Take a photo of a barcode or cover
3.62 AVERAGE
3.62 AVERAGE
I enjoyed this mash-up of naval fiction with Land of the Lost alternative realities. I'd like to have seen more exploration of the dinosaur-centric world, but I think this book does a decent job of setting up the series. It was definitely good enough to get my interested in book 2, and scratched my nautical fiction itch.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
reflective
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
I would just simply say give the book a chance. I think it actually has a very unique story that I
adventurous
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Fun alternative-history navy battle story combining a WWII battleship with an alternative universe set in prehistoric times that features savage bad guys and sailing technology from the 1800s.
Great pacing with the action, interesting world-building and characters I cared about. Wanted to get to book two right away to see what happened next – and it hasn’t disappointed. Good for fans of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series (which combines Napoleonic Wars with an air force of dragon power).
Great pacing with the action, interesting world-building and characters I cared about. Wanted to get to book two right away to see what happened next – and it hasn’t disappointed. Good for fans of Naomi Novik’s Temeraire series (which combines Napoleonic Wars with an air force of dragon power).
During a battle in WW2, a pair of WW1-era destroyers enter a mysterious storm and are transported to an alternate Earth where dinosaurs never went extinct and humans never evolved. They run afoul of a ravenous civilization of intelligent dinosaurs, perhaps descended from raptors, and ally themselves with a declining race evolved from lemurs, finding themselves in war where their obsolete ships are the most advanced technological devices on the planet. The destroyers make a difference for a change... until a Japanese battleship arrives.
This is just pure widescreen fun. It's sort of a combination of Burroughs' Land That Time Forgot and the Kirk Douglas movie The Final Countdown, where a modern aircraft carrier is transported to just before Pearl Harbor. Anderson has some quirks as a writer, such as an over-reliance on ellipses, and it's not great literature, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Enough to plunge ahead to the next one immediately.
This is just pure widescreen fun. It's sort of a combination of Burroughs' Land That Time Forgot and the Kirk Douglas movie The Final Countdown, where a modern aircraft carrier is transported to just before Pearl Harbor. Anderson has some quirks as a writer, such as an over-reliance on ellipses, and it's not great literature, but I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Enough to plunge ahead to the next one immediately.
The story and the characters:
As promising as the story sounded and as well as it has been executed by Taylor Anderson, his characters didn't nearly keep up with this level. From an objective viewpoint, the story was riveting and suspenseful, introducing a lot of interesting twists and several exciting battle confrontations. Taylor Anderson spent a lot of time on the world building in this alternate Earth, as Captain Reddy (the main protagonist) and his crew entered 'another world, another war' through a squall after a naval battle with a Japanese destroyer. Two unknown creatures were established in the course of the story, the first being the Lemurians, nicknamed 'cat-monkeys' by some members of the crew and represented with a complex social background, the second being the Grik, reptil-like predators who remained mainly unknown to the protagonists and the readers due to their illustration as relentlessly and unscrupulously acting villains. Apart from this entire new world Taylor Anderson made the reader comfortable with, he didn't invest a lot of writing time into characterising his protagonists. Captain Matthew Reddy was simply the captain, confronted with life-changing choices and difficult situations, but still only the captain. A lot of minor characters, e.g. Sandra Tucker, Dennis Silva, Mr. Bradford or Jim Ellis, were one-dimensional and fairly uninteresting characters with no background and no character traits they could be reminded for. Two viewpoints were introduced in order to give further insight into the Lemurian society, which were some of the most interesting parts of the story.
The cover:
The cover is gorgeous! A lot of different colours, yet dark and gloomy. If not for the story and the characters, it is already worthwhile to just look at it.
My reading experience:
This was hard to read, as it took me nearly one month to get through this book. The font size in the edition I own is diminutive, and the scenes were described in such a detailed way it sometimes became hard to continue reading because boredom was easily arised. As the story continued, it became apparent that Taylor Anderson is a master of writing battle scenes and making the atmosphere dominating in the military feel realistic. Finally, two major plot twists smoothed the way for the second installment in the series, [b:Crusade|3698340|Crusade (Destroyermen, #2)|Taylor Anderson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1441388738s/3698340.jpg|3741852]. One thing I might want to add: Taylor Anderson should write military science fiction, not romance. Romance was present in this story as well, if only for a minor part, but it remained one of the most predictable things about this book and felt rushed at the end, although the tension between those two characters was clearly visible from the very beginning. I chose to rate the book with four stars because of its plot and its intriguing worldbuilding, although it is more like 3.5 stars.
I don't know yet whether or not I'll read "Crusade". This opening for the series Destroyermen was interesting and investing, but I usually want to read a book because I'm curious about the fates of its characters, which I am not the least after this book. Maybe I will read it one day, but at the moment I will allow the book to rest on my shelves without another companion from Taylor Anderson.
As promising as the story sounded and as well as it has been executed by Taylor Anderson, his characters didn't nearly keep up with this level. From an objective viewpoint, the story was riveting and suspenseful, introducing a lot of interesting twists and several exciting battle confrontations. Taylor Anderson spent a lot of time on the world building in this alternate Earth, as Captain Reddy (the main protagonist) and his crew entered 'another world, another war' through a squall after a naval battle with a Japanese destroyer. Two unknown creatures were established in the course of the story, the first being the Lemurians, nicknamed 'cat-monkeys' by some members of the crew and represented with a complex social background, the second being the Grik, reptil-like predators who remained mainly unknown to the protagonists and the readers due to their illustration as relentlessly and unscrupulously acting villains. Apart from this entire new world Taylor Anderson made the reader comfortable with, he didn't invest a lot of writing time into characterising his protagonists. Captain Matthew Reddy was simply the captain, confronted with life-changing choices and difficult situations, but still only the captain. A lot of minor characters, e.g. Sandra Tucker, Dennis Silva, Mr. Bradford or Jim Ellis, were one-dimensional and fairly uninteresting characters with no background and no character traits they could be reminded for. Two viewpoints were introduced in order to give further insight into the Lemurian society, which were some of the most interesting parts of the story.
The cover:
The cover is gorgeous! A lot of different colours, yet dark and gloomy. If not for the story and the characters, it is already worthwhile to just look at it.
My reading experience:
This was hard to read, as it took me nearly one month to get through this book. The font size in the edition I own is diminutive, and the scenes were described in such a detailed way it sometimes became hard to continue reading because boredom was easily arised. As the story continued, it became apparent that Taylor Anderson is a master of writing battle scenes and making the atmosphere dominating in the military feel realistic. Finally, two major plot twists smoothed the way for the second installment in the series, [b:Crusade|3698340|Crusade (Destroyermen, #2)|Taylor Anderson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1441388738s/3698340.jpg|3741852]. One thing I might want to add: Taylor Anderson should write military science fiction, not romance. Romance was present in this story as well, if only for a minor part, but it remained one of the most predictable things about this book and felt rushed at the end, although the tension between those two characters was clearly visible from the very beginning. I chose to rate the book with four stars because of its plot and its intriguing worldbuilding, although it is more like 3.5 stars.
I don't know yet whether or not I'll read "Crusade". This opening for the series Destroyermen was interesting and investing, but I usually want to read a book because I'm curious about the fates of its characters, which I am not the least after this book. Maybe I will read it one day, but at the moment I will allow the book to rest on my shelves without another companion from Taylor Anderson.
If you're a World War II book kind of person but someone who tends to avoid
science fiction, you might still give this book a closer look. I absolutely
enjoyed it as I haven't enjoyed science fiction in a while. If you are an
SF sophisticate who needs hard science that explains how something happened
or why, this one won't appeal to you. But for the rest of us, you might
truly enjoy this.
It's early 1942 as this book begins, and a beleaguered American destroyer,
hastily drug out of mothballs from its service in World War I, is in a
losing battle with a far superior Japanese fleet. In a desperate act
intended to save the lives of his crew, the captain orders the destroyer to
cruise into a large squall in an attempt to make the ship less visible to
the marauding Japanese fleet.
Ah, but how things change when they come out of the squall. The geography
seems slightly modified; the water in which they sail seems somehow
different, and suddenly there are no Japanese to worry about.
Not long after coming out of the squall on the other side, the crew realizes
that it has entered some kind of other world or a parallel universe of some
kind. Dinosaurs roam the nearby islands, and there seems to be a truly
horrific war going on between a lemur-like people and a fierce lizard-like
group. The Americans, with their superior technology, can tip the balance
of the war in favor of the lemurs, but should they? What are the
consequences? Can they afford to remain neutral? What's going to happen
when the American men, needing shore leave and the release of some pent-up
sexual energy, try to mate with the lemur-monkey combo girls? It's all
rather tricky, and the captain must maintain a balance of meeting all those
various needs while falling in love himself with one of a tiny handful of
female navy nurses who were on his destroyer at the time it crossed over.
I read this on a car trip, and it shortened my own universe big-time. The
miles ticked by in an amazing hurry, and this book kept me very much
interested. You'll read a moderate amount of profanity here; these guys are
a World War II destroyer crew, after all. There are no explicit sexual
descriptions to speak of.
science fiction, you might still give this book a closer look. I absolutely
enjoyed it as I haven't enjoyed science fiction in a while. If you are an
SF sophisticate who needs hard science that explains how something happened
or why, this one won't appeal to you. But for the rest of us, you might
truly enjoy this.
It's early 1942 as this book begins, and a beleaguered American destroyer,
hastily drug out of mothballs from its service in World War I, is in a
losing battle with a far superior Japanese fleet. In a desperate act
intended to save the lives of his crew, the captain orders the destroyer to
cruise into a large squall in an attempt to make the ship less visible to
the marauding Japanese fleet.
Ah, but how things change when they come out of the squall. The geography
seems slightly modified; the water in which they sail seems somehow
different, and suddenly there are no Japanese to worry about.
Not long after coming out of the squall on the other side, the crew realizes
that it has entered some kind of other world or a parallel universe of some
kind. Dinosaurs roam the nearby islands, and there seems to be a truly
horrific war going on between a lemur-like people and a fierce lizard-like
group. The Americans, with their superior technology, can tip the balance
of the war in favor of the lemurs, but should they? What are the
consequences? Can they afford to remain neutral? What's going to happen
when the American men, needing shore leave and the release of some pent-up
sexual energy, try to mate with the lemur-monkey combo girls? It's all
rather tricky, and the captain must maintain a balance of meeting all those
various needs while falling in love himself with one of a tiny handful of
female navy nurses who were on his destroyer at the time it crossed over.
I read this on a car trip, and it shortened my own universe big-time. The
miles ticked by in an amazing hurry, and this book kept me very much
interested. You'll read a moderate amount of profanity here; these guys are
a World War II destroyer crew, after all. There are no explicit sexual
descriptions to speak of.
Looking forward to hunting down the next books in the series. Lemurians and alternate evolutionary paths for the win!
I really enjoyed this book. I am not sure why but I went in thinking it would be a modern destroyer rather than a WWII destroyer. I am looking forward to the next book in the series. I could see reading this entire series. I had read Weapons of Choice by John Birmingham earlier in the year and I think thats why I thought this would be a more modern ship. I do not want to make any declarations about which one I liked better right after finishing one. But they are both well worth reading.