BattleTech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction
“It all began in 1984.” So begins BattleTech: 25 Years of Art & Fiction, a 304-page, full color remembrance and salute to the fantastic art, written material and computer games that have been created within the BattleTech world. Twenty-five years ago, FASA Corporation published a game intended on capitalizing on the anime interest that was building the US. Today that game and universe are still extremely popular to explore. This book, published by Catalyst Game Labs, provides a retrospective into the history of the BattleTech game. It features more than just gorgeous artwork spanning the game’s history; it also has a complete bibliography of all of the game sets, supplements, video games and novels. It also includes brand new fiction written by several popular BattleTech novelists, including Michael Stackpole and Robert Charrette.
The book begins with an introduction and overview of the BattleTech universe and the subject matter of the game – the Battlemech. The BattleTech universe spans a futuristic 1050 year “history” where Mankind has populated the stars, living through the height of a star-faring civilization and the low points of constant, ceaseless war. The Introduction highlights the main warring factions, gives a brief overview of the history and the Battlemech itself, 30 to 100 ton war machines that can bring death and destruction on a scale almost unimaginable by today’s military standards. The book then gives a timeline drawn from the official BattleTech universe canon, which the BattleTech games and novels have contributed to. Following this timeline can be difficult as it’s given in a very terse format. Most of the dates are not covered by the books/games, but the effort made to put a “flow” to the future is entertaining.
The next 200 pages of the book mix new fiction by BattleTech authors with artwork from the various publications throughout the BattleTech history. The stories range from the first era covered by BattleTech, the years from 3025 to 3050 with the Fourth Succession War, to the Invasion of the Clans and then to the Dark Ages and beyond. The artwork is fascinating to look at, as the “old school” style is mixed in with more modern artwork. I found myself flipping back and forth, almost ignoring the fiction to simply “read the book” through the artwork.
In speaking of the artwork, this book has not been without some controversy, as Catalyst Game Labs has struggled with a long-running issue in the BattleTech Universe. In the 1990s, FASA ceased using the visual representations of several Battlemechs due to legal issues, including the popular Rifleman, Warhammer, Phoenix Hawk and Marauder ‘mechs. Initially, Catalyst Games believed they had ironed out the issue for publication of this book, but a blog post on Catalyst Game Labs’ website told a different story:
“But at the end of that court case, as part of a confidential settlement, it was agreed that the sole and exclusive world-wide right to these images (outside of Japan) would rest with another US company. It is for this reason that we have chosen to revise our plans to publish these specific images in current product. Though we spoke with a number of individuals before making our initial decision, no one involved in Catalyst was aware of this agreement. Still, the owner to these images has been very cool with us about the whole situation. They are a good group of people, and we will continue our attempts to work with them as we look toward the future.”
The book then briefly covers the “Dark Ages” period of the BattleTech universe, which used the WizKids Clix game system in the form of the MechWarrior CMG. This period of history takes BattleTech in a new direction, as most technology has now been lost and the means of interstellar communication has been sabotaged. The final sections of the book cover the range of video games produced for BattleTech, from the “Crescent Hawks Inception” RPG to the popular Mechwarrior series and the Battletech Virtual Reality Pods that travel to conventions and can still be found in some locations around the world. The book finishes with a complete bibliography of the BattleTech Universe game sets, books and all of the novels published. It’s quite an impressive list and you’re left with a grand view of how big a single game has become.
Overall, this book is gorgeous. The artwork is amazing in its scope and completeness – I saw artwork that I remembered seeing back in 1985. The sheer scale of the BattleTech Universe is hard to capture but I think this book does a good job of doing it. I have mixed feelings about the fiction, however. As an overview of the BattleTech history and timeline, it does an adequate job of capturing the various feels and flavors of BattleTech, but it felt disjointed to some extent. There was a good representation of all the ages, but I think a more logical approach would have been to put them in chronological order to fit the timeline and give someone a perspective over time and story subject. Some of the stories were quite good, others were not, but I’m sure that’s partially a taste in authors and delivery. There is sure to be something for everyone in the fiction.
As a product to buy, this is definitely for the BattleTech enthusiast – if you are one, you should not be without it. It makes a nice reference and it would be a fascinating tool for someone who wants to learn more about the Battletech Universe as well as gain inspiration for their own BattleTech scenarios or Mechwarrior RPG adventures. The artwork alone is amazing and represents the real reason to buy this book. Someone unfamiliar with BattleTech may not appreciate it enough to purchase it, but I think this book will definitely make anyone browsing its pages interested and excited about the BattleTech Universe.