Captain Cayce was among the replacements on the way to the American Expeditionary Force in Mexico in 1847 when the ships encountered a freak storm. After the storm the ships were wrecked on the shores of the Yucatan Peninsula on an alternate Earth filled with monsters and monstrous men. Thankfully, there are also allies that find them and aid their acclimation to this new world. This volume is set in an earlier time in the Destroyermen universe. There is plenty of action and interesting characters to engage the reader. It will be interesting to see what happens in future volumes of this series.

It is 1847 and a group of American soldiers are on their way to fight in the Mexican-American War. They are meant to join General Scott's troupes at Veracruz, but something happens along the way and they never arrive to join up with General Scott's campaign.

These wayward soldiers are a mixed group of dragoons and infantry and even mounted riflemen. They are not meant to be a solo fighting unit, but are in need of a strong commander to keep them focused and engaged in battle. Now, dropped into a wholly unexpected and unreal alternate timeline, Major Lewis Cayce is in charge of this ragtag unit and must find a way to bring them together. This may not be the Mexican-American War they were expecting, but there's still a war on and the only way this unit will survive is to work together. Can they do this when faced with dinosaurs on one side and religious fanatics on the other?

I am not the target audience for this book.

Typically I would say that I don't care for 'alternate history' books nor for sci-fi military fiction, but in recent months I've read books that would fall into both of those categories and I have enjoyed those books. So I thought it was time for me to open up my reading horizons and explore some more. This book, the first in a planned series, seemed like a really great place to start.

Unfortunately this just brought me right back to where I usually fall when it comes to the subject of Military SciFi Alternative History books ... meh.

There seemed to be a lot of detail about the military aspects, which military historians probably really get into, but for me, it was just slowed the pace down a lot. I felt the author was showing how much he knew, rather than getting the reader into the action.

The contrivance ... 1800's soldiers with dinosaurs ... was way out of my willing suspension of belief.

I'm back to thinking I don't care for military scifi or alternative history scifi.

Looking for a good book? If you like military scifi and alternative history scifi, then Taylor Anderson's Purgatory's Shore is probably right for you. If, like me, you don't usually care for these types of books, this likely won't change your mind.

I received a digital copy of this book from the publisher, through Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review.

Reviews 68 - Purgatory's Shore by Taylor Anderson
Reviews haven't been indexed yet.

Taylor Anderson's famous Destroyermen series builds an alternate Earth with open dimensional gateways, usually embedded in a storm at sea. Ships from our Earth at various periods of our Earth's history seem to fall through these gates and land on this alternate Earth with no way back.

The groups that survive the gate rebuild some semblance of what they knew on our Earth, but adjust to the vicious environment on this new Earth where giant (voracious) animals command the seas and murderous non-human people swarm the land.

Anderson pits the values of our Earth's civilizations against the Nature of this untamed Earth, and reveals many flaws and strengths within our Earth's peoples.

Having created and won an entirely different World War II than they came from, the Destroyermen sail into a relative peace with rosy prospects.

So Anderson takes us back in time to when a few ships from the newly founded USA bound for our Yucatan fall into this new Earth's much altered Gulf Coast area, somewhat off their version of Yucatan.

This novel, Purgatory's Shore, begins a new series of the adventures of strangers cascading through the vortex into this new Earth. It is called Artillerymen, as the armed force being sent to our Yucatan sported state of the art artillery units who really knew what they were doing with a canon.

Purgatory's Shore is a war novel -- and little much else. It does show us how the rag-tag survivors of the American force manage to pull together an alliance of various city-states (some not human populated) to combat a religion driven, empire building, movement which, in Destroyermen, proves to be a formidable enemy.

The book was written during the Covid-19 restrictions, and turned out somewhat different from the Destroyermen. Purgatory's Shore has much less character driven relationship and much more combat maneuvering, battle after battle.

When not in combat, the forces are repairing, regrouping and training.

I expect the Artillerymen series to open up into much more relationship, even love story, but not Romance, as one of the main characters is a young woman who has been a member of the fighting force disguised as a boy. It is something of a cliche, true, but Anderson has a knack with cliche that I admire.

Jacqueline Lichtenberg
http://jacquelinelichtenberg.com

I received a copy via Netgalley in return for my thoughts. My views are my own.

The book is good. As a long time fan of Taylor Anderson, I've enjoyed the concept of his world and the characters. I struggled to get into this book and finish it, I think, because it isn't the writing that I fell in love with, having enjoyed several books in his Destroyermen series. Artillerymen is set in a different time period, with different tech and style, and I just don't think it suited me.

Having said that, the writing, character-development, plot, and theme all work well and Taylor's signature style ring true. Fans of the 1850s American history, the Mexican-American War, and musket shooting will enjoy this book far more than I did.

So, while I didn't love it, Taylor's style, plot, characters, and worldbuilding are more than enough for a 4-star review. Well done. He was also a great guest on my podcast, where we discussed both the Destroyermen series and Purgatory's Shore.

A great new series by Taylor Anderson. This series will parallel his series The Destroyermen. The story is full of action and will not let you put it down. This is a must read if you enjoyed his other series.

Thank you to #NetGalley for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.