BattleTech

The Nellus Academy Incident

By: Jennifer Brozek

Narrated by: Liisa Lee

Length: 7 hrs and 36 mins

Publisher's summary

The warriors of tomorrow...

The battlefields of the 31st century are commanded by the BattleMech, 12-meter-tall, 100-ton bipedal engines of destruction. Fought by MechWarriors, commanded by neo-feudal officers, owned by national governments and band of mercenaries, these ’Mechs make every other ground combat vehicle obsolete. This is the warfare of fusion-powered giants. This is BattleTech.

Thrust into battle today...

Allegra Greene is no stranger to the military; her father is a general, after all. But when she enters the Nellus Military Academy, she find far more than she expected. She finds a group of friends that will keep her going, challenging training, and instructors that push her to the edge and beyond. Unfortunately, that's not all she finds, and soon the endemic politics and warfare of the Inner Sphere reach the Nellus Academy. Soon, Allegra and her friends are in a life-or-death struggle to survive!

©2018, 2021 Topps, Inc. (P)2021 Topps, Inc.

Hopefully a sign of more to come in Battletech lore

While my tech rat brain is always thirsty for novelized depictions of BattleMechs where I can get them, this story is a great contribution to the canon of the wide universe of big stompy robits despite minimal Mech-scale story beats.

While some capital G gamers may feel a reflexive impulse to scoff at this next comment, I have had to consciously shrug off the fairly dated characterizations of male and female characters in the majority of Battletech novels I’ve read so far. It’s nothing awful, but at some point I’ve heard enough from brick-jawed six and a half foot paragons of manly military principle who bear the righteous burden of the swaths of people who just can’t help but follow Brickjaw’s unwavering charisma into the next battle. This story is told from an angle that most authors wouldn’t bother with in the context of the grand spectacle available to be mined from this universe’s lore, and it’s well worth your time.

The creators of Battletech managed to pull of an exercise in soft world building that makes fiction like this possible. If this is the kind of writing in store in future book releases, fans are in for a great ride.

Not what I thought.

I was expecting a YA type novel that I could listen to with my daughter. It was a much more adult oriented book than I expected, which was a pleasant surprise. If you are a fan of the mythology of Battletech, this would be for you. All in all an enjoyable listen.

it was great story

it was great story. I fall in to start and character information and great .

A good Mechwarrior-RPG book

Sometimes, it’s good to remind ourselves that mechs are supposed to be rare, remarkable war machines that very few among the trillions living in the BT universe will ever see in person. This book is built on that idea, and it tells a solid RPG-instead-of-tabletop story.

For those thinking this is YA for your kiddos, it’s as violent as the later Hunger Games books. Roughly PG-13.

As to the narrator, this was a much better performance than Blood Will Tell.

Overall, a good audiobook if you calibrate your expectations.

My new favorite Battletech author

I loved this book so much. Excellent story, fantastic characters, and the Battletech setting is richly realized. So good.

Fantastic story and a quite good reading!

Truly a marvelous story from the Battletech universe, and one that stands well on its own. highly recommended.
The one complaint I have, which I absolutely do not think detracts from the quality of the story itself, is that this recording has pauses between lines that drag on entirely too long at times. "Person A charges at the man with the gun!", three second pause, "The man with the gun was surprised by Person A's unexpected charge", three more seconds of pause, and so on. Such drawn-out pauses really killed the flow of the story, especially during suspenseful action scenes. I estimate that cutting the pauses down to smooth the story into at least a natural reading pace could remove over an hour of dead air.
That being said, I highly recommend this!

Solid story in any universe

No knowledge of BattleTech needed. This story could be set on contemporary Earth, or a fastest world; it would still be excellent.

That said, it's easily the most I've enjoyed a BattleTech story.

warning: no mechs even appear until the end, so if you think that your getting a shootemup stompy robot tale, you're not.

Not quite what you think it is.

A little context is needed here. Battletech has been around for decades in many different forms. A miniature wargame, video games, several board games, collectable card game, a mini clip games and a table top role playing game. There have also been many lawsuits, changes of IP owners and editions.

This "book" was the first novel for the latest edition of the game originally present in serial form on the Catalyst game company website before put into a book. Many might say the lack of Battlemechs is a problem until you look at the cover art. It is the same cover art for the latest edition of the table top role playing game. So this novel is supposed to support the table top role playing game and not miniature or video games.

This story should be taken more as the narrative of the game sessions of a group of teenagers playing the table top role playing game with a wide range of character types then as part of the mythology of the Battletech universe. Realizing this I enjoyed the story very much and the voice actor did a good job with the accents.

great performance

Liaise Lee brought every character to life with the reading of this work. Outstanding job.

A great Battletech rendition from a female POV

The 2 things I would suggest for future Battletech audiobooks is that Liisa Lee team up with Tren Sparkes so that they each can narrate the female and make characters respectively. And secondly, implement sound effects from the Mechwarrior video games to further enhance the listening experience.