading
228 people want to read
About the author
J. Andrew Keith
82 books4 followersJohn Andrew Keith was an American author and games developer... brother of author William H. Keith Jr.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Andr...
Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._Andr...
Librarian Note:
There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
December 11, 2022
Super lousy. One of the worst Battletech books by far, for these reasons:
1. The author digresses right in the middle of dialogue to explain to the reader what various Battletech terms and concepts mean. All BT authors do that to some extent, but this author does it continuously for one-third of the book. Enough already!
2. The writing style is dry and repetitive. A new character is introduced at the beginning of almost every chapter and sub-chapter, only to explain their thoughts, give an order, and never be mentioned again. Why so many characters? Who cares what every random commander on the field thinks about the situation? These characters all start to blur together until eventually you don’t even care who any of them are or what side they’re on anymore.
3. Every chapter ends with a single one-sentence paragraph, summarizing a thought, or a command. This gets really old. There are lots of other ways to end chapters.
4. McCall’s Scottish slang is written out phonetically. We aren’t allowed to just imagine he has a Scottish accent, no. We have to try to painstakingly decipher the gibberish dialogue. It takes you out of the story every time.
5. Again, this has the same problem that many of the Battletech books does of motivation. Why are they fighting? It’s unclear. A bad guy wants to take the planet. Okay. But they don’t have the main troops to fight. So why not just leave the planet and come back later with all their troops? Why fight to the death, Alamo-style? It doesn’t make any sense.
6. And finally, the worst thing about this book: NO ENDING. The author spends the entire book focusing on battles and the fate of the planet, who will conquer or keep it. And then he just decides he’s tired of the story I guess, and stops. He starts a story about a massive conflict, and doesn’t finish it. And the ending is very abrupt too. You could stop reading twenty pages from the “end”, and it would have the same effect.
It’s a terrible book. I’m glad I’m done with it. On to “Far Country”!
1. The author digresses right in the middle of dialogue to explain to the reader what various Battletech terms and concepts mean. All BT authors do that to some extent, but this author does it continuously for one-third of the book. Enough already!
2. The writing style is dry and repetitive. A new character is introduced at the beginning of almost every chapter and sub-chapter, only to explain their thoughts, give an order, and never be mentioned again. Why so many characters? Who cares what every random commander on the field thinks about the situation? These characters all start to blur together until eventually you don’t even care who any of them are or what side they’re on anymore.
3. Every chapter ends with a single one-sentence paragraph, summarizing a thought, or a command. This gets really old. There are lots of other ways to end chapters.
4. McCall’s Scottish slang is written out phonetically. We aren’t allowed to just imagine he has a Scottish accent, no. We have to try to painstakingly decipher the gibberish dialogue. It takes you out of the story every time.
5. Again, this has the same problem that many of the Battletech books does of motivation. Why are they fighting? It’s unclear. A bad guy wants to take the planet. Okay. But they don’t have the main troops to fight. So why not just leave the planet and come back later with all their troops? Why fight to the death, Alamo-style? It doesn’t make any sense.
6. And finally, the worst thing about this book: NO ENDING. The author spends the entire book focusing on battles and the fate of the planet, who will conquer or keep it. And then he just decides he’s tired of the story I guess, and stops. He starts a story about a massive conflict, and doesn’t finish it. And the ending is very abrupt too. You could stop reading twenty pages from the “end”, and it would have the same effect.
It’s a terrible book. I’m glad I’m done with it. On to “Far Country”!
May 26, 2013
Blood of Heroes is the fourth book in the Gray Death Legion series. This book is credited to Andrew Keith, the brother of William H. Keith who authored most of the books in the series. Grayson Death Carlyle has been summoned to New Avalon to be installed as the Baron of Glengarry. The 2nd Battallion are also on another world. This leaves a small force under the command of Grayson's son Alexander to stand against the Free Skye Movement forces trying to take control of the planet.
I really enjoyed this one, the book opens up in the middle of action and continues right to the end. It shows the growth of the character of Alexander into a leader. This book runs concurrently with Assumption of Risk.
I really enjoyed this one, the book opens up in the middle of action and continues right to the end. It shows the growth of the character of Alexander into a leader. This book runs concurrently with Assumption of Risk.
January 3, 2024
It's a good bad book.
The story here details Free Skye's attack on Glengarry and the Gray Death Legion's fight to repulse that. If none of those words made sense to you, do not fret: the first quarter of this book is dedicated to exposition, some necessary in terms of it being about three decades since the GDL appeared in detail, other there to bring anyone up to speed about all things Inner Sphere in case they picked up the book thinking it was about the Battle of Seven Pines or something.
The remaining 3 quarters of the book is dedicated to battles, with a brief smattering of politics. It ends not so much on a cliffhanger, unless you consider The Empire Strikes Back to end on a cliffhanger, but with the story unresolved. Reading between the lines, I think that the was intended to have sufficient emotional weight to give the story a satisfactory end, or maybe that in concert with some of the other later scenes of a similar emotional cast, but plot-wise, there is a lot that remains unfinished. Like the battle plan of the enemy isn't even fully engaged yet.
My critic's instinct is to go double barrel on something like this, 50 pages of preface followed by 300 of war porn. But as I set to sharpening my blade, I keep finding things to except. I did write in my Main Event review that this sort of material is much more the level I want to experience the Battletech universe at, and I think that may be part of it, but I keep finding stuff. I have a hard time telling what part of the stuff is intentional, but in the most generous reading:
* Like with Main Event and its outsider take on Solaris and Outreach, here we get one on Victor Steiner-Davion and, my Brother in Christ, the boy is in over his head. Or an asshole. While the tedious exposition bored me, especially because Sudeten feels like a missing book, this alone made it worth it.
* I know that Tropes are Not Bad, but I felt somewhat let down by both Alex and Governor General DeVries as boring choices. Something I liked about Decision at Thunder Rift was the way in which GDC had several breaks from the standard 80's action hero trope. And I am still a little disappointed, but for DeVries at least, I think that the book goes further than Strawman Has A Point and into a solid appraisal of the politics of the situation and (mostly) reasonable decisions around it. I can explain why he is incorrect, but that is mostly in the light of the GDL's philosophy, not something more categorical.
* The book is all battle scenes, which is like a cake made out of icing, but this is military science fiction. And the scenes are good. I think that the initial space contact scene is worth the price of admission. While the jumping about in terms of character and faction perspective could use with some better flagging, I feel like these stand out in general because it is specifically not more gladiatorial, not reflective of some of the ideological baggage of mechwarrior as knight, but more tactical in presentation. Playing king of the battlefield gets you killed. And as I noted before, the fluidity in allowing more characters the potential to die, and to some extent acting on that usually in surprising ways, makes for much more tense reading.
* The Scots dialect is insufferable. I have no upside to this, but I wanted to mention it. I'm also going to add that I hope that Alex does not become the successor, but....
The think I think that really sets the book above and apart for me is in the ending, not the ending itself, which, as noted, is okay but leaves a lot on the table, but, also as noted, I think makes up the other half of the emotional weight of the ending, and why the ending works, even if it comes off so slight that I wonder if it is intended.
Spoiler-free summary: Keith responds to Stackpole's 'divine right of kings' argument, in a manner that does not refute or rewrite the setting, but instead makes it a gut punch, reconstructing what is going on and providing a theoretical response to a lot of the character questions that I had. This I did not expect.
The story here details Free Skye's attack on Glengarry and the Gray Death Legion's fight to repulse that. If none of those words made sense to you, do not fret: the first quarter of this book is dedicated to exposition, some necessary in terms of it being about three decades since the GDL appeared in detail, other there to bring anyone up to speed about all things Inner Sphere in case they picked up the book thinking it was about the Battle of Seven Pines or something.
The remaining 3 quarters of the book is dedicated to battles, with a brief smattering of politics. It ends not so much on a cliffhanger, unless you consider The Empire Strikes Back to end on a cliffhanger, but with the story unresolved. Reading between the lines, I think that the was intended to have sufficient emotional weight to give the story a satisfactory end, or maybe that in concert with some of the other later scenes of a similar emotional cast, but plot-wise, there is a lot that remains unfinished. Like the battle plan of the enemy isn't even fully engaged yet.
My critic's instinct is to go double barrel on something like this, 50 pages of preface followed by 300 of war porn. But as I set to sharpening my blade, I keep finding things to except. I did write in my Main Event review that this sort of material is much more the level I want to experience the Battletech universe at, and I think that may be part of it, but I keep finding stuff. I have a hard time telling what part of the stuff is intentional, but in the most generous reading:
* Like with Main Event and its outsider take on Solaris and Outreach, here we get one on Victor Steiner-Davion and, my Brother in Christ, the boy is in over his head. Or an asshole. While the tedious exposition bored me, especially because Sudeten feels like a missing book, this alone made it worth it.
* I know that Tropes are Not Bad, but I felt somewhat let down by both Alex and Governor General DeVries as boring choices. Something I liked about Decision at Thunder Rift was the way in which GDC had several breaks from the standard 80's action hero trope. And I am still a little disappointed, but for DeVries at least, I think that the book goes further than Strawman Has A Point and into a solid appraisal of the politics of the situation and (mostly) reasonable decisions around it. I can explain why he is incorrect, but that is mostly in the light of the GDL's philosophy, not something more categorical.
* The book is all battle scenes, which is like a cake made out of icing, but this is military science fiction. And the scenes are good. I think that the initial space contact scene is worth the price of admission. While the jumping about in terms of character and faction perspective could use with some better flagging, I feel like these stand out in general because it is specifically not more gladiatorial, not reflective of some of the ideological baggage of mechwarrior as knight, but more tactical in presentation. Playing king of the battlefield gets you killed. And as I noted before, the fluidity in allowing more characters the potential to die, and to some extent acting on that usually in surprising ways, makes for much more tense reading.
* The Scots dialect is insufferable. I have no upside to this, but I wanted to mention it. I'm also going to add that I hope that Alex does not become the successor, but....
The think I think that really sets the book above and apart for me is in the ending, not the ending itself, which, as noted, is okay but leaves a lot on the table, but, also as noted, I think makes up the other half of the emotional weight of the ending, and why the ending works, even if it comes off so slight that I wonder if it is intended.
Spoiler-free summary: Keith responds to Stackpole's 'divine right of kings' argument, in a manner that does not refute or rewrite the setting, but instead makes it a gut punch, reconstructing what is going on and providing a theoretical response to a lot of the character questions that I had. This I did not expect.
October 13, 2025
This Is Familiar
This book reminds me of The Son of Tarzan in that it basically treads the same ground just with the Son instead of the father. While this can be effective in showing parallels between the two in a narrative sense, in context of the universe that it's contained it becomes ridiculous.
How many times can the Gray Death Legion be caught unaware and understrength before we start casting blame on the Legion and Carlyle himself. You left basically no forces to protect your homeworld in a politically separatist region of Stiener space? What did you think would happen?
While the story is good and the ending i found to be pretty great the repetition of the trope above and he makes the Von Bulow the leader of the separatists be just cartoonishly evil. Its always been a gripe of mine that they've made the Skye movement out to be just a political tool to grab power, Von Bulow sending people out airlocks does nothing to address that issue.
I did have hope when he had Grayson actually mention Victor bringing in more Davion influence into Tharkad at the expense of the Stiener population which could lead to a thoughtful conflict lead by a competent not even evil antagonist. We dont though.
Spoilers: last gripe. Did you really have to name the governor DeVries when the Legion has someone named De Villar? Then you gave them major interactions with each other lead me to have to re read pages to get it straight. Its like the editor knew it would be an issue so they made sure to have DeVries all one word and De Villar be two. Then ,IMO, to cover his mistake, he kills both De Villars in the first part to fix it.
This book reminds me of The Son of Tarzan in that it basically treads the same ground just with the Son instead of the father. While this can be effective in showing parallels between the two in a narrative sense, in context of the universe that it's contained it becomes ridiculous.
How many times can the Gray Death Legion be caught unaware and understrength before we start casting blame on the Legion and Carlyle himself. You left basically no forces to protect your homeworld in a politically separatist region of Stiener space? What did you think would happen?
While the story is good and the ending i found to be pretty great the repetition of the trope above and he makes the Von Bulow the leader of the separatists be just cartoonishly evil. Its always been a gripe of mine that they've made the Skye movement out to be just a political tool to grab power, Von Bulow sending people out airlocks does nothing to address that issue.
I did have hope when he had Grayson actually mention Victor bringing in more Davion influence into Tharkad at the expense of the Stiener population which could lead to a thoughtful conflict lead by a competent not even evil antagonist. We dont though.
Spoilers: last gripe. Did you really have to name the governor DeVries when the Legion has someone named De Villar? Then you gave them major interactions with each other lead me to have to re read pages to get it straight. Its like the editor knew it would be an issue so they made sure to have DeVries all one word and De Villar be two. Then ,IMO, to cover his mistake, he kills both De Villars in the first part to fix it.
February 17, 2024
Fairly typical of the BattleTech novel line, the story is okay but not great.
I think this novel suffers from two flaws that reduced my enjoyment -- first, the ending is somewhat abrupt and unsatisfying, failing to resolve the major conflict of the book. Second, this book picks up some characters from previous novels some 30 years later. There is a major event in their fairly recent past that is alluded to several times, but the story wssn't told. It feels like there should have been another Gray Death Legion novel between "The Price of Glory" and this one.
I think this novel suffers from two flaws that reduced my enjoyment -- first, the ending is somewhat abrupt and unsatisfying, failing to resolve the major conflict of the book. Second, this book picks up some characters from previous novels some 30 years later. There is a major event in their fairly recent past that is alluded to several times, but the story wssn't told. It feels like there should have been another Gray Death Legion novel between "The Price of Glory" and this one.
May 15, 2021
Book 20 of the BattleTech series, book 4 of the Gray Death Legion. Years after "The Price of Glory", the saga continues, with Alex Carlyle now at the helm for this book. Isle of Skye rebellion comes to the Lyran Commonwealth.
June 14, 2022
Such a slow set up. I actually started losing interest even though I really liked the first three Gray Death Legion books. Decent ending and battle sequences.
September 30, 2025
Excellent
Highly recommend this book for anyone reading it gets into the real background of one of the major merc units
Highly recommend this book for anyone reading it gets into the real background of one of the major merc units
September 23, 2013
As tensions start to mount between the Steiner and Davion camps, a raid is planned on the base planet of the Gray Death Legion.
With their leaders off planet, it's up to Alex Carlyle to try and mount a defence...
Lots of Mech action in this one, some good characters. The most annoying thing is the Scottish weapons master whose speech is written almost phonetically. In small doses, it might add character, but he's a fairly major part in this book and it just grates after a while.
With their leaders off planet, it's up to Alex Carlyle to try and mount a defence...
Lots of Mech action in this one, some good characters. The most annoying thing is the Scottish weapons master whose speech is written almost phonetically. In small doses, it might add character, but he's a fairly major part in this book and it just grates after a while.
September 26, 2020
Not a bad book. Pacing seems a bit off. The resolution is of the inner conflict of the protagonist and not the external conflict of the plot. Semi-satisfying. Otherwise decent action and tactics with big stompy robots and the much loved Grey Death Legion.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 2, 2016
Ended on quite a cliffhanger!!!
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews