Into the Storm
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Average rating3.7
Pressed into service when World War II breaks out in the Pacific, the USS Walker -- a Great-War vintage "four-stacker destroyer" finds itself in full retreat from pursuit by Japanese battleships. Its captain, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Patrick Reddy, knows that he and his crew are in dire straits. In desperation, he heads Walker into a squall, hoping it will give them cover -- and emerges somewhere else. Familiar landmarks appear, but the water teems with monstrous, vicious fish. And there appear to be dinosaurs grazing on the plains of Bali. Gradually Matt and his crew must accept the fact that they are in an alternate world -- and they are not alone. Humans have not evolved, but two other species have. And they are at war. With its steam power and weaponry, the Walker's very existence could alter the balance of power. And for Matt and his crew, who have the means to turn a primitive war into a genocidal Armageddon, one thing becomes clear. They must decide whose side they're on. Because whoever they choose to side with is the winner.
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11 primary booksDestroyermen
Destroyermen is a 11-book series with 13 primary works first released in 2008 with contributions by Taylor Anderson.
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During the Second Battle of the Java Sea, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy and the crew of the destroyer USS Walker have been ordered to pull out of the Philippines. As they attempt to flee with several other Allied Navy ships, they???re attacked by the Japanese. The Allied ships are sunk, one by one, until only USS Walker and the crippled USS Mahan are left. When the huge Japanese battlecruiser Amagi shows up with its Kamikazes, Captain Reddy knows they???re ... Read More: http://www.fantasyliterature.com/reviews/into-the-storm/
I tried this book with some scepticism. There seem to be so many sf novels out there in which Americans, either military or at least armed, boldly go where no man has gone before, and shoot the baddies. To an American, this may seem a very natural kind of book to write or read; but I'm not an American, and it starts to feel a bit samey.Nevertheless, I enjoyed the story well enough; it's competently written and at least different in detail from all the other vaguely similar ones. The situation and the personality of the ship's captain reminded me vaguely of [b:The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream 1258132 The Ship That Sailed the Time Stream G.C. Edmondson https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1328310249s/1258132.jpg 1246947], but the details are certainly different.This is not a time-travel story but an alternative-world story, and rather unusually it's to an alternative world that split from ours a very long time ago, so that evolution has populated the world with a somewhat different set of species. I rather like the lemur-descended creatures who make friends with the marooned humans in their battered old destroyer; although they're not an imaginative fictional creation. They're physically rather short and equipped with fur and tails, but their mentality seems human.The baddies here are the all-devouring merciless lizards, who again seem mentally human, though single-mindedly evil. I suppose it simplifies a story to have baddies that are just bad through and through, but it's unsubtle. In principle I prefer baddies who seem more like normal people.
