Okay, I'm writing this a few days before
Icons of War is out, but won't be posting it until after the novel is out. If you haven't read the Back Cover Copy, here it is:
Symbols of Power
After the Word of Blake exacts an incalculable toll on Clan
Wolf, Elemental warrior Garmen Kerensky is tasked by Wolf Khan Vlad Ward to undertake
an audacious, top-secret mission in the Clan Homeworlds. While other covert teams
help the Wolves evacuate Clan Space, Garmen’s command will steal the most
prized relic of Clan history: the body of the Great Father, Commanding General
Aleksandr Kerensky, Garmen’s ancestor. But the father of the Clans’ founder is
entombed aboard the McKenna’s Pride, a Star League-era WarShip in
permanent geosynchronous orbit above the Clans’ capital city, a staunchly
guarded vessel that will take ingenuity, a warrior’s spirit, and more than a
little luck to reach.
Stealing his ancestor’s remains is a tall order under normal
circumstances, but the Homeworld Clans are on the verge of open warfare with
each other, and this mission threatens to blow Clan society apart entirely. As
the elite warrior guards of the Ebon Keshik hunt Garmen, he and his hardened team
must navigate the intrigue of the shadowy Dark Caste to have any hope of
reaching the Pride alive. But no plan ever survives enemy contact, and
Garmen must overcome the forces arrayed against him or risk forever losing the Great
Father’s body to the chaos and destruction of the Clans’ internal warfare.
So, when John Helfers, Catalyst's Director of Fiction, IMed me with the an offer of writing
Icons, I took it. He asked how many words would I need for it, and I, like an idiot, told him 20,000 words....
Blaine Pardoe (who had the original idea) told me that stories will take all the words they need, and Icons fits that. I had gone in, expecting Icons to be a novella (20,000 words) But Icons, for several reasons, refused to fit into a novella. Instead, it has become a short novel, nearly 50,000 words, and it could have been much longer. While it mostly takes place long before IlKhan, it has a direct tie-in with a major event that occurs in Children of Kerensky.
After actually digging into the background (Note to would be BT authors: RESEARCH!) , I realized that was optimistic in the word count. First the body is on a battleship, in orbit over the Clan's capital city; accessible, it isn't. Second, I could not see Vlad Ward ordering a team into post-War of Reaving Clan Space. Six years of no knowledge of what was happening. During the Jihad? That don't make sense, as the Wolf Clan is fighting for its life, and in that case, is retreating a dead body high on their list? Also, if Vlad wanted the body, why wait until years later to do it? the Wolves have been Abjured, they had no assets or intelligence left in the Clan Homeworlds. That approach I couldn't see working. If Vlad wanted all the Kerensky Legacies, he's do it all at once. That's why the story starts in 3071.
Of course, there were other problems: the McKenna's Pride itself. It was used by the Grand Council in Clan Steel Viper's Trial of Annihilation in 3075. It was also used as a meeting place for the Grand Council for a while -- which meant heavy security. With the War of Reaving exploding through Clan Space, security was going to be tight in the Stana Metchy system. So I took the long approach when building the plot -- a plot-line that covered several years. I had to gloss over a few years, but I do have a few pieces lying around that might be enough for a short story that takes place doing those years I skipped. Maybe in a future issue of Shrapnel....
If I has to describe the story, I would say it was a heist story (maybe the wildest one in Battletech history), a love story, a story of revenge and redemption, and a story about duty and going up against the odds. It sets up events that play out sometime in the future (when I don't know), and answers a couple of questions about the Dark Age/IlKhan era that have been hanging around for a few years.
Writing this was tough, but rewarding. It forced me to bone up on things like Jump drives, WarShips, and space combat. It also allowed me to take a look at Clan Homeworld Society before and during the War of Reaving. It also allowed me to expand on areas of Clan Homeworld Society, like the Dark Caste, the Free Guilds, and the Ebon Keshik -- all had some information out there, but nothing like I created for this novel.
An impossible mission and I hope you will find it a wild ride and a unique story, with characters that are engaging and interesting. I had the honor of writing in an area of time and space that hadn't been explored before in any Battletech fiction. It was both scary and thrilling to create and expand on things that hadn't been really looked at. While I had a couple of anchor points from sourcebooks, most of what I created was taking a reference here, a line there, and expanding on them into fully realized aspects that some people won't expect.
If you have any questions, post them here or on the Battletech forum; I will do my best to answer them.
Later!
