Mechwarrior: Dark Ages #29 - The Last Charge: ** 1/2 (out of 4)

(I'm going to start posting reviews of the various Mechwarrior: Dark Ages novels, as I read them; I've been posting them on Amazon for a while, but that

The Last Charge is the most focussed of the MW:DA novels for a while. readily summed up in two paragraphs or so. This makes the book somewhat difficult to review without spoilers, so I'll leave it to one sentence of background:

The Marik-Stewart Commonwealth stands at the brink of destruction, as 
three overwhelming military forces (two Lyran, one Wolf) continue to 
press their already-overwhelming invasion into the former Free Worlds 
League.  

The players are fairly one-dimensional, perhaps worrisomely so, especially in light of previous novels where they were much more rounded and interesting. Anson Marik is a bully of a leader; Vedet Brewster is an overbearing, incompetent military leader; Alaric Wolf is overwhelmingly militarily competent; and so forth. And the story is one dimensional as well, telling the simple story of the fall of a few planets and some hit- and-run tactics. But they play against each other fairly well; and out of that, there is a story worth reading, at least for the Battletech fan.

** 1/2