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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 936
Location: Spain
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 Posted: 24-Aug-2025 10:51 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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I doubt anybody would be interested, but the first story has been rewritten entirely in the appropiate format and I added a lot of scenes and material and is growing as I write new scenes.
Finally is getting some attention in another forum. I would rather not be associated with Catalyst, and this forum reads better and is uncensored and works better than the other one, here's the link for anyone interested
forums.spacebattles.com/threads/the-mercenary-‘mechwarrior-and-the-comstar-nun.1243127/#post-113277548
_________________
Memento audare semper
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Vampire
Free Worlds League
Lieutenant Colonel
Joined: 05-Feb-2002 00:00
Posts: 936
Location: Spain
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| Posted: 11-Dec-2025 06:57 Post subject: I am writing Battletech fiction |
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Well I never expected thousands of visits but at least some comment from a reader that liked the Battletech world building essays throughout the narrative.
I think that's the problem with my fiction, I haven't read barely any literature but I am a late Cold War child and a history buff and war nerd. I know how military technology works better than professional soldiers, and I have read plenty of memoirs about war. Some one said in internet that "being into Battletech is the milennial dad equivalent of being heavily into WW2". I can relate to that. Historical wargames are daunting, I wanted to play Squad Leader or Panzer Leader and I ended playing Battletech because is the junk food of wargaming.
I see most of my prospective readers are American whose knowledge of war comes from Hollywood. Battletech is wargaming lite for people that have never touched a real wargame in their lives. The endless arguments about tech background issues of Battletech is because people haven't either the science and technology background of classic sci-fi fans, the Traveller nerd crowds (planetary descriptions coded in hexadecimal!) nor a basic knowledge of ballistics or armor like WW2 buffs have.
This knowledge I had was earned in the 1980s when military history book and magazines were common.The people I grew up with in the internet had learned about the WWII because their parents had served in it or they were model builders and read the books to know more about what cool airplane or tank they were building. Also, the European public was much more literate about world wars than Americans. After all Osprey publishing started in Britain.
So Battletech is a niche for a crowd that is neither kids playing Games Workshop nor the old wargamer grognards that had read a bunch of Osprey and Squadron Signal books at the very least. And newer generations don't read books anymore, just read websites, not even that anymore, just X posts. So the problem is that I am writing 1980s military sci fi when readers have been raised on the same formulaic Battletech pulp space opera novels recycled endlessly since the 1990s. I thought my fiction simply by being different and fleshed out would grab attention, but is too well done to be understood and enjoyed by a casual reader that just wants a page turner, some action and some political intrigue at best.
The dialogue, the wit, the different character registers, the moral complexity, the world building essays on how things are supposed to work, is too much for them.
I am fine with that. I am just frustrated with how few people do actually appreciate this and fewer still engage in conversation. I did get some comments after posting this in a Russian forum, but the Battletech crowd is very much the same as American gamers, so a lot of posters were hostile because apparently quite by accident I reinvented the wheel and I wrote classic Russian and Soviet literature they are sick of because they had to read in school, to me is new and original,for them they are too familiar with it.
I got into some heated off topic discussions and now my reputation is ruined and made some forum enemies that are always louder than the silent readers that liked and keep checking for updates. I am still publishing the story there since they created a subforum for it and has a loyal following of a dozen people. But this I mostly do for my enjoyment or to keep busy me through the boring office hours.
Honestly I don't know if people will enjoy the stories and the characters and the dialogue. I crack myself up, I really do, but art is about creating an emotion and it doesn't depend on me if people feel emotions about my characters. Like I said, I sabotaged myself and made my character loathsome because my personal opinions were controversial for some people, and they project them into my character, who is a different persona. It's unfair but it happened.
I really didn't expect to be a good story writer. I actually planned for that. It's my first try as a writer and I never expected to write good stories people would enjoy.
What I aimed for is writing good essays on world building explaining how the Battletech universe sci fi setting works and that we are not in Kansas anymore. The episodic nature of the story allows for enjoying those pieces without regard to plot or characters. But maybe I am mistaken. I used to think people, specially sci-fi readers, like to think, to know how thinks work. Seems most just want fantasy with lasers instead of dragons, like Star Wars.
So I have also given up in the idea of taking the essays out of the story and post them in forums. Speculative sci-fi doesn't get read anymore.
_________________
Memento audare semper
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