Crusade

Destroyermen, Book 2

By: Taylor Anderson

Narrated by: William Dufris

Length: 15 hrs and 59 mins

Publisher's summary

Lieutenant Commander Matthew Reddy, along with the men and women of the USS Walker, have chosen sides in a war not of their making. They have allied with the Lemurians - a mammalian race whose peaceful existence is under attack from the warlike, reptilian Grik.

The Lemurians are vastly outnumbered and ignorant of warfare, and even the guns and technology of Walker cannot turn the tide of battle. Luckily, they are not alone. Reddy finally finds Mahan, the other destroyer that passed through the rift. Together, the two American ships will teach the Lemurians to fight and stand against the bloodthirsty Grik - or so they think.

For there is another vessel that does not belong on these strange seas - the massive Japanese battle cruiser Amagi, the very ship that Walker was fleeing from when the rift took them. Like Mahan, it followed them through. And now Amagi is in the hands of the Grik.

Battle stations! Listen to more in the Destroyermen series.

©2008 Taylor Anderson (P)2008 Tantor

Critic reviews

"Dramatic.... At heart this novel is about how honor and ideals can bend or break under the stressful, life-and-death conditions of total war." ( Publishers Weekly)
"Even better than the excellent Into the Storm." --( Booklist Starred Review)

Good listen

Would you listen to Crusade again? Why?

unfolds very nicely. I little slow at some points and as usual in a series such as this repetition gets annoying. The ability to speed up the audio playback helps solve that problem. Like skipping paragraphs in a book.

What did you like best about this story?

Characters, story development.

Liked it

This was a great follow up to book one.The naration was excellent. A good book

Fun second Destroyermen book

This book is the second installment of the Destroyer Men series. It continues the story of two US boats in the Pacific during the beginning of the war being hammered by the Japanese. Somehow while trying to evade the Japanese, the two boats find themselves in a different time period. In this book they find out that the Japanese boat that was firing on them in WWII is now in their new time period. Worse yet, the Japanese have formed an alliance with the enemy Gricks!
Total escapism! Great narration.

not as good as the 1st book

But still pretty good. Traditional act ii stuff and leaves you a bit disappointed, but will definitely check out book 3.

Great listen

Destroyermen Crusade is a great follow-up to book one, "Destroyermen". The plotting and characters of the alternate reality military actionaire are worth the time. The battles are convincing and the results of the battles have a heartbreaking yet lifting ring that strikes me as having been written by someone who understands war.

Good old fashioned heroes in an alternate Earth

I found book one in the Destroyermen series to be fun and entertaining, if a bit flat and cheesy, style-wise. Book two, though, actually had me wanting to stand up and cheer. Not that it's any less flat and cheesy, but there are some quintessential qualities that Taylor Anderson brings to this series that I've been missing in sci-fi and military fiction lately.

Duty, honor, bravery, sacrifice, and heroism. Men acting like men. (Yes, the women - both human and Lemurian - are pretty brave too.) A war that feels like a war.

This book is very similar to an old WWII movie - the ones made before we got cynical and stopped presenting Americans as the good guys. The USS Walker and its sister ship the USS Mahan have allied with the Lemurians, a civilized race descended from lemurs in the alternate Earth in which the two destroyers find themselves. They face the Grik, an almost mindlessly violent race descended from reptiles or dinosaurs. In Crusade, we learn that the Japanese battleship Amagi, which chased the two American destroyers into the storm that brought it to this world, followed them, and is now allied with the Grik.

This makes the two sides pretty starkly black and white: Americans and friendly lemur-people vs. Japanese and evil crocodile-people.

But, the Americans and Lemurians are not universally good, and the Japanese are not universally evil. There is in-fighting among the various land-dwelling and sea-going tribes of Lemurians, some of the Americans get themselves into trouble with bad behavior, while in addition to Lieutenant Shinya, the captured Japanese officer who has now become effectively a part of the Walker's crew, Anderson also writes some scenes from the point of view of the Amagi's crew, and specifically, its unfortunate executive officer. The Japanese are Imperial Japanese. They have a duty, and an enemy. But while their captain is evidently going mad, the rest of the crew is starting to have doubts about whether they'd really rather be allied to cannibalistic lizard men than Americans.

Crusade is a series of battles, political alliances, and chases, with the tension ramping up as they discover that the Grik are invading the home of the Lemurians in a massive swarm, and worse, accompanied by a Japanese battlecruiser. The climax, in which the Walker faces a vastly more powerful ship it can't possibly defeat, is worthy of the most rocking naval adventure. As they are trying to evacuate thousands of Lemurians in the face of the Grik invasion, and no matter what they do, they must cope with the inevitable losses of thousands more, the tragedy and heroism of both humans and Lemurians is rousing, inspiring, a real edge-of-your-seat adventure.

Removed from the geopolitical considerations of Earth, the Americans in this world are a little pocket of America all their own, and it's what they make of it. And so far, they are what you'd expect from a red-blooded US Navy crew - sailors, heroes, not untarnished with the occasional scoundrel, but good men worthy of respect and admiration without the author doing a lot of jingoistic chest-beating.

The technical details all seem to be authentic and well-researched, from the advantages and disadvantages of the two American "four-stackers" vs. the huge, ultra-modern Amagi (which is struggling with damage of its own and the difficulties of getting repairs and fuel from its Grik "allies") to the aerial duel between a salvaged seaplane and a Japanese spotting biplane, to problems with American torpedoes. Throw sailing ships and the Lemurians' giant seagoing "homes" into the mix, and you've got a blend of Horatio Hornblower, Battlestar Galactica, and Midway.

I'm giving this book 5 stars because it was exciting all the way through, and I was worried about the heroes at every step of the way - when the Amagi shows up, you really feel the moment when Captain Reddy realizes how badly they are screwed. This book improved the last by adding depth to Lemurian culture (including more, ah, relations between humans and Lemurians - some good, some very much not), and even a little bit to the Grik, although so far they're still pretty much just a mindless horde of barely sentient monsters led by evil overlords.

It's not literary, it's just the modern version of a pulp adventure, but I just loved it, even if I am looking at the length of the series (9 books and counting now?) and reviews of later books in the series that seem to indicate that the author is no hurry to wrap it up.

Second time through.<br />

I am listening to the series through s second time waiting for next book. Still a Great listen , especially the characters that are gone.

Destroyermen is a don't miss series.

Continues to both excite and please, Taylor Anderson has done a superb job with this story line, each book in the series expertly moves various individual aspects along while at the same time keeping things fresh and exciting. The character development and dynamic stories emerges you into this wonderfully exciting world and the complexity that has been put into each part of these books set the stage for a wide rage additional stories. Well worth adding to your Audible collection no matter what your genre preference is.

In complete love with this series!

I talk to anyone who will listen to pick this one up. Tremendous and amazing..

I am warming up to this series! LOVE THE STORY

I am so glade I didn’t give up on this series, this is treuly a great exciting page turner. Love the characters and concept do Catpeople and lizard people, war and love. WOW!i just can’t say enough in a few lines.