dentarthurdent 's review for:

The Hunt for Red October by Tom Clancy

1.0

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Having never read Tom Clancy before, I didn't know what to expect. I read a couple of other positive reviews of it, and according to them, it is supposedly chock full of technical detail. I found the opposite in fact I found it dumbed down. The plot, set out in the first 100 pages, followed its course and did not reveal anything to me by the end. The writing style has a 1-2-3 formula of announcing current happenings without resorting to interesting prose. The paper-cutout actors never stop to reflect on what is happening to them, and we are totally locked out of their internal monologue. We know they are tired, smoking cigarettes, surprised when getting shot, but what are they actually thinking, feeling? We'll never know. I didn't care. The dialogue is laughably cornball and could not take it seriously. I forced myself to get through this book to get to the end and at many points I was actually cheering for the enemy because I hoped something interesting would happen.