Forever Faithful -- The New Beginning of the Novel Line

Forever Faithful is the new Battletech novel, written by senior veteran Battletech writer, Blaine Lee Pardoe. While it isn't a Dark Age novel, it does flesh out some events leading up to several Dark Age events. I won't get into spoilers here, but there is a lot of groundwork about a certain group and the final fates of several characters from the Twlight of the Clans series are given their due.

As I have said before, the Jihad suffered from the lack of novels. The main reason was because it was caught in the gulf between FASA and Wizkids -- Wizkids wanted a new start, so they had a "Jihad" and moved the timeline forward sixty years. Fanpro, then later on, Catalyst Game Labs, had to take the Jihad and flesh it out. With the novels in limbo (In a legal sense, I think, but don't quote me on that.), the Jihad had to be explored through sourcebooks, short stories, and other products. The closest we got to a Jihad-era novel was Embers of War by Jason Schmitzer, which is set at the very beginning of the Jihad.

But Brent Evens, Battletech's Lead Developer, decided to concentrate on the IlClan era. And leading the way for this new era of Battle, the 35th anniversary of the game, would be the fiction. Novels and novellas would fill in the events around Shattered Fortress and IlClan, to take the Universe forward into the new era. (I still have no knowledge of any short stories plans. All I've heard is rumor, and even if I knew, I couldn't say anything.)

On a personal level, I hope that one day, Catalyst will go back and fill in the Jihad and some of the other eras with no novels or novellas. There are so many rich events that had yet to be written about in fiction. The Reunification War, The Amaris Civil War, the First and Second Succession Wars are untapped sources of stories that are the equal of any we've already seen. I, however, see Brent's reasoning. The need to fully flesh out the new era is the priority, and with this being the 35th year.

But Blaine isn't done. he has a novella and another novel that will get things rolling in this new era. I don't know when they'll be out, but I betting around Gencon. After that, I don't know.

But I don't want to neglect the two novellas that  came out at last year's Gencon. Blane Pardoe's The Anvil and Phil Lee's A Splinter of Hope. Both cover events written about in Shattered Fortress and gives depth to those events.

Brent has said that fiction was the driving force of Battletech in the past, and he wants to see the fiction driving the new era. I hope to be one of those who does the driving and I do have one or two Battletech projects that might see the light of day one of these days.

In the meantime, some of my stories are out there -- In the Battletech anthology Legacy I have a story, as well as the soon-to-be widely released Battlecorps Anthology 6: Front Lines. Hopefully other Battlecorps anthologies will be released.

In the meantime, I had a good month of February writing-wise, exceeding my monthly goal by almost two thousand words. Most of that was involved in related Battletech products I'm working on, mostly speculative as to whether or not they'll ever see the light of day as official products.

So, that's it for now. Trying to write blog posts isn't easy and I know little about what's going behind the scene is so little to begin with and what little I do know is covered by my NDA, so even if I knew anything juicy, I couldn't say anything. That's how it goes....

Later!

Craig