Sunday, July 19, 2015

Book Review: Deadly Shores by Taylor Anderson



I’ve just finished reading the tenth book in Taylor Anderson’s Destroyermen series, Deadly Shores.  

The long-running series of novels follows the adventures of the elderly “four-stacker” destroyer USS Walker, her skipper, Matthew Reddy her crew, who are stranded on a parallel earth, and their new friends and allies who are fighting a two-front war against the lizard-like Grik, the Holy Dominion, plus the crazed Japanese naval officer Kurokawa and his crew.

If that makes for a very long sentence, it  also makes for an extremely succinct synopsis of a series that has now grown to cover ten novels (eleven, if you count Straits of Hell, available as of this writing in hardcover) and won countless readers.  If you can think of the series as equal parts Edgar Rice Burroughs and World War Two, you kind of get the gist of things. 

Deadly Shores finds Reddy about the launch the much-anticipated “great raid” against the Grik stronghold on Madagascar, ancestral home to Reddy’s Lemurian allies.  Without going too much into detail  – danger: spoilers ahead – personal agendas among the allies cause Reddy’s raid to spiral dangerously out of control, leaving Reddy and the Walker literally high and dry, fighting off the savage Grik hordes.

And there is action. Loads of action to satisfy any fan. There are grand sweeping battle scenes, well crafted by Taylor, who does his usual excellent job of moving the plot along.  New alliances are cemented and new enemies are introduced.  If you’re a fan of the series, like I am, there’s not much to complain about and much to like.  Maybe, there should be a bit more about the fighting on the Dominion front – but I’m willing to give Taylor the benefit of the doubt here.  As to the eventual climax of the series – I keep marveling at Taylor’s ability to keep a handle on both his multiple plots and characters – and I will eagerly watch as things build to a resolution.  

If you’re not familiar with the series, but like your war novels served with a side of the fantastic, I heartily recommend Destroyermen.

Meanwhile, you can help out a poor unemployed writer by purchasing Elvis Saves JFK! for just 99 cents and War Plan Crimson, A Novel of Alternate History, for $2.99 and now The Key to My Heart, also $2.99 (all are free to preview). All books -- which are already on Smashword's premium distribution list -- are also available through such fine on-line retailers such as Sony, Chapters Indigo, Barnes & Noble and Apple's iTunes Store.   Thanks.