The last post was about the what to do when writting a Battlecorps submission. Now, here's a list of things you shouldn't do when submitting a story to Battlecorps.
It’s not easy to write a canon Battletech story. There are so many things that have to be right before Jason Schmitzer, the BattleCorps editor, accepts a story. Canon stories are a step above fanfiction This is the step from amateur to professional writing that a lot of writers cannot make.
I have written Battletech fanfiction, long before I wrote anything for Battlecorps. I written other fanfiction in other venues, like a lot of today’s writers started out. There’s a certain sense of freedom when writing fanfiction though unlike some, I tried to stay close to the character whenever I used would write a story.
But the Fanfiction mindset will not work for a Battlecorps submission. Keep that in mind.
Don'ts
Don't Send in Your Novel -- There is no way Jason would accept it, for a host of reasons, but the main one being that BattleCorps doesn't publish novels. Before anyone points out the Blitzkrieg stories, those are written by invitation only (I have not been invited to that select group and don't expect to be anytime soon.), You must prove to Jason that you can write short stories and do it consistantly.
Don't fall into the Mary-Sue (Or Gary-Sue) Syndrome -- A Mary-Sue is the authors’ avatar in the world – usually one based on the author themselves. The most annoying ones are the ones who are perfect – handsome, (or beautiful) charming, who know everything, and can do it all – pilot a ’Mech, speak any language, romance any canon character, etc.
In Battletech, that sort of person dies a messy death. All characters have flaws, else the reader can’t identify with them. In my first Battlecorps story, "The Lance Killer," Haig, the title character, has been the only person to survived the destruction of three different lances in some of the worse fighting in the FedCom War. He has become a pariah because of that luck and it has affected him in a negative way. People with flaws are always more interesting then perfect people.
Don't use unoffical 'Mech designs -- Part of the fun of Battletech is creating your own designs and testing them in battle with your friends. But there are close to 2,000 offical 'Mech and their varients. Yes, most have flaws, but that's because they were designed that way. In all the stories I have written, I have yet to use a design of my own in any of the stories. It is only now that I am considering using a one-off design in a story. Show that you know the universe by using cannon designs
Don't use your Homebrewed RCT -- I think anyone who has played Battletech for more than a few months has their own unit. Mine is (or was) the Antietam Guards, AKA, Mallory’s Headhunters, Household troops of the Mallory family of Antietam. You can find a story about them in Battletechnology #21. I've written other fanfiction about the unit, concentrating on a single lance in that unit. At its height, the Headhunters had two reinforced ’Mech regiments with infantry as scouts/special forces. But as a Battlecorps writer, I can’t use them in a submission to the website.
Why? Because they are too large and powerful. A unit like that would have shown up before any current or recent past setting, because two ’Mech regiments are two ’Mech regiments – they can’t be hidden, even if they’re the household troops of a Duke (A minor Duke on a world far away from any interstellar border). Some thing applies to any large Mercenary unit (Regiment+) – they can’t stay hidden in the canonical timeline UNLESS it is in the past, the First or Second Successor Wars, but they can’t exist in the Clan Invasion or Jihad era. Any original Mercenary in a story is going to have to be a company, maybe two a the most. All my stories so far have involved canon units. I am looking at creating a unit for a story, but it's not going to be anywhere near regimental size.
Uber-units are a no-no. New mercenary units with cutting-edge technology are almost impossible to pull off. All major house military units have already been set in stone. There are plenty of small mercenary units around, but most are one step ahead of the debt collector are are working hard to make a living. But there are some interesting stories, there if you know what to look for.
Don't Bring Homebrewed Weapons or Technology In -- Only one person decides when and if new weapons and technology are added to the Universe -- Herb Beas, Battletech's line developer. And he decides what, if anything, is added long before any product comes out with the items. No one is going to force his hand by trying to slip new technology into a story. Simple as that.
Don't Bring Aliens In -- Battletech is a human-centric universe, no alien races need not apply. Looking at so many other science-fiction or gaming universe, Battletech is one of the few that doesn't have spacefairing alien races. Only a very few, very primitive races are around the Inner Sphere, none with the intelligence or technical ability to be spacefarers.
Don't Get Angry or Discouraged if You Get Rejected -- If you do get rejected, look at the reasons Jason gives for the rejection. He has rejected my stories before, and I have learned from those rejections. Take those points he makes and apply them to the next story you write. Remember, Jason has a better idea of what works as a Battlecorps story, and what's happening in the Battletech universe that you, as a writer, don't know about
I cannot stress this enough; when you finish a story and send it in, start on the next story. Don't wait for a response. Keep writing and if you get rejected, learn from the mistakes and correct them in the next story.
Good Luck!
Craig
Friday, March 9, 2012
Monday, March 5, 2012
The Dos and Don't of BattleCorps Writing -- The Dos
Someone on the Battletech forum complained that they weren't getting paid to write Battletech fiction. I pointed them to the Battlecorps website. And yes, Battlecorps writers do get paid -- not enough to live on, but it does make a nice second job income.
However, the difference between fanfiction and pro writing (You get paid to write, therefore, its pro writing) is vast. In fanfiction, you can do anything. You can create super characters and have them run amuck through the Inner Sphere and beyond. You can have crossovers with other series (I have seen a BOLO crossover and a Battlestar Galatica [NS] crossovers) You can rewrite the Inner Sphere's history. Whatevery your imagination can think of, you can create in fanfiction.
But make no mistake, writing for Battlecorps is very diffrent and very difficult. Your imagination has to be reeled in and confined in a much smaller area than with fanfiction. So, what follows is a list of Dos and Don'ts to give you the best shot at getting published. Today it's the Do list, while the Don'ts will be in the next blog post.
Dos
Read the Submission Guidelines -- The guidelines are at (http://battlecorps.com/BC2/static.php?page=26). Reading them will save you a lot of trouble in the furure.
Know the Battletech Style -- Battletech stories have a certain style. For examples, all 'Mechs names are italized. (Identified as such by underlying the word in the manuscript.) The term 'Mech uses a closing ', and the M is always capitalized. Used the guidelines at (http://battlecorps.com/BC2/static.php?page=15) to guide you.
Know the Battletech Universe -- A good percentage of Battlecorps submitted stories that Get past Jason get shot down in in the Continuity check. The people that goes over these stories have the knowledge of the universe and access to everything from the 100+ sourcebooks and other products that have been put out over the last twenty-five years. If the story has Battletech Universe "factual" flaws, they will find them and note them. And if the flaws are too big, it will crash the story. Research is the order of the day.
Keep the Stories Small (Word Count) -- This point and the next one are connected, but I will lay them out seperately. The first story I sold to Battlecorps "The Lance Killer," came in at 6,600 words, and was the largest one of the first half dozen stories Jason accepted. My later stories are a little longer, but only one has been longer than 10,000 words. ("The Blood of Man," which came in at 11,700 words, but we were given a special limit, as it was part of an anthology centered around the Jihad: Terra sourcebook release.) The best thing to do is keep the first few stories between 5000-7000 words. Once you have a track record, you can make the stories a little longer, but I always make sure my stories are less than 10,000 words.
Keep the Stories Small (Content) -- With only 5,000 - 7,000 words to tell a story, there's little room for complex plots, large numbers of characters, or events that have a major impact on the Battletech universe (Besides, major impact events are in the hands of a very small select group of writers, of which I am not one). So, the stories should have something like:
* Number of characters: A main character, two or three major supporting characters and the same number of minor supporting characters. For example, "The Lance Killer" had six characters with lines, two of which only appeared in the first scene. "Negotiation" had only seven characters that had a speaking part. Focus on a small group of characters.
* Limit POVs: Point of View is what the writer uses to frame their story with. I use a third person, limited POV when I write Battlecorps stories. I take a character, and follow the story as they see it. In "Hero's Bridge," I use two POV; one following the Federated Suns' side through the eyes of a young reporter, while the Confederation's side is seen through the eyes of a veteran CCAF NCO.
* Simpler plots: Because of the number of characters and limited words, there is no place for any grand star-spanning plots. Make the plot personal to the characters involved.
Proofread your work -- Or better yet, get someone else to do it. Jason doesn't have the time with all his other work to do it, and there are no Battlecorps proofreaders. It is up to the author to make sure that everything is spelled right, that commas and periods are in place and grammer is correct. Get two or three writers together and read each others work.
Continue writing -- You complete a story, proofread it, and send it in. Great. Now, start working on the next story. Jason is not only looking for good stories, he's looking for authors with more than one story in them.
I'll post the Don't list later on in the week...
Craig
However, the difference between fanfiction and pro writing (You get paid to write, therefore, its pro writing) is vast. In fanfiction, you can do anything. You can create super characters and have them run amuck through the Inner Sphere and beyond. You can have crossovers with other series (I have seen a BOLO crossover and a Battlestar Galatica [NS] crossovers) You can rewrite the Inner Sphere's history. Whatevery your imagination can think of, you can create in fanfiction.
But make no mistake, writing for Battlecorps is very diffrent and very difficult. Your imagination has to be reeled in and confined in a much smaller area than with fanfiction. So, what follows is a list of Dos and Don'ts to give you the best shot at getting published. Today it's the Do list, while the Don'ts will be in the next blog post.
Dos
Read the Submission Guidelines -- The guidelines are at (http://battlecorps.com/BC2/static.php?page=26). Reading them will save you a lot of trouble in the furure.
Know the Battletech Style -- Battletech stories have a certain style. For examples, all 'Mechs names are italized. (Identified as such by underlying the word in the manuscript.) The term 'Mech uses a closing ', and the M is always capitalized. Used the guidelines at (http://battlecorps.com/BC2/static.php?page=15) to guide you.
Know the Battletech Universe -- A good percentage of Battlecorps submitted stories that Get past Jason get shot down in in the Continuity check. The people that goes over these stories have the knowledge of the universe and access to everything from the 100+ sourcebooks and other products that have been put out over the last twenty-five years. If the story has Battletech Universe "factual" flaws, they will find them and note them. And if the flaws are too big, it will crash the story. Research is the order of the day.
Keep the Stories Small (Word Count) -- This point and the next one are connected, but I will lay them out seperately. The first story I sold to Battlecorps "The Lance Killer," came in at 6,600 words, and was the largest one of the first half dozen stories Jason accepted. My later stories are a little longer, but only one has been longer than 10,000 words. ("The Blood of Man," which came in at 11,700 words, but we were given a special limit, as it was part of an anthology centered around the Jihad: Terra sourcebook release.) The best thing to do is keep the first few stories between 5000-7000 words. Once you have a track record, you can make the stories a little longer, but I always make sure my stories are less than 10,000 words.
Keep the Stories Small (Content) -- With only 5,000 - 7,000 words to tell a story, there's little room for complex plots, large numbers of characters, or events that have a major impact on the Battletech universe (Besides, major impact events are in the hands of a very small select group of writers, of which I am not one). So, the stories should have something like:
* Number of characters: A main character, two or three major supporting characters and the same number of minor supporting characters. For example, "The Lance Killer" had six characters with lines, two of which only appeared in the first scene. "Negotiation" had only seven characters that had a speaking part. Focus on a small group of characters.
* Limit POVs: Point of View is what the writer uses to frame their story with. I use a third person, limited POV when I write Battlecorps stories. I take a character, and follow the story as they see it. In "Hero's Bridge," I use two POV; one following the Federated Suns' side through the eyes of a young reporter, while the Confederation's side is seen through the eyes of a veteran CCAF NCO.
* Simpler plots: Because of the number of characters and limited words, there is no place for any grand star-spanning plots. Make the plot personal to the characters involved.
Proofread your work -- Or better yet, get someone else to do it. Jason doesn't have the time with all his other work to do it, and there are no Battlecorps proofreaders. It is up to the author to make sure that everything is spelled right, that commas and periods are in place and grammer is correct. Get two or three writers together and read each others work.
Continue writing -- You complete a story, proofread it, and send it in. Great. Now, start working on the next story. Jason is not only looking for good stories, he's looking for authors with more than one story in them.
I'll post the Don't list later on in the week...
Craig
Monday, February 27, 2012
Writer’s Workshop
I have mentioned the writer’s workshop in a couple of Blogs. What is it?
http://battletechfiction.org/
The workshop is a website for those who write Battletech stories. Most of the website is open to anyone who registers where people post their stories and just talk.
Inside that website, is a private area where those who are serious about writing for Battlecorps posts drafts, ask questions relating to stories, and discussing anything having to do with Battlecorps writing. THe process is to Email the website's owner (Prometheus Fire) and supply your Battlecorps ID number (the BC membership requirement is so that you know what stories are being done and what's going on.)
When anyone in the group posts a story, a few of us (Those who can take the time) download the story and read over it. We note grammar mistakes, and take apart the story, looking for problems or things that need work. We note them and repost the commented version of the story back on that thread. The author then takes that feedback and hopefully writes a better version of the story. This is repeated until there is a general agreement that the story is ready to go.
We are frank with out comments on each story, not out of malice, but because we want the best story that author can produce. Jason Schmitzer, the BattleCorps editor, needs good stories. What we do is try to give him those good stories, polished and good enough for him to buy. We try to eliminate formatting, grammar mistakes, gaping plot holes and continuity problems.
We have several published Battlecorps authors as part of the workshop, and many of the stories that are published through BattleCorps site come through the workshop. The Workshop is an important part of the BattleCorps writing process.
Craig
(Edit: and wouldn't you know just as I post this, I find out the website it down! *Sigh* I will let eveyone know when its back up!)
http://battletechfiction.org/
The workshop is a website for those who write Battletech stories. Most of the website is open to anyone who registers where people post their stories and just talk.
Inside that website, is a private area where those who are serious about writing for Battlecorps posts drafts, ask questions relating to stories, and discussing anything having to do with Battlecorps writing. THe process is to Email the website's owner (Prometheus Fire) and supply your Battlecorps ID number (the BC membership requirement is so that you know what stories are being done and what's going on.)
When anyone in the group posts a story, a few of us (Those who can take the time) download the story and read over it. We note grammar mistakes, and take apart the story, looking for problems or things that need work. We note them and repost the commented version of the story back on that thread. The author then takes that feedback and hopefully writes a better version of the story. This is repeated until there is a general agreement that the story is ready to go.
We are frank with out comments on each story, not out of malice, but because we want the best story that author can produce. Jason Schmitzer, the BattleCorps editor, needs good stories. What we do is try to give him those good stories, polished and good enough for him to buy. We try to eliminate formatting, grammar mistakes, gaping plot holes and continuity problems.
We have several published Battlecorps authors as part of the workshop, and many of the stories that are published through BattleCorps site come through the workshop. The Workshop is an important part of the BattleCorps writing process.
Craig
(Edit: and wouldn't you know just as I post this, I find out the website it down! *Sigh* I will let eveyone know when its back up!)
Monday, February 20, 2012
My writing process
Now that I’ve submitted two more stories for consideration by Battlecorps, I can take a couple of minutes tio write something about my actual writing process.
A story idea can start with a "What if?" question "What if someone had been the only survivor of a lance multiple times? (The Lance Killer) Sometimes it’s taking a faction I’ve not seen any stories on (The Outworld Alliance in Groundpounder). A couple have been written in responce to a call from Jason the editor for an anthology (Salvage and Family Ties) Wherever the story idea comes from, I note it down and it goes on a spreadsheet.
As I am writing this, I have nearly a dozen stories in different stages of being written. One story has only three hundred words written, while another has nearly thirteen thousand written. I may finish all of them one day, but whenever one is completed, another one is raised from another list and started.
Why so many at once? Because it keeps me fresh. I don’t get bogged down in one story. Sometimes, if its for an anthology, I will concentrate on a story until it is done, while another week might see me working on three or four different stories. That is why you may see a couple of stories from me close together, then several months past before you see another one or two from me.
As for the actual writing process, I am a discovery writer: I have a starting point, an idea of what’s going to happen, and where the story will end up. But I don’t plot every action, or character in detail. Sometimes, I don’t have a character’s name picked out beforehand.
I write a first draft, put it away for a few days and work on others stories, then come back to it. I go through, rewrite some, and then send it to the workshop, and go back to the other stories. When I have enough feedback from the workshop, I look at the comments they have made and decide what to do with the comments. I make changes to the grammar and rewrite when the I think the comments make sense. I then send the story back to the workshop and the process repeats.
After a couple or three passes through the workshop, it gets sent off to Jason and I go back to working on other stories. There is no end: it’s a continual progression, a cycle of writing, rewriting and submitting. I have three more stories I’ve recently submitted to Battlecorps, which I’m still waiting to hear back on. In the meanwhile, I write.
Craig
A story idea can start with a "What if?" question "What if someone had been the only survivor of a lance multiple times? (The Lance Killer) Sometimes it’s taking a faction I’ve not seen any stories on (The Outworld Alliance in Groundpounder). A couple have been written in responce to a call from Jason the editor for an anthology (Salvage and Family Ties) Wherever the story idea comes from, I note it down and it goes on a spreadsheet.
As I am writing this, I have nearly a dozen stories in different stages of being written. One story has only three hundred words written, while another has nearly thirteen thousand written. I may finish all of them one day, but whenever one is completed, another one is raised from another list and started.
Why so many at once? Because it keeps me fresh. I don’t get bogged down in one story. Sometimes, if its for an anthology, I will concentrate on a story until it is done, while another week might see me working on three or four different stories. That is why you may see a couple of stories from me close together, then several months past before you see another one or two from me.
As for the actual writing process, I am a discovery writer: I have a starting point, an idea of what’s going to happen, and where the story will end up. But I don’t plot every action, or character in detail. Sometimes, I don’t have a character’s name picked out beforehand.
I write a first draft, put it away for a few days and work on others stories, then come back to it. I go through, rewrite some, and then send it to the workshop, and go back to the other stories. When I have enough feedback from the workshop, I look at the comments they have made and decide what to do with the comments. I make changes to the grammar and rewrite when the I think the comments make sense. I then send the story back to the workshop and the process repeats.
After a couple or three passes through the workshop, it gets sent off to Jason and I go back to working on other stories. There is no end: it’s a continual progression, a cycle of writing, rewriting and submitting. I have three more stories I’ve recently submitted to Battlecorps, which I’m still waiting to hear back on. In the meanwhile, I write.
Craig
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Two stories done!
They were submitted to Battlecorps yesterday. Hope they're accepted.....Now I have to finish up the firsty draft of the sourcebook fiction I'm doing, then taking a look at what I've written and see what can be done to make it the best it can be!
Craig
Craig
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Story Fiction verus Sourcebook Fiction
As I am writing this, I have two more Battlecorps stories being looked over by the writer's workshop, so I have a few days to concentrate on some assigned sourcebook writing I am doing for an upcoming project.
My first sourcebook writing was a couple of entries in the TRO: Prototypes, and apparently I didn’t do too badly. I can’t go into any detail about what I’m writing about, but I will drone on about the challenge of writing sourcebook fiction.
Battletech has two types of fiction: Story and sourcebook. Story fiction is just that, stories set in the universe. Sourcebook fiction on the other hand, is fiction that’s written as if it is a document from that period of time. News articles, excepts from books, transcripts, all designed to give the reader that they’re reading history, not fiction. It’s adding color to the universe.
I find there are two sorts of sourcebook fiction that I call textbook (main text) and color (Sidebars).
Textbook is exactly what it sounds like: the fiction reads as if it’s from a textbook – who, what, where, why and how. It sketches out the big picture, Unit A&B attacked here, Units C&D retreated, Unit E panicked and popped a nuke over A city. Enough information to give the reader an understanding of what’s going on. Usually, the textbook is the main text of the product. It can be bias, but its normally subtle compared to the sidebars.
Color (Sidebar) are the small articles next to the main text that are usually short and done in a completely different style from the rest of the text. It can be something like a letter, part of a radio conversation, a news item, or an except from an article or book. The sidebar can be slanted to reflect the character writer’s viewpoint, or can show that maybe the main text isn’t quite right (Unit E didn’t panic and popped the nuke – they were ordered to by the senior CO) They supply ‘color’ to the product.
Most of what I’ve been assigned to write fits into the main text category, and it’s a challenge. It takes a different sort of mindset to write sourcebook fiction.
First, I have a set word limit for the section I’m doing. With story fiction, I can be over by three or hundred words over my target word count, as an extra page isn’t a big deal. However, I can’t do that with sourcebook fiction, as there is a set page limit for the product, and it cannot go over that page count. This is a multi-author product, and if each section is over its word count by one hundred words, less by a quarter of a page, the product will be more than half a dozen pages over its target, which means it becomes more expensive to produce. Make no mistake: these products are budgeted for so many pages and anything over that throws things out of whack and brings the Wrath of Herb down on those who caused the problem.
Second, inside the word limit, I have to include the important information that section is suppose to have. Its informational writing, even though the information is fictional. That means the style and tone is different from story fiction – third person, omnipresent if its from a textbook, more personal if it’s a sidebar.
Third, the level of detail is different. My fictional stories are centered around a small group of characters and is at "Grunt-eye" level. They’re pulling the triggers and getting killed. But sourcebook fiction is centered far above the grunt’s perspective. Instead of company-level, the action is described at RCT, war front-level action, along the lines of, "Unit X landed on Planet Mongo 23 September where they fought Unit ABC, pushing them off the planet by 5 October."
Fourth and last, I have a deadline. With Battlecorps stories, I can take six months to work on a story. Sourcebooks have a deadline, in this case, March. 11,000 - 12,000 words in several different sections. It's a challenge, one I want to take on. That means most of my efforts are geared toward working things out.
Once the product comes out, I'll point out what I wrote and why. But for now, I have to get back to work!!
Craig
My first sourcebook writing was a couple of entries in the TRO: Prototypes, and apparently I didn’t do too badly. I can’t go into any detail about what I’m writing about, but I will drone on about the challenge of writing sourcebook fiction.
Battletech has two types of fiction: Story and sourcebook. Story fiction is just that, stories set in the universe. Sourcebook fiction on the other hand, is fiction that’s written as if it is a document from that period of time. News articles, excepts from books, transcripts, all designed to give the reader that they’re reading history, not fiction. It’s adding color to the universe.
I find there are two sorts of sourcebook fiction that I call textbook (main text) and color (Sidebars).
Textbook is exactly what it sounds like: the fiction reads as if it’s from a textbook – who, what, where, why and how. It sketches out the big picture, Unit A&B attacked here, Units C&D retreated, Unit E panicked and popped a nuke over A city. Enough information to give the reader an understanding of what’s going on. Usually, the textbook is the main text of the product. It can be bias, but its normally subtle compared to the sidebars.
Color (Sidebar) are the small articles next to the main text that are usually short and done in a completely different style from the rest of the text. It can be something like a letter, part of a radio conversation, a news item, or an except from an article or book. The sidebar can be slanted to reflect the character writer’s viewpoint, or can show that maybe the main text isn’t quite right (Unit E didn’t panic and popped the nuke – they were ordered to by the senior CO) They supply ‘color’ to the product.
Most of what I’ve been assigned to write fits into the main text category, and it’s a challenge. It takes a different sort of mindset to write sourcebook fiction.
First, I have a set word limit for the section I’m doing. With story fiction, I can be over by three or hundred words over my target word count, as an extra page isn’t a big deal. However, I can’t do that with sourcebook fiction, as there is a set page limit for the product, and it cannot go over that page count. This is a multi-author product, and if each section is over its word count by one hundred words, less by a quarter of a page, the product will be more than half a dozen pages over its target, which means it becomes more expensive to produce. Make no mistake: these products are budgeted for so many pages and anything over that throws things out of whack and brings the Wrath of Herb down on those who caused the problem.
Second, inside the word limit, I have to include the important information that section is suppose to have. Its informational writing, even though the information is fictional. That means the style and tone is different from story fiction – third person, omnipresent if its from a textbook, more personal if it’s a sidebar.
Third, the level of detail is different. My fictional stories are centered around a small group of characters and is at "Grunt-eye" level. They’re pulling the triggers and getting killed. But sourcebook fiction is centered far above the grunt’s perspective. Instead of company-level, the action is described at RCT, war front-level action, along the lines of, "Unit X landed on Planet Mongo 23 September where they fought Unit ABC, pushing them off the planet by 5 October."
Fourth and last, I have a deadline. With Battlecorps stories, I can take six months to work on a story. Sourcebooks have a deadline, in this case, March. 11,000 - 12,000 words in several different sections. It's a challenge, one I want to take on. That means most of my efforts are geared toward working things out.
Once the product comes out, I'll point out what I wrote and why. But for now, I have to get back to work!!
Craig
Wednesday, February 8, 2012
Ardath Frances Hurst Mayhar (1930 - 2012)
Battletech fans lost one of the early pioneers in Batteltech fiction. Ardath Mayhar, author of The Sword and the Dagger has passed away Febuary 1, 2012, at the age of 81.
She holds a special place in Battletech history as the author of the one of the first battletech novels, The Sword and the Dagger. This novel, along with the Star League sourcebook, are considered by some as Battletech's holy grail.
The Sword and the Dagger is important in that it lays the groundwork for the Fourth Sucessor War, introduces Hanse Davion and Ardan Sortek. It's not as polished as later novels, but this was the second Battletech novel published (Though it may have been the first one commisioned.) and may things Battletech fans take for granted hadn't been settled yet. But its still an important novel, for it contrants and its history. This is the first of what would become the "Spine" novels, where the major event, the backbone of battletech history are laid out.
In an essay she wrote for the Battlecorps site, she said she was given the novel to write after the two authors who had been assigned the novel, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, left when a better deal came up. Given a packet and the plot synopsis. She read the and realized she needed to change some things. So, she did. With help from Walter Keith (William Keith, maybe?) to write the fight scenes involving personal weapons (As the information package didn't have anything on those weapons), she wrote the story of Hanse Davion, his double, and Hanse's loyal friend, Ardan Sortek.
But to just talk about Mrs. Mayher's Battletech work would be an injustice. She was an author with over sixty novels to her name, under several different pen names in genres ranging from science fiction to horror to young adult to historical to westerns. Go to http://books.ofearna.us/mayhar/books.html to see her output.
When she wasn't writing, she owned and operated The View from Orbit Bookstore in Nacogdoches with her husband Joe until his death in 1999, after which she sold the store.
I have The Sword and the Dagger, but I haven't read it in a while. I'll see if I can find an afternoon and change that.
Craig
She holds a special place in Battletech history as the author of the one of the first battletech novels, The Sword and the Dagger. This novel, along with the Star League sourcebook, are considered by some as Battletech's holy grail.
The Sword and the Dagger is important in that it lays the groundwork for the Fourth Sucessor War, introduces Hanse Davion and Ardan Sortek. It's not as polished as later novels, but this was the second Battletech novel published (Though it may have been the first one commisioned.) and may things Battletech fans take for granted hadn't been settled yet. But its still an important novel, for it contrants and its history. This is the first of what would become the "Spine" novels, where the major event, the backbone of battletech history are laid out.
In an essay she wrote for the Battlecorps site, she said she was given the novel to write after the two authors who had been assigned the novel, Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, left when a better deal came up. Given a packet and the plot synopsis. She read the and realized she needed to change some things. So, she did. With help from Walter Keith (William Keith, maybe?) to write the fight scenes involving personal weapons (As the information package didn't have anything on those weapons), she wrote the story of Hanse Davion, his double, and Hanse's loyal friend, Ardan Sortek.
But to just talk about Mrs. Mayher's Battletech work would be an injustice. She was an author with over sixty novels to her name, under several different pen names in genres ranging from science fiction to horror to young adult to historical to westerns. Go to http://books.ofearna.us/mayhar/books.html to see her output.
When she wasn't writing, she owned and operated The View from Orbit Bookstore in Nacogdoches with her husband Joe until his death in 1999, after which she sold the store.
I have The Sword and the Dagger, but I haven't read it in a while. I'll see if I can find an afternoon and change that.
Craig
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