Name: Into the Storm
ISBN: 9780451462077

Taylor Anderson

Pursued by Japanese battleships, the USS Walker, a destroyer under the command of Lieutenant Commander Matthew Patrick Reddy, tries to lose the enemy by heading into a storm, only to become trapped in a primitive alternate world, populated by strange crea

Into the Storm

Bryan Alexander

I read this novel because my son, Owain, insisted. He's a huge fan of the Destroyermen series and has been pressing the books on me for months. 

And I enjoyed it. Into the Storm is part of an emerging subgenre of military alternate history, stories where an armed force from one historical moment suddenly appears in another. Examples include 
  The Final Countdown
 movie, where a 1980-era US aircraft carrier time warps to the Pearl Harbor attack; 1632, where a well-armed modern American town shifts into the 30 Years War (my review); The Misplaced Legion (Roman legion shunts into a fantasy version of Byzantium). Into the Storm takes two American destroyers (whose crew are known as "destroyermen", hence the series name) and hurls them into a parallel Earth, one where humanity never evolved and some dinosaurs continue to live.

It's a fun conceit, and at first Anderson dives deeply into the ships' lived cultures and the impact of the transition. This reads like a less playful version of Patrick O'Brian's naval series, with a great deal of detail. Once our crew starts exploring the new world, things get very creative. We fall in with a friendly species that resembles a humanoid cross between monkeys, lemurs, and cats. They in turn are at war with a vile, exterminating species that hunts them across this parallel world. 

Into the Storm becomes a world-building story, fleshing out the topography and ecology of an alternate south/southeastern Asia. While the plot and action loom largest, Anderson pauses for paragraphs to show us new islands, lemur-people customs, and crafts. He also pays a lot of attention to the material way the destroyer crews adapt to a non-industrial world, which can be fascinating. I appreciated the deep loathing and fear of imperial Japan shown by the American crews, something often lost on today's readers. There's even an odd flirtation with furry culture, as the book ends with one human marrying (sort of) a lemur-person.

The book tips its referential hat once, early on, when characters struggle to understand what's happened to them. One crew member evokes H.G. Wells, then the captain identifies a major source of inspiration:"[S]ince the charts are correct, that eliminates The Time Machine... Also, there's the matter of furry people with tails on ships bigger than the [US aircraft carrier] Hornet. That leaves The Lost World our most likely scenario." (123)
(My Lost World review) We don't get a match on characters, although my favorite destroyerman, the huge and exciteable Mr. Da Silva, has some resonance with professor Challenger (but not in intellect) ("'God, this is fun!' bellowed Silva, swinging his cutlass like an axe", 354). We do get the parallel world where animals evolved in different ways, including dinosaurs and human analogs. 

There may be a Battlestar Galactica echo as well: (view spoiler)[our heroes lose track of one of the destroyers, but the narrative returns to the Mahan in chapter 6. There we see a Hyde to the USS Walker's Jekyll, as that other crew falls prey to mutiny and madness. This brought to mind the BSG Pegasus storyline, which was about how a different leader can warp a good crew. Both Into the Storm and BSG are strongly military stories, deeply immersed in service culture, focused on leadership as a theme. (hide spoiler)]

One more note: the lemur-people are nomadic, their culture developed at some length. I'd like to see how this unfolds in later books, to see if Anderson plays with the nomadic/sedentary dynamic.

I was disappointed in how simply, purely evil the bad guys (the Grik) turn out to be. Like Tolkien's Mordor, there's no way the reader can sympathize with them, or take seriously different strategies of responding to them. I'd like to see the Grik's point of view. I was also annoyed with the Latin language aspect, and how quickly linguistic problems went away.

Overall, a pleasant read. The plot hums along with a steady supply of action and questions. The world is interesting. Various crew members are fun to see. I can see some reasons my son loves it.

Michael Cowell

Jessica Deaner

Pressed into service when World War II breaks out in the Pacific, the US Walker?a Great War-era destroyer?finds itself retreating from pursuing Japanese battleships. Its captain, Lieutenant Commander Matthew Patrick Reddy, desperately leads the Walker into a squall, hoping it will give them cover?only to emerge into an alternate world. A world where two species have evolved: the cat-like Lemurians and the reptilian Griks?and they are at war. With its power and weaponry, the Walker?s very existence could alter the balance of power. And for Reddy and his crew, who have the means to turn a primitive war into a genocidal Armageddon, one thing becomes clear. They must determine whose side they?re on. Because whichever species they choose is the winner.