#destroyermen

@thefablechronicler - a little Arthurian influence can't go wrong. It's on the list.

@raptorwhack - it's used, but I don't mind that. it's the first one, so I'll try it.

@death-of-a-mockingjay - I have that book. I've give the author another go.

@maykkr - I have xenos, I'll have to bump it up the list.

I write a lot of original stuff as well as fanfiction, and I take requests! If you wish to make a request and offer me a gift, I will accept $20 per 1000 words.

If you wish to commission me for original stories, mine tend tend to be sci-fi, or sci-fi/fantasy. I charge $20 per 1000 words on my original stories. I can be contacted by PM.

Here is my website holding most of my original stories, and the link to my AO3 page:

Here is my Patreon.

Fandoms I have written for:

Amphibia

Babylon 5

Bionicle

Keith Laumer's Bolos

Captain Power and the Soldiers of the Future

Centaurworld

Destroyermen by Taylor Anderson

GURPS Reign of Steel

Halo

Hazbin Hotel

Helluva Boss

The Last Angel by Proximal Flame

The Locked Tomb/Gideon the Ninth by Tamsyn Muir

Marvel Cinematic Universe

Robotech

She-ra and the Princesses of Power

Star Trek

Starfield

Stargate

Steven Universe

Syberia

Titan AE

Transformers

Transformers: Beast Wars

Transformers Prime

Without Warning(1994)

Worldwar by Harry Turtledove

Here are most of my original sci-fi stories.

Baldy's Book Club

Episode 1: "Into the Storm"

By Taylor Anderson, Book 1 of the Destroyermen series.

Okay, so, on the recommendation of my most esteemed mutual @frogblast-the-ventcore , I have been coerced to read the Destroyermen series, and post my thoughts about them as I do.

So, for part 1, here we go. I'm going to assume those of you reading have read the book, cause if you haven't, you should be going to buy it, right now. I mean it.

First and foremost, this book was written by a ww2 nerd, for ww2 nerds, and by god does it show. Taylor Anderson is a professor of history, and it shines through in every part of the book. From the technical details of the USS Walker, to the shortcomings of the Mk. 14 torpedo, to the attitudes, lives, and habits (both good and bad) of a 1942 Asiatic fleet destroyerman. Speaking of which, call me Dean Kamen, cause that's a perfect segway to talk about

The Characters

To begin with, do not expect a normal person's assessment of these characters. Expect a Normal™ person's view of them.

First: Captain Matthew Reddy. Oh my lord this man. He's an absolute mess, knows it, and yet cannot let that show, because, well he's stranded in an alternate universe with humanoid lemurs and sapient velociraptors. In my head, he's got total divorced dad energy going on, 30-something going on 50 because of stress, greying at the temples but still hot in a DILF kind of way, not overly muscular, and with one hell of a voice. (I'll admit the audio book colored my perception, but it's a fantastic audio book so I don't care.)

Next, Chack-Sab-At, the biggest and most baddass guyfailure to ever live. "Oh, I'm a pacifist" then the very second that an enemy without moral repercussions comes along he's all "I love violence and killing and murder and death and injuring people and blood and biting and cutting and-" like, seriously, dude says he's a pacifist before turning around and becoming Furry Doomguy.

Next, Dennis Silva, he-who-was-told-not-to-fuck-the-monkey-cats-but-did-it-anyway. Moving on,

There's literally more I love about the characters than I want to sit here and type out, so I'm going to cut it short, but Oh My God these characters are A+.

Next, I just want to touch on something these books made me feel. A lot of times, as an USAmerican with an actual brain, I can get bogged down in the fucked-up shit my country has done and feel like I can't celebrate what makes the US cool without making it sound like I'm excusing all the bad stuff, but this book kinda made me stop for a minute and go "man, the US is kinda fucking rad, when you think about it." Because, you know what? It is. Yeah, we've done fucked up shit, but we've also done some pretty awesome stuff. For every My Lai Massacre, there's a moon landing. For every Trail of Tears, there's a Berlin Airlift. Sometimes, it's okay to take a moment and just go "Fuck yeah, guys. Were pretty cool." Because this book really makes you feel that, at least it did to me, but I'll get off my red, white and blue high horse and keep going.

Alright, now we come to the part that I need to get out...

THE BRITISH EAST INDIA COMPANY

Literally everywhere in my life, I am haunted and stalked by the specter of a long-dead megacorporation. In every piece of media, in every topic I research, no matter what, they're there. As the Frogman quoted from me in a meme a while back "I'm being haunted by the ghost of English imperialism". What the fuck? Anyway, if you wanna chat about the book, please do, because I am at terminal levels of Fandom.

Anyway, if you want to read along for the next Baldy's Book Club, we'll be reading Crusade, the next book in the Destroyermen series.

Image 1)  Here are my renditions of Alliance uniforms and equipment, at the time of their second offensive in July 1943 (DISTANT THUNDERS). For variety's sake, I am assuming at this point that the second wave of allies from Surabaya and Filpin will still have some non-standard equipment left over from their original standing armies. Does anyone know details I missed? I don't remember if the original allied shields had any kind of painted or engraved design on them for instance?

Image 2)  Let me say first that I am taking liberties with Shinya's uniform. There were references to him wearing a similar rhinopig-armor uniform as his troops while in Malay; but I couldn't seem to find anything about how he dressed as a general in the east, which was what I wanted, so I went with a copy of his IJN uniform. Probably not canon.

Also, if anyone has an image of a British NAVY shako, please send it to me because I couldn't find one.

Republic uniforms and equipment were modeled after German uniforms from ww1. The colors of the cavalry capes were different for each regiment.