by the fans for the fans

I second the stuff about Leonard. One of the things I really hate about the novels is McKinney's desire to explore the sex lives of Robotech characters. Having Leonard be a pedophile is silly, and I did not need to know that Rick lost his virginity to his cousin.

Leonard was probably the best military leader of the series, so it's not right to call him illegitimate, especially since the ASC was made official by the UEF.

I do think you could call him xenophobic to an extent, but after all, this was a man who survived the Rain of Death. He rallied human survivors and saw the destruction wrought by the Zentraedi, only to see more during the Malcontent Uprisings. Then, of course, the Robotech Masters arrived... So I don't blame him having trouble trusting aliens.

Leonard always seemed to do what he thought was best for Earth, so he had noble intentions. But his hawkish nature, I think, possibly lengthened the Second Robotech War since he refused to seek any means of peace. Not that I think he should have tried to negotiate with the Robotech Elders, but it's clear the average Tiresian and Zor Prime didn't want the war and sympathized with humanity, so perhaps Leonard could have alligned with them.

Other than those qualms, I definitely think Leonard was a better tactician than Gloval, Admiral Hunter, and anybody else as depicted in the series. He definitely deserved more respect in the novels.

Veritech_IDEON wrote:

so it's not right to call him illegitimate, especially since the ASC was made official by the UEF.

Well, it was not made official in the Tv series, it WAS official. The Narrator in Metal Fire explicitly calls it the Army of the United Earth Forces (making it a Service Branch, not a Combatant Command). The REF, on the other hand, is said to be composed of different unit types, not the least of which is Army units (which would have to be ASC, since its THE Army), making it a Combatant Command ala US Central Command.

It's hard to figure the novels. Some components are really good and then they just seemed to go too far off on a tangent where they shouldn't have.

Seriously & interestingly enough, the Masters trilogy books are the best, most in depth & interesting of all RT novelizations. If we can just ignore the cultist overtones & thinking caps & move beyond that, the Masters novel trilogy has far better intense space naval confrontations, back door conspiracies, fleshed out Masters dark intentions & purposes, the feudalism that creeping back into human society .... the depth of maturity that set Masters saga apart from Macross or New Gen novels.

Its far darker, mature & more realistic outlook of humanity struggle against the very Overlords of Robotechnology!

I'm still slowly makeing my way through the novels. Once again while I really do enjoy them and some of the wholes plugged in the series with it I do still find it somewhat annoying at times with some of the added stuff.

Yeah i'm not quiet to the Masters novel just yet. I'm only on the second book. I have never had the entire Masters DVD set or any of the new Gen (hence i will admit that i really don't know much if anything at all about NG ) So my novels are really the only thing i have to get that story.

Something i do really like though is the backstory on how the SDF-1 got lost to begin with. Showing that the Zent's are actually combat capable is nice. The Series really dosen't illustrate it very well.

The story about the discovery and initial exploaration of the Crashed ship was also very interesting and could have a whole novel all to itself. Rick seems more sensible in the novel then the series as well.

It may not be on topic here but my absolute favorite Macross saga based story will always be Attention On Deck though. Tops my recommended reading list.