(From Bullets,
Books and Bylines: a blog about mercenary
literature; Galatea InfoWeb, 3144)
Bad Blood: The Roughneck
Chronicles, by Colin Raymond. Red Letter Press, 3108. 307 pages. Non-Fiction
(allegedly)
Probably unsurprisingly, there's plenty of
(more or less) autobiographical works by mercenaries who fought in the Jihad.
With the near death of the industry in its aftermath, making the most of your experiences
and trying to earn a few C-Bills off of it would seem to be a good idea.
However, this stuff is almost entirely written from the perspective of those
who fought against the Word of Blake and their allies. There's very little
written from the other side, largely because those mercenaries in the Word's employ
tended to end up dead.
So when I found today's book, I was intrigued.
Bad Blood: The Roughneck Chronicles bills itself as
'one Mercenary's harrowing tale of the struggles of the Jihad' and 'offering a
unique perspective of the conflict from the point of view of a mercenary employed
by the Word of Blake." I must admit that I was immediately lured in by
said blurb; the fact that I had never once heard of this book before also
caught my attention. Oh, and I also fund it at a flea market in a 'three for a
C-Bill' box, so if nothing else, it was cheap.
The book was written by one Collin Raymond
of Raymond's Roughnecks, a unit that, yes, did indeed fight for the Word of
Blake during the Jihad. The Raymond family created the unit and ran it for
(almost) all of its existence, and Collin himself was second in line to inherit
the command after his older brother Bruce. (I did five seconds worth of
research before starting; trust me, it paid off). Obviously, that never
happened, but we'll get to that later.
The book opens with a history of the unit,
largely skimming over its formation in the late 30th century and its early
years, Where it begins to decompress the narrative is at a key moment in the
unit's history in 3015. At the time, the Roughnecks, under the command of Major
Clifton Raymond were working for the FWLM alongside another command, Magyari's
Irregulars. During a raid onto Ford, Magyari's unit overextended, got
themselves into trouble against a superior Lyran force and had to fall back.
Flustered and looking for someone to blame
other then herself, Sel Magyari accused Raymond of deliberately deserting her
unit to face the music, and accused him of cowardice and breach of contract.
The matter escalated to the FWLM liaison and then the MRB. Magyari, a sleazy
manipulator who was implied to have slept with one of them members of the
review board, managed to win a victory that cleared her of all blame, trashed
the Roughnecks' name and reputation and made sure that they would be stuck
working periphery contracts for the next twenty years. It also resulted in an ongoing
feud between the two commands that would come back to haunt them both.
Or, at least that's the way the book tells
it.
I was intrigued by this and did another five
seconds of research. What Colin Raymond didn't mention was that Clifton Raymond
treated Magyari with contempt from the moment they met, belittling her age,
lack of experience and the fact that her command was smaller than his. He also
didn't mention that there was at least one incident between his troops and hers
where they came to blows. Nor did he mention the radio transcripts that were
entered into evidence at the MRB hearing showing that Raymond's command deliberately
abandoned Magyari's in the field and left them to face a superior Lyran force
on their own. Oops.
And while obviously there's no real evidence
to suggest his dispersions on Sel Magyari's character, the fact that she was
clearly the victim of Raymond's deserting her in the field and thus breaching
their FWLM contract would seem to suggest that maybe she didn't need to unduly
influence the outcome. Hm.
This trend continues throughout the book
whenever Magyari and her command comes up. Another good example is Sel's
"murder" of Clifton on Turin in 3035. What actually happened was that
Raymond's Battlemaster took a hit to the cockpit that killed him in
the middle of a battle. Or, in other words, your basic battlefield occurrence
that happens all the time.
There's a bit of a side trip then to talk
about Colin's early life, his parents, his older brother, his upbringing and so
on. There's some meat to this if you want to know what day to day life was like
in a fringe unit of the time, but it doesn't really add much and, frankly,
there are other better books to read on the subject. I also couldn't help but
notice that I was now a third of the way in to the book and we weren't anywhere
near the Jihad. I hardly even felt haorrowed. Could it be that the back cover
blurb had lied to me?
Despite this, I pressed on, a fontal charge
into the text! Most of it was set-up talking about how the Roughnecks worked in
the Chaos March during the 3050s and 60s, which is when the Word of Blake
finally (!) entered into the narrative (and yes, now well past the half-way
mark). Even then it was less a tale of intrigue and manipulation and dirty
deeds done for cheap as it was that the Word bought ought the Roughneck's
contract like they did so many other units in the region at the time. Yes, the
Roughnecks were lured and seduced by the word's siren song of generous pay,
salvage and technological upgrades just like dozens of other commands. What a
twist!
Where it (finally!) gets interesting is in
the mid 3060s. By this point, the Roughnecks have been under the command of
Nina Raymond (daughter of Clifton, mother of Bruce and Collin) for twenty years
which has seen them slowly claw back from the brink. And while Nina was working
for the Word, until this point their actions had been largely normal stuff that
any mercenary command did. If you're looking for lurid tales of burning down
orphanages or kicking puppies, look elsewhere!
The big change occurs in early 3065 when
Nina Raymond is diagnosed with the ironically coincidentally named Raymond
Kens' Syndrome. A stupidly rare medical condition (We're talking one person in
billions here) it is untreatable and leads eventually to a long, drawn-out and excruciatingly
painful death. Collin claims that the Word took advantage of her vulnerable
state to manipulate her to their own ends, getting her to sign to a new
contract which would have them commit dastardly acts. To further seduce her,
they promised Nina a chance to avenge the wrongs committed against her family.
The fiends!
And now I was actually interested, even
though the book was nearly three-quarters done. But egads, we were finally
going to get to the promised harrowing tales of the Jihad. Thank you BBLtRC,
you delivered more or less! And I feverishly threw myself into the book
with renewed vigor, eager to see what would happen as the unit were sent on
their first assignment to... the Circrinus Federation?
Don't get me wrong; we all know that the
Federation was a part of the Word's military machine. However, until the bitter
end, its involvement in the Jihad was largely peripheral (Pun unintended but
inevitable) and as a base of operations and sometime distraction, not a key
player. I was expecting dark tales of the early, confused days of the Jihad
when nobody knew what was going on, or those final bitter moments when those in
the Word's employ often fought to the death because they had no other options.
I felt significantly un-harrowed.
Instead, the Roughnecks were used as a part
of a false-flag operation to escalate tensions between the Rim Commonality and
the Marian Hegemony. This was aimed at giving the Word's enemies something else
to focus on while further spreading confusion across the Inner Sphere. And
don't get me wrong, it's definitely devious and something that hasn't had much
written about, especially not from this perspective., It’s also such an excruciatingly
minor part of the Jihad as to barely count.
The Word had been able to con poor Nina into
doing this through one simple way. Magyari's Irregulars were one of the units
in the Commonality at the time, and the World suggested that this would be a
chance for her to finally get revenge for her father's humiliation and death before
she keeled over herself. That seems to have been enough for Nina (whom Colin consistently
paints as a confused victim who was not fully aware of what she was doing.
Interestingly enough, Raymond Kens' Syndrome doesn't affect the patient's
mental faculties) who gleefully leaped at the chance.
And so the Roughnecks helped plant a bomb
that killed Jelek Magyari, (Sel's son and the unit's then current commander) as
well as a number of other key members of the Campoleone military command. While
they were off-balance, the Roughnecks struck the planet in force, disguised as
members of the Marian II Legio. However, the Irregulars were able to rally and
repel the invaders, largely thanks to Annika Magyari's inspired leadership and
more than a little luck. (Colin did little to trash her, possibly because he
felt bad about beating up on a twenty year old girl who had just lost her
father. Maybe).
In the process, the Irregulars were able to
capture Collin, and positively identify him. He was imprisoned by the
Campoleone authorities and remained there for the next seven years.
Wait, what? Yes, that's right, Collin's
'harrowing tale of fighting in the Jihad' is the truth but only by the thinnest
of margins. Colin himself spent the entire Jihad in prison, seeing very little
action, and had next to no direct contact with the Word of Blake themselves.
You lied to me, cover blurb!
And that’s the thing. I could have got a
more accurate and involved depiction of the life of a Mercenary employed by the
Word of Blake from one of Sonia Brie's 'so bad they're amazing' novels. And
they're fiction. Silly fiction at that written by an author who didn't even
strive for accuracy. Collin Raymond was about as involved in the Jihad as a
mud-farmer on Okefenokee, and the latter didn’t try to write a book about it (true,
they're also probably functionally illiterate, buuuuut...).
There's a bit of 'whatever happened to'
piffle at the end which reveals that the Roughnecks were destroyed in 3075,
with Nina Raymond dying in battle. And for what it’s worth, the unit did fight
alongside Word forces in the Protectorate and in operations elsewhere in
the Inner Sphere in actions that would
make for moderately harrowing reading. Of course, we again run into the whole
'oh and they're all dead' problem which means that we'll never know the
details.
So in summary: The book fails to live up to
its basic premise, with the Jihad being more of an afterthought then the meaty
chunks we were promised. It's also riddled with historical inaccuracies in
order to paint the narrator, his family and their unit as victims who had little
choice but to do what they had to. It's not even entertainingly bad, given that
this is supposed to be non-fiction/autobiography/historical/something. About
the only good point is a few photos included that might be of some interest to
those who are huge fans of obscure defunct mercenary commands or the like.
That's enough to push it up to one star.
If you really, really want to read about a
Mercenary Command who fought for the Word during the Jihad, I' recommend Sonia
Brie's Dangerous Acquaintances.
It's fiction, but at least it’s a fun read. Plus you get Mercenary Bad Boy
Alex Wilson bonking everything in sight, which is a fun bonus.
Should you take leave of your senses and
actually want to find a copy, well, good luck. It appears that BB:tRC
was a dog on release, and that was thirty years ago. It's been out of print
since then in both physical and electronic formats, but I have no doubt that
there are copies circulating around somewhere. Check flea markets, mercenaries
selling off personal assets to cover debts and whatever you're using to prop up
old furniture.
About the Author: Colin Raymond was
a mercenary MechWarrior and was a part of Raymond's Roughnecks. Born
in 3038, he was an active mercenary from 3057 to 3068. During that time he
piloted several 'Mechs including a Warhammer. He spent the
entire Jihad in prison, before being transferred to another prison in the
Republic. Released in 3105, he wrote a single turkey of a book, the review of which
you just read. He died in 3113, having lived his last years in poverty. That's
about it. If you want more, read the book as I can't really add anything.
Today's references (if
only I can say that I did more research then the author ever did):
Raymond's Roughnecks vs
MRB; Mercenary Review and Bonding Commission Archives, 3016
"Known Word of Blake affiliated commands";
MRBC Update 01-06-3071; Mercenary Review
and Bonding Commission Archives, 3071
Dumont, J.P.Z; "Raymond Kens Syndrome;
a comprehensive discussion and medical history"; New
Avalon Medical Journal, Vol XXXII, p317-396
Wyakambi, L. "Raymond's
Roughnecks"; Mercenary Commands of the
31st Century; Galatea Free Press, 3105
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