One of the most anticipated books coming out from Ragnarok Publication this year is Mecha: Age of Steel which is the spiritual successor to their Kaiju: Age of Monsters anthology. In the Kaiju novel, they celebrated giant monsters and the robots which fought them. In Mecha, however, they’re doing a wonderfully adult take on the mecha genre.
While I didn’t write any stories for the anthology, I am going to be writing an introduction for the simple fact I am a huge-huge mecha fan. Here, on Ragnarok, I’ve already posted an article which I think people will like.
“Beam Sabers, Giant Robots, and Child Pilots”
I remember when I was busing tables in high school, I got to see Gundam Wing as my first mecha anime. In retrospect, it had a lot of flaws but it had politics, depth, and amazing animated fights between gigantic robots. Much to my surprise, I found out most of my friends were already mecha fans. Some had been introduced to the genre by Robotech, Power Rangers, and Voltron: Defender of the Universe.
After I watched Gundam Wing, I devoted myself to dozens of other series and gradually familiarized myself with the tropes inherent to each. I can describe intimately the in’s and out’s of Evangelions, Zakus, Arm Slaves, Gunmen, Aestivalis, and Go-Lions. In short, in matters mecha-nical, I am the very model of a Modern Mecha General. I may not keep up with the genre quite as much as I used to but the fact Ragnarok Publications was coming out with a giant robot anthology made me know I had to be involved.
However tangentially.
I hope people enjoy.
C.T. Phipps 