Customer Reviews

The Way to Glory [With Headphones] (Playaway Adult Fiction)

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The latest Lt. Leary book is a solid addition to the series - and it's also a lot of fun to read! The book opens with riots in the streets of Xenos (Cinnabar's capital) over the acquittal of a Navy captain, Slidell, who accused three members of his crew of mutiny and then executed them, instead of taking them back to Xenos for a regular military trial.

In an effort to keep unrest down and show support for the officer (who up until then had been a reliable captain and had a good record), the Navy assigns the now-famous Daniel Leary to the ship as a first Lieutenant. Along with Leary comes his friend Adele Mundy, their respective servants Hogg and Tovera, and most of the crew of Leary's previous ship.

The Navy's good intentions aside, Captain Slidell is as paranoid as they come, not to mention deeply jealous and suspicious about Leary's motives. And Leary's methods, any crew that served under Leary previously, Mundy, anyone associated with Leary or Mundy, and in general everything and anything that Daniel Leary might say, do or think that wasn't originally Slidell's idea.

Other secondary characters such as Adele Mundy's secret boss Bernice Sands, and the bosun Woetjans, are also present. We even get a closer look at Admiral Anston, the head of the Navy! (Who turns out to be a pretty decent person.)

While they are out in remote sections of the Republic, Daniel and company encounter philandering Navy officers, Alliance spies, byzantine planetary politics, and the usual array of odd characters. It's somewhat quiet in parts as Drake introduces the readers to new characters and situations, but there is quite a bit of action too. All in all, a good book.

I do have to disagree with one reviewer who said the Daniel Leary and Adele Mundy were wooden. To me, one of the most interesting parts of this book was watching the slow evolution of Daniel's and Adele's friendship.

At the start of the series, Daniel was definitely the dominant personality. But as Adele finds more confidence in herself and realizes that she now has real FRIENDS, meaning people in her life who don't just find her useful but actually CARE about her, she is developing more assertiveness. Daniel, on the other hand, has always been a very outgoing, cheerful and optimistic personality. But as his notoriety grows and he acquires more followers (who are technically only regular Navy personnel but who have served with Daniel for years and would gladly die for him) AND more notice from the movers and shakers of the Republic, he starts to build up more responsibilities and worries. Daniel and Adele are also still finding out just how important their friendship is to each other and how strong of a team they make together, with Daniel in the forefront and Adele in the background, but both equally important.

As one example: There is a scene where Daniel worries about the repercussions of a very spontaneous decision he made. Daniel wondes aloud if things might have turned out better if he'd taken his concern to the proper authorities instead of trying to ambush someone in the middle of the night. Adele quietly tells him that while she doesn't mention her OTHER employer that often, in this case Adele WAS "the proper authorities", Daniel DID inform her of his concerns, and if anyone questions Daniel's decision she'll see to it that the people really in charge know EXACTLY what happened and why. While Adele would have also defended Daniel in earlier books, I don't think she previously would have exhibited that much quiet confidence in herself or in the judgment of the Navy brass.

_The Way to Glory_ is definitely a good book. I liked it.

This book is excellent in so many ways, as is the series. It's space navy adventure with TWO strong lead characters, one male one female, who are intelligent, intriguing, complex, and capable and who work together well.

David Drake's Daniel Leary and Adele Mundy series stands on its own excellent merits. But I DO enjoy the nuances of other character series so skillfully woven in. For example: Patrick O'Brian's Aubrey and Maturin series, David Weber's Honor Harrington series, and C.S. Forester's Horatio Hornblower series.

I recommend this book and this series for anyone interested in rousing intelligent adventure with strong lead characters. With spaceships, imperialists, colonialists, and enemy space nations galore, it's a creative, well-crafted treat.

If you enjoy sailing epics like Hornblower or O'Brien's Capt. Aubrey books, you will like this series. Drake masterfully combines science fiction with an 18th Century twist. Put the British Navy of Admiral Nelson's time into space and you get Captain Leary. In this story Leary has to deal with not only the enemy, but internal navy politics as well.

The Way to Glory is the fourth in David Drake's ongoing "Aubrey and Maturin in Space" series that began with With the Lightnings. (In addition to resemblences to Napoleonic Era naval fiction, the books power some political situations from ancient Rome.) The "Aubrey" figure is the dashing young Lieutenant Daniel Leary of the Republic of Cinnabar navy, and the "Maturin" figure is Adele Mundy, his Signals Officer, also a spy, and also the Mundy of Chatsworth, only surviving member of a noble family that was executed on the orders of Daniel's politician father.

Cinnabar is openly at war with their fascist enemy the Alliance. A stiff-necked Cinnabar Captain has just executed three crewmen, including a midshipman from a noble family, for mutiny, rather hastily. (Binding them over for court martial would have been more appropriate.) Daniel and Adele are assigned to this Captain's new ship and sent off on a mission against pirates, in part simply to get the controversial Captain away from Cinnabar and his various newly-made enemies. One of this is Daniel's father, who had had an affair with the executed midshipman's mother, and who suspects that the boy may have been his son. He more or less orders Daniel to arrange to have the Captain killed, which greatly offends Daniel, and further widens his longstanding rift with his father.

After this somewhat convoluted and intrigue-ridden setup, the main part of the novel is a bit too routine. Though it's not bad -- it's pretty good adventure fun, very much in line with the rest of the series. Adele uncovers an Alliance spy at the pirate base, and they get in trouble when they expose him because they embarrass their superiors. So they are sent to another system where they uncover yet another Alliance scheme ... surviving a "suicide" mission in the process only to be pushed into another suicide mission in order to foil the Alliance plotting. But matters are further complicated by the stiff-necked Captain, who is basically loyal to Cinnabar but who is insanely paranoid about Daniel Leary -- in part with semi-good reason because of his enmity with Leary's father. (That is, good reason if Leary truly was his father's tool.) The final resolution involves another brilliant Daniel Leary scheme, aided of course by Mundy's genius hacking ... all perhaps not very believable but lots of fun.

There's not much new to this book -- perhaps as expected. And there is rather too much declaration of Adele's worship (not sexual at all) of Daniel and of her joy in her friendship with her crewmates -- all this should be shown not told. The sidekicks, Hogg (Leary's servant) and Tovera (Mundy's servant) don't really do as much here as in other books. I liked it fine -- but it's perhaps the least of the series so far.

If anyone was still wondering, space opera is alive and well. If anything, I would have to say that this series is getting better as the author goes along; the initial volume spent most of its time establishing the characters and settings, but since then Drake has given us consistent character development combined with first-rate action and memorable world-design. This odd combination of 19th century military/naval fiction and hypertechnological science and far-flung space exploration works.

Another great Lt. Leary book, though we all know he wouldn't be where he was without his "librarian" Adele Mundy. I eagerly await each new book in this series, though I will read most anything written by David Drake. My only quibble with this book is that nothing is resolved regarding the "mutiny" and execution of crew members by Lt. Leary's new commander in his {the commander's) previous ship. Perhaps we will hear more about that in a later book??

Also, it would be nice if we knew just exactly why Lt. Leary and his father don't get along, what the original big dispute was about??

In any case, it's a fun read.

If you just stumbled on this book out of context, here's my take on it:

The Cinnabar Navy series (for want of a better description) centers around a future interstellar republic (Cinnabar) and the adventures of a young naval officer, Daniel Leary. In this installment (the fourth) Lieutenant Leary is very well regarded for his previous exploits, but instead of receiving the command he deserves, is appointed to serve under a captain who has apparently executed mutinous crew members in his previous cruise. The result of his action is rioting on Cinnabar the planet, and Captain Slidell is quickly assigned a new command to get him out of the system. Leary is obviously assigned under him to keep an eye on him and ensure that he isn't actually barking mad. The captain is quite aware of this and things don't go well from the beginning.

I thouroughly enjoyed the fourth outing of Leary, Mundy and the 'Sissies'. I wonder what they will become now with their original ship out of commission? And where will our Lieutenant go now that he isn't one any more? Does Daniel's father have plans for him?

Some reviews have suggested that this book was a bit two dimensional, but I found myself just as immersed in it as in the previous efforts, and at the end of it all I could do was start wondering what would happen next. And hoping that Mr. Drake is already busily plotting another!

THE WAY TO GLORY(2005) picks up where the first three books from the series left off - those books were: THE FAR SIDE OF THE STARS(2003), LT LEARY COMMANDING(2000) and WITH THE LIGHTNINGS(1998).

The main characters Leary (Lt. in the RCN), and Mundy (ex-Librarian, turned Signals/Intelligence Officer) get involved with the usual "intrigue" on the homeworld of Cinnabar, before they get sent off on a dangerous interstellar mission - with Leary having to play 2nd fiddle to a paranoid "Bly type" Captain, for political reasons.

Unfortunately, this story doesn't hold up well compared to the first three offerings in the series. The pace is plodding, and the situations are too familiar - too similar to situations from the first books.

One major plus - the cover of this book is BY FAR the best yet in the series. It gives an excellent depiction of how the characters are described... especially Adele. The last book in the series had the best story, but the cover was awful (having nothing to do with the story inside), and the first two books' covers showed different depictions of Leary and Mundy, with neither doing a good job of meeting the descriptions of the characters.

I'd also like to mention that Mr. Drake continues to goof up when it comes to radio communications technology in this series... but he is getting better - his mistakes are only off by 2 orders of magnitude, versus 3 or 4 in the last book. For example, he has the commander of one of the Alliance vessels using a 10-meter signal thru a parabolic dish, to gain some directionality (instead of using fully directional laser comms)... but, a parabolic dish for a 10-meter signal would be absolutely HUGE (Kilometers in diameter?) - much too big for the spaceships in his story.

One last note... in past reviews, I've pointed out that the stories are somewhat similar to A. Bertram Chandler's John Grimes series from the 60's/70's/80's, but more up-to-date technology-wise. In the last book, the Captain of the rival Alliance ship was named "Captain Bertram"; and in this story, the last name of Leary's love interest is "Grimes".

It felt too short. That's normally high praise - "I liked it so much that I wish there was more" - but in this case, it's the literal truth: The Way To Glory read, to me, more like a novella than a novel I'd been waiting some months for.

Not that it isn't good - four and a half stars, I'd give it if possible. Drake does both people and combat with the fluency that makes him one of the SF genre's best; he also does societies, which I like.

In comparable books - say, the Honor Harrington series by Weber - the Good Guy Nation is pure good. Jerks might live there or even be in the government, but the government will be *run* by Good Guys, who will - despite this being a long time from now in a place far away - conform pretty closely to early-21st-century American morality standards. Cinnabar, the main character's nation in this series, isn't like that. It's realistic.

We've seen that through the earlier books; The Way To Glory, however, features such un-PC things as workers' riots and mob violence. Not a huge part of the plot, but a nice touch of depth. Wouldn't want to live on Cinnabar, but it's an example of how Drake does his places as three-dimensionally as his people.

The plot is decent but not tremendously surprising in what winds up happening - in honesty, I'd hoped for something a little newer. That's another part of why this is four stars, not five. On the other hand, Drake handles it well, there's enough nice stuff along the way, and there's a bit more suspense than other books in this series have had.

Not Drake's best, but even Drake's worst is better than 90% of the SF out there. And this isn't his worst.

The Way to Glory (2005) is the fourth novel in the RCN series, following The Far Side of the Stars. In the previous volume, Leary determined that the base on Gehenna had recently been reinforced by an Alliance task force, including two battleships. He also discovers the location of the Earth Diamond and trades it for ownership of the Princess Cecile. He then raises and partially restores the Alliance spy ship Goldenfels and takes her to Gehenna, where she inflicts serious damage to the base and ships.

Barely escaping the Alliance heavy cruiser Bluecher, Leary rendezvouses with the Princess Cecile and transfers the Goldenfels crew to that ship. Again barely escaping the cruiser, Leary takes the long way back to Gehenna, but finds the Bluecher waiting for them. Although hopelessly outgunned, Leary manages to outfight the cruiser with the timely assistance of the former RCN battleship Aristoxenos and its overage crew of emigre mutineers.

In this novel, Lieutenant Daniel Leary is reinstated on full pay and assigned to the anti-pirate tender Hermes. Commander Aban Slidell, Captain of the ship, has just been absolved from all blame in the death of three so-called mutineers aboard the training ship Bainbridge. The populace of Xenos, including many common sailors and soldiers, is incensed at the verdict and displays its ire by rioting in the streets. The Republic of Cinnabar Navy needs to get Commander Slidell off the planet as soon as possible.

Since Leary has been acclaimed as a hero by both the populace and RCN sailors, the Naval Board hopes that some of his fame and glory will rub off on Slidell. Unfortunately, Slidell is as nutty as a fruitcake, absolutely paranoid in his outlook, and he sees Leary as a minder to keep him under control. Leary's words and actions are all seen as ploys to discredit Slidell.

Adele Mundy is assigned the mission of uncovering a leak at the naval base on Nitikin. Leary notices an abnormality in a side remark by the paramour of the Commanding Admiral and Adele suggests further evidence of his complicity. Subsequent surveillance confirms their suspicions, but unfortunately their actions really irritate the Admiral.

Admiral Milne detaches Leary and Cutter 614 from the Hermes and sends them to Yang to rescue 200 captured mercenaries who just happen to be Cinnabar citizens. President for Life Shin agrees to release the captives if Leary retrieves his doxie from the rebel base on Big Florida Island. Once Leary has seen the base, he hastens back to the Hermes to report his suspicions.

This novel illustrates the best and the worst of the RCN. Like the British Navy during the era of sailing ships, the RCN routinely performs seemingly impossible missions that require rigid discipline. Abrupt and vicious punishment is commonplace in the training of midshipmen and, when these officer trainees are commissioned, they rarely object to similar mistreatment of the ordinary sailors.

Thus, mutiny is a pressing concern to many ship captains. Of course, when the captain is not really sane himself, mutiny may be the only reasonable response to psychotic treatment. Notice how many mutiny stories feature an insane captain! The Captain is God aboard his own ship and sometimes God is crazy!

This novel does not provide any easy answers. In real life, it is often expedient to extol the virtues of a dead officer rather than to proclain the innocence of executed mutineers! So Slidell is provided with a chance to die with glory and Leary gets to tag along.

Highly recommended to Drake fans and for anyone else who enjoys naval adventures among the stars.

-Arthur W. Jordin