Berserkerbanden

Berserkerbanden
Product information
Type	Novel
Author	Lars Jirmann
Pages	290
Publication information
Publisher	Machtwort-Verlag
First published	October 2005
ISBN-10	3938271272
ISBN-13	978-3938271278
MSRP	11.00 €
Content

Berserkerbanden ("Berzerker gangs", often listed as "BattleTech Berserkerbanden") is an unauthorized German BattleTech novel. Written by Lars Jirmann, it was published by Machtwortverlag, a German publishing house that was set up in December 2001 to publish new authors.

Presumably because of its infringement on other intellectual property the novel was pulled from the market within a few days or possibly weeks of release, and only a few hundred items are thought to have been sold.

From the back cover (translated from German)

“

Jens Jirmann was born on 11.07.1987 in Leipzig and has been an avid hobby author since his fourteenth birthday. He attends the Werner Heisenberg high school in Leipzig and aims to study journalism. In his spare time, he likes to party with his community, or to sit at his computer writing. His motto is, "The whole thing, I think it's sick!" Colonel Caine Redclaw's Berserkerbande consists of still inexperienced, but highly skilled MechWarriors. It costs him much power and effort to forge them together into a coherent unit. They master their first trial-by-fire splendidly, though. However, a cruel fate awaits the Berserkerbande Trinary when they land on the jungle world Turas to search for a missing 'Mech battalion of House Steiner. On Turas, they encounter an enemy that can stand up even to the Clans in terms of brutality and firepower. But a Berserker's pugnacity is greater than his survival instinct...

”

Plot summary

After the mercenary unit Claymore's Gladiators has cleansed the periphery planet Claktoris IV of enemy presence, Trinary commander Caine Redclaw receives command of a Trinary (the eponymous Berserkerbande) made up of rookies. He is ordered to train them and forge them into a coherent strike force. To this end, and to provide his unit with real combat experience, Redclaw provokes the local Steiner militia to attack the mercenaries in earnest. The militia is vanquished with no losses.

Following this feat, the Berserkerbande is detached to the planet Kardinal, to support friendy forces against milita forces. The sole city on the hostile desert world turns out to be deserted. The Trinary again defeats their superior opponents (including a Lance from Wolf's Dragoons), and returns to Outreach.

House Steiner quickly re-hires them and sends them to the backwater world of Turas to investigate why contact was lost. The Berserkerbande finds a devastated genetic research laboratory, corpses and wrecked 'Mechs on the planet. It turns out that House Steiner bred dangerous BattleMech-sized lizards here. Called 'Berserker Dragons', they can (and do) engage 'Mechs in combat. As the Berserkerbande tries to leave the planet their DropShip is damaged. Beset by the Berserker Dragons, they have two days to recover spare parts from an outlying depot to repair their DropShip, or the JumpShip will assume them missing in action, and leave the system. Although they take losses, the Berserkerbande eventually manages to escape.

Canonicity

Berserkerbanden is effectively a commercial fan fiction (Fanon) product. Its content is entirely non-canonical and does not even qualify as apocryphal for lack of any official sanction.

The author and publisher did not obtain the legal rights to publish BattleTech material, and it was not checked for compliance with established Canon and continuity. As a result, the book does not fit into the BattleTech universe very well.

Notes

• At the time of publication, the author was 18 years old.
• The sole existing review of the book was rather scathing, giving one star (out of five) only because "it is not possible to give zero". The reviewer calls it an immature piece of fan fiction, concluding the publisher probably did not bother to proofread the manuscript. He complains about a weak story and very bad writing combined with many orthographical and grammatical errors.

References

• Besides the German Amazon review, there is this site (by the same author) dedicated to describing the book, and reviewing it in some more detail, complete with plot summary: [1]