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Title: Through the Breach

Subtitle: Reaches, Book 2

Author: David Drake

Narrator: Ray Porter

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins

Language: English

Release date: 10-17-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Sci-Fi & Fantasy, Sci-Fi: Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

The Venus Asteroid Expedition is en route to the "Mirror", an impenetrable membrane to another universe that holds all the riches of the Federation, but the only point of entry is the point through which Landolph and his men traveled long ago - with most of the men never returning.

Members Reviews:

Sir Francis Drake in Space!

This is a future-age retelling of some of the adventures of Sir Francis Drake, with some of the experiences of Hawkins thrown in. One engagement, partway through the book, in which Captain Ricimer and party barely escape with their lives, is based on the engagement at San Juan de Ulua in September of 1568, in which the carrack Jesus of Lubeck was captured by the Spaniards, and Hawkins, in a smaller and handier ship, barely got away. There are equivalents to the Spanish (the North American government) trying to dominate all the worlds, Portugal (the Southern Cross confederation, which was granted some of the planets, by the equivalent of the Vatican), the New World (the interstellar worlds all claimed by Pleyal (the equivalent of King Philip), the leader of North America, and his Southern Cross allies), enslaved Blacks (the alien Molts), the Native Americans (the Rabbits, regressed humans from lost colonies in the interstellar reaches), and the Pacific (the Mirror universe, reachable only through certain hazardous routes). When I first read these, I wondered if we might see (for example) Martian colonists fighting a revolution against the North Americans, and taking up the role here of the Dutch separatists (but I was disappointed there). Author Drake, a Vietnam veteran, spends some time mentioning the psychological toll the action and killing takes on the men. (Different men seem to handle it in different ways, some becoming desensitized to a dangerous level, while others are visited by the ghosts of their victims when they try to get some sleep in their rack at night. There was no term yet for PTSD in Sir Francis Drake's time, but even then, I imagine that fellow warriors appreciated there were incidents their friend, just returned from the wars, did not wish to discuss. I would think in the future, there would be some provision to care for psychological casualties, but perhaps counseling was one of those things which became less popular when the previous human civilization collapsed?) While the story is derivative, it still remains interesting. (Of course, your mileage may vary -- I'm an SCA member and interested in the exploits of the English Sea Dogs, the Dutch War of Independence, the Spanish Armada, etc.) By the way, for the Spanish Armada (or its equivalent in this series), check the next book in the series, "Fireships".

Wonderful

I read the second and third books in this series first and just got around to this one. It's a great opening to a wonderful trilogy.

Elizabethan Privateers In Spaceships

This is the second book in the Reaches series. This book deals with Piet Ricimer and Stephen Gregg's supposed mission to the asteroid belt that really is a pirate raid through the breach. The breach is a dangerous passage through the Mirror, a block between our universe and another. The other side holds the treasures of the defunct empire, automated factories churning out the chips that hold civilization together. Gentlemen and aristocracy are the linchpins of the society on Venus.