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A review by weaselweader
Cold Choices by Dick Hill, Larry Bond
4.0
If you liked Hunt for Red October, you're going to love this one!
In Larry Bond's best-selling novel, DANGEROUS GROUND, techno-thriller fans met Lt Jerry Mitchell, a former naval aviator who made a mid-career switch to submarines after his Hornet fighter crashed with the resulting injuries sidelining him forever from flight status. Having returned successfully from a dangerous mission aboard the USS Memphis, an out-of-date aging rust bucket, Mitchell has now been assigned as the navigator aboard the sleek, ultra-sophisticated USS Seawolf, one of the US Navy's most modern and fiercely capable nuclear attack submarines. Their mission - complete a secret hydrographic survey of the floor of the Barents Sea and leave behind stealthy surveillance technology that will keep the navy on top of Russian submarine movement out of their far northern Arctic bases.
Despite the crew's best efforts, their presence is detected by Aleksey Petrov, the commander of Russia's newly commissioned nuclear sub, the Severodvinsk. A testosterone drive cat-and-mouse game of brinksmanship results in a catastrophic underwater collision that sends the Seawolf limping home badly damaged. Unknown to the US crew, the Severodvinsk has been sent crashing to the sea floor and is completely disabled, unable to communicate with their Russian base and trapped with no working emergency escape pod to the surface. All the clocks are ticking - food, water and oxygen - but the clock that's ticking the loudest and most quickly is the one recording carbon dioxide levels. When the air scrubbers can no longer reduce CO2 levels below a toxic 5% level, a painful inevitable death quickly follows for all the trapped men.
No mystery from the point of view of plot in COLD CHOICES, just a superbly built thriller built around naval technology, politics, cold-war posturing and space age peace-time military maneuvering. COLD CHOICES is a first rate techno-thriller that will have you turning pages just as quickly as you can manage. But as Larry Bond pointed out in the author's note preceding DANGEROUS GROUND, a techno-thriller ought to be much more than a compilation of technical data which anyone can find with proper research. In the case of COLD CHOICES, Bond has done a superb job, not only with individual characterization, but also with a compelling description of submariner culture - their attitudes, their loyalties, their black sense of humour, their fears and their bravery.
Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss
In Larry Bond's best-selling novel, DANGEROUS GROUND, techno-thriller fans met Lt Jerry Mitchell, a former naval aviator who made a mid-career switch to submarines after his Hornet fighter crashed with the resulting injuries sidelining him forever from flight status. Having returned successfully from a dangerous mission aboard the USS Memphis, an out-of-date aging rust bucket, Mitchell has now been assigned as the navigator aboard the sleek, ultra-sophisticated USS Seawolf, one of the US Navy's most modern and fiercely capable nuclear attack submarines. Their mission - complete a secret hydrographic survey of the floor of the Barents Sea and leave behind stealthy surveillance technology that will keep the navy on top of Russian submarine movement out of their far northern Arctic bases.
Despite the crew's best efforts, their presence is detected by Aleksey Petrov, the commander of Russia's newly commissioned nuclear sub, the Severodvinsk. A testosterone drive cat-and-mouse game of brinksmanship results in a catastrophic underwater collision that sends the Seawolf limping home badly damaged. Unknown to the US crew, the Severodvinsk has been sent crashing to the sea floor and is completely disabled, unable to communicate with their Russian base and trapped with no working emergency escape pod to the surface. All the clocks are ticking - food, water and oxygen - but the clock that's ticking the loudest and most quickly is the one recording carbon dioxide levels. When the air scrubbers can no longer reduce CO2 levels below a toxic 5% level, a painful inevitable death quickly follows for all the trapped men.
No mystery from the point of view of plot in COLD CHOICES, just a superbly built thriller built around naval technology, politics, cold-war posturing and space age peace-time military maneuvering. COLD CHOICES is a first rate techno-thriller that will have you turning pages just as quickly as you can manage. But as Larry Bond pointed out in the author's note preceding DANGEROUS GROUND, a techno-thriller ought to be much more than a compilation of technical data which anyone can find with proper research. In the case of COLD CHOICES, Bond has done a superb job, not only with individual characterization, but also with a compelling description of submariner culture - their attitudes, their loyalties, their black sense of humour, their fears and their bravery.
Highly recommended.
Paul Weiss