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3.9 AVERAGE
3.9 AVERAGE
I've read this book several times over the year. Now that there is a whole "Jack Ryan Universe" this is considered book number four. But this was the first one, published by the US Navel Press that started the whole thing. Mr. Clancy certainly had the further story in his mind, but that was the first one published. I've proud to say that I have that original first edition!
adventurous
informative
tense
medium-paced
adventurous
challenging
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
A solid blast of 80s Cold War nostalgia. To wit, at one point in the book, the crew of a Soviet nuclear submarine somewhere deep in the Atlantic wipe tears away after they’ve finished watching a VHS tape of E.T. What the book lacks in rounded characters or intelligent discussion of spycraft or international politics, it makes up for in stupefying levels of detail about how military things work: how jets are landed on aircraft carriers at night in storms, how a VTOL Harrier takes off at sea, how a nuclear reactor on a Soviet submarine is configured, how submarines and destroyers see each other, how many nuclear warheads are on a Soviet submarine, etc. You can’t help but learn something reading this, and the book was apparently required reading among people in the Navy.
Clancy’s worldview is childishly Manichean: All of his American and British characters are noble, brilliant, and good, while the Soviets (except for the crew of Red October) are wily and bad. But the humans aren’t the real
focus here; the vehicles and equipment are. It’s all a bit ridiculous, including the premise and the obsession about various forms of hardware, but this was very much how the Cold War played out: We kept on building and deploying more shit, forcing the other side to also keep building and deploying more shit. We hardly ever used any of it. The point was to have it, and force the other side to reckon with the facts of what we had.
All that said, I enjoyed it, despite myself.
Clancy’s worldview is childishly Manichean: All of his American and British characters are noble, brilliant, and good, while the Soviets (except for the crew of Red October) are wily and bad. But the humans aren’t the real
focus here; the vehicles and equipment are. It’s all a bit ridiculous, including the premise and the obsession about various forms of hardware, but this was very much how the Cold War played out: We kept on building and deploying more shit, forcing the other side to also keep building and deploying more shit. We hardly ever used any of it. The point was to have it, and force the other side to reckon with the facts of what we had.
All that said, I enjoyed it, despite myself.
adventurous
lighthearted
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
adventurous
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
Good plot but too much military jargon and planning for my taste. Would have made the book much shorter and a bit quicker paced. The movie was pretty darn faithful to the book though, so if you enjoyed that and don’t mind a lot of details it’s a good read.
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No