Tales from the Cracked Canopy

Tales from the Cracked Canopy is a BattleTech fiction series of essentially unconnected stories sharing a common framework, a spiritual successor to the popular "Tales of the Cobalt Coil" from the BattleTechnology magazine. The name and format was originally suggested by Craig A. Reed at an informal writers group for BattleCorps, but was never adopted for BattleCorps. Instead, the first "Cracked Canopy" story—Blind Arrogance by Craig Reed—appeared in the inaugural issue of the Shrapnel magazine in 2020.

The stories revolve around the Cracked Canopy, a MechWarrior bar on Solaris VII which serves as a framing device. In the 3080s, after the Jihad era, the bar features a "Memory Wall". The individual stories usually revolve around an item on the Memory Wall and its background story as narrated by the patron who donates the item to the wall, usually within a framework story narrated in the first person by bar manager Leo.

Individual stories

• Blind Arrogance
• Giving Up
• The Razor's Edge of Opportunity
• The Red Wraith
• Shadows of the Past