What Distant Deeps (Lt. Leary) [Hardcover]

David Drake (Author)

Book Description

Series: Lt. Leary | Publication Date: September 7, 2010

Captain Daniel Leary and his friend, the spy Adele Mundy, have been in the front lines of Cinnabar's struggle against the totalitarian Alliance. Now these galactic superpowers have signed a peace of mutual exhaustion...but the jackals are moving in! The Republic of Cinnabar was on the verge of collapse under the weight of taxes, casualties, and war's disruption of trade. That the Alliance of Free Stars was in even worse condition helped only because it has made peace possible. Years of war have been hard on Daniel and harder still on Adele, whose life outside information-gathering is a tightrope between despair and deadly violence. Their masters in the RCN and the Republic's intelligence service have sent them to the fringes of human space to relax away from danger. But the barbarians of the outer reaches have their own plans, plans which will bring down both Cinnabar and the Alliance. Unless Daniel, Adele, and their unlikely allies succeed, galactic civilization will disintegrate into blood and chaos. So they will succeed - or they'll die trying.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The war between the Republic of Cinnabar and the Alliance of Free Stars ended with RCN Captain Daniel Leary's stunning victory at Cacique, resulting in an uneasy peace. In the eighth offering of the popular RCN series, Leary receives orders to transport a diplomat to Zenobia and orders his communications officer, Adele Mundy, to investigate Palmyra, a semi-barbaric ally that is responsible for securing that sector from piracy. They discover not only that Palmyra is about to invade Zenobia, but that certain rogue RCN officers are actively involved. With the specter of renewed hostilities looming before him, Leary approaches his Alliance counterpart and makes an astounding offer, because "all civilized persons have a duty to stand against barbarians." Drake (As the Tide Rises) deftly weaves a web of political machinations and intrigue that vividly depicts the costs of war. Fans of Patrick O'Brian's Maturin and Aubrey novels will enjoy this intricate, rousing space opera. (Sept.)
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.

About the Author

David Drake was attending Duke University Law School when he was drafted. He served the next two years in the Army, spending 1970 as an enlisted interrogator with the 11th armored Cavalry in Viet Nam and Cambodia. Upon return he completed his law degree at Duke and was for eight years Assistant Town Attorney for Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He has been a full-time freelance writer since 1981. His books include the genre-defining and bestselling Hammer’s Slammers series, the RCN series including In the Stormy Red Sky, The Way to Glory, and many more. --This text refers to the Mass Market Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: Baen (September 7, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1439133662
• ISBN-13: 978-1439133668
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #355,011 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

The Army took David Drake from Duke Law School and sent him on a motorized tour of Viet Nam and Cambodia with the 11th Cav, the Blackhorse. He learned new skills, saw interesting sights, and met exotic people who hadn't run fast enough to get away.

Dave returned to become Chapel Hill's Assistant Town Attorney and to try to put his life back together through fiction making sense of his Army experiences.

Dave describes war from where he saw it: the loader's hatch of a tank in Cambodia. His military experience, combined with his formal education in history and Latin, has made him one of the foremost writers of realistic action SF and fantasy. His bestselling Hammer's Slammers series is credited with creating the genre of modern Military SF. He often wishes he had a less interesting background.

Dave lives with his family in rural North Carolina.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The latest in an enjoyable series - a good light read, September 20, 2010

By 

Kiwi (Mississauga, Ontario Canada) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: What Distant Deeps (Lt. Leary) (Hardcover)

I have to say I've enjoyed the entire Leary/Mundy series, including this latest. The books are a good light read, nothing particularly profund, but well-written, an engaging plot and characters that I personally enjoy. "What Distant Deeps" is no exception to the rule altho there's perhaps not quite as much outright action as in some of the other books. The first half's rather slow, mostly plot development and setting the stage for the action in the last half of the book. And the last couple of pages do a good job of setting the stage for the next book in the series. The only real con for me was, I do enjoy Mundy in action shooting people down and there wasn't quite enough of that for my tastes in this book. But it's not a complaint, just a personal preference and hey, I'm not writing the book - I'll take whatever Drake comes up with and enjoy it.

A pro - I do like the way Drake takes historical, largely classical historical, events and places and uses them as the basis for a plot. In this case Palmyra, which was a desert principality located between Rome and Parthia that was more or less aligned with Rome.

All in all, if you've enjoyed the other books in the series, you should enjoy this one. If you haven't read any of the other books in the series, I'd more or less recommend not starting with this one as it does assume a little background knowledge.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Another enjoyable Leary/Mundy space opera, October 17, 2010

By 

booksforabuck "BooksForABuck" (Long Beach, CA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: What Distant Deeps (Lt. Leary) (Hardcover)

Peace has broken out between Cinnabar and The Alliance. Good news for most, but trouble for beached naval officers trying to get by on half pay. Still, the war has nearly destroyed Cinnabar's economy--and it looks as if this peace, unlike past truces, may actually survive.

Daniel Leary doesn't have to worry about half pay. One of the navy's most successful young officers, he's flush with prize money. Still, a charter to take an envoy to a distant planet is an attractive offer, especially as Leary's communications officer (who's also a spy with Cinnabar intelligence) has work there as well. What Leary finds, however, is that a Cinnabar ally has ambitions in the area that just may break the peace and launch Cinnabar and the Alliance into a new war that neither of them wants. Even allying with the local Alliance navy, however, doesn't give Leary nearly the naval might needed to confront the ambitious Palmyrens.

Author David Drake continues his Daniel Leary series with another enjoyable story. The relationship between Leary and his comm officer, Adele Mundy, continues to develop, but with neither admitting that anything close to sexual attraction exists. Drake does an excellent job both with political intrigue and with intense naval battles.

Maybe it's just me, but I found I was hit over the head with Adele's otherness. We know she's a bit of a sociopath, but I'd like to see this expressed in different ways, not by her repeatedly wondering whether her 'contentedness' equates ot other people's 'happiness.' And spare me another of Adele's smiles. This seems to be the only expression she has... I was particularly amused by a mention that she rarely smiled. Uh, read over the text, Drake. I also expected Drake to do more with the alien dragon race found on the planet Zenobia. Shouldn't evidence of other races traveling between stars have been a huge deal? Instead, it was mentioned, then forgotten.

Overall, WHAT DISTANT DEEPS is an enjoyable read. Fans of this series will certainly want to add it to their reading list.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars What happened to Drake's action? Originality?, January 5, 2011

By 

Richard C. Drew "Anaal Nathra/Uthe vas Bethod... (Oak Lawn, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Distant Deeps (Lt. Leary) (Hardcover)

Drake is best known for military SF - The Leary series is devolving into political SF, with little action. These books are no longer military SF - not even close. What action we find is cloned from his earlier books. The hostage stand-off was an almost identical copy from the hostage stand-off a couple of books earlier.

Drake is also known for basing his books on actual events. This particular story is based on, to quote Drake "the crisis that overtook but did not-quite-overwhelm the Roman Empire in the 3d century AD. The extremities of the empire went through striking (and strikingly different) convulsions" - in other words, politics.

Note to author: just because an event occurred in ancient history does not mean it will make a good story-line! What's next "A brick-layer in ancient Carthage decided to wall-up the local spring in an effort to drive out his Roman neighbors... Rome sends a book-keeper to negotiate using financial and political pressure." Hey, it's the next Leary plot "What Well Runs Deep" - "Cinnabar is in trouble. A neighboring star-empire has discovered a way to close off access to the sidereal universe, thus trapping ships in their own bubble universe. What will the RCN do?!" Probably send in a fleet of negotiators that Leary shuttles back and forth between planets, occasionally taking time off to get drunk, rescue a hostage, and destroy some anti-ship missile emplacements.

In each of Drake's books there's usually a secondary character we're supposed to empathize with. In this case it's a wimpy, henpecked, unlikable accountant. Yep. An accountant.

This will be the last RCN novel I purchase in hardcover. From now on it's the library or paperback. The first couple of books were original nail-biters. Tense, battle-packed, fast-moving, gripping action with original characters. Now it's boiler-plate, slow-moving, yawn-fests. Literally. I found myself yawning several times.

So, what we have is really well written and executed book - with a poor plot, unremarkable characters (with the exception of the main four - and they are interchangeable) and totally predictable outcomes. Need examples of boiler-plate?

1) A life-form will catch Leary's attention and that Adelle will have researched for him.
2) A hostage situation where Leary, Adelle, Tovera and Hogg save the day.
3) A child will be in danger and saved.
4) Big guns / anti aircraft / anti ship emplacements will need to be disabled.

And that's just from memory. Seriously. Check the previous books. Oh yea, the book cover will have little to do with the story.