About Jason Schmetzer

I have been writing BattleTech fiction since the late 1990s. Novels, novellas, short stories, sourcebooks, anthologies. More than a hundred published works through Catalyst Game Labs and its predecessors, spanning every major era from the Succession Wars to the ilClan.

My most recent book is The Longest Day, a Clan Invasion-era novella about mercenaries on Virentofta facing Clan Smoke Jaguar for the first time. Before that: the Gray Death Rising anthology, which chronicles the rebirth of the Gray Death Legion in the ilClan period. Redemption Rites, an ilClan-era novel about the rebuilding of Wolf’s Dragoons after the Battle of Terra. Blood Will Tell, set in the Capellan Confederation during the Dark Age. Redemption Rift, a Dark Age novel about Wolf’s Dragoons and the Draconis Combine fighting side by side in the Federated Suns. Embers of War, a Jihad-era mercenary novel. And dozens of novellas and short stories published through BattleCorps and in the BattleCorps Anthology series.

I hold an MFA in fiction writing. I mention this not because a credential makes the work better, but because it shaped how I think about structure, revision, and the difference between a manuscript and a finished piece.

BattleCorps Managing Editor

From May 2008 through early 2016, I served as managing editor of BattleCorps, the official BattleTech fiction website. BattleCorps published original short fiction, novellas, and scenarios set in the BattleTech universe, and during my tenure it was the primary outlet for new canonical BattleTech fiction between major novel releases.

The job meant reading thousands of submissions, working with dozens of authors, and making editorial decisions about what fit the canon and what didn’t. It also meant writing my own fiction alongside the editorial work. Many of the BattleCorps stories later collected in the print anthologies (Weapons Free, Counterattack, Fire for Effect) were published during that period, and I contributed stories to several of them.

That experience is the foundation of the writing craft content on this site. When I write about how to structure a BattleTech story or what makes Shrapnel submissions work, I am drawing on years of reading what worked, what didn’t, and why.

What I Write About Here

This site exists for two reasons.

First, to help readers find their way into BattleTech fiction. The catalog is enormous (more than 200 novels and novellas across four decades), and the question of where to start is one of the most common I encounter. My recommended reading list and reading order guide are written from the perspective of someone who has worked inside the franchise, not just read it.

Second, to teach what I know about writing military science fiction in a licensed universe. The craft articles on this site cover ‘Mech combat pacing, dialogue under fire, sourcebook fiction, and the practical realities of writing inside continuity constraints that span decades of published material.

Where to Find Me Elsewhere

My full bibliography is cataloged on Sarna.net, the BattleTech wiki, and on ISFDB. My published novels and novellas are available on Amazon. Reader reviews and ratings are collected on Goodreads, where my work has accumulated over 6,500 ratings across 100+ titles.

I live in Indiana with my family. By day I work in digital marketing. The rest of the time, I write.