ilanderz 's review for:

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

4.0

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Kind of a weird book but still a good book. Weird in that Clancy's constantly introducing new characters throughout the entire book, right up to the end. Because it isn't about the characters. It's a classic example (I think) of what has been called a "milieu" story, where the point of the story is to immerse you in a particular milieu or world, in this case the world of the American military and submariners and CIA and so on. The characters don't matter anywhere near as much as that world. The book is quite heavily and neatly plotted, although you can see the nuts and bolts pretty easily if you try. It is astonishingly well researched, which of course is what Clancy's most famous for, but even that's kind of odd, because although sort of interesting (if you're in the right mood) it also completely takes you out of the story as you can't help but think, how the heck does he know this stuff? Did he ride on a submarine? Who does he know? But the whole package never fails to be readable, and although not exactly a page turner, it's not meant to be, I don't think. It succeeds at what it sets out to do, which is introduce you quite intimately to a particular world, while spinning an intricately plotted story about that world. Well crafted characters might have given it another star.