Showing posts with label military fiction. Show all posts
Showing posts with label military fiction. Show all posts

Korea Strait: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) Review

Korea Strait: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels)
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Korea Strait: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) Review
KOREA STRAIT is the tenth in a series that follows the naval career of Dan Lenson. He began his missions in THE MED (first published twenty years ago) as a young lieutenant. These days thirty-nine-year-old Commander Lenson wears a Congressional Medal of Honor decoration but his high-profile history is a hot potato for his commanding officer. When Dan refuses to retire early, he's assigned to what should be a routine and inglorious shipboard tour in the Orient. He's to command a TAG (Tactical Analysis Group) gathering information during joint war game exercises with South Korea, Japan and Australia in the Korea Strait. Of course, Dan's timing is impeccable and while he's afloat on the South Korean flagship, Chung Nam, the games tracking friendly targets are interrupted by a genuine attack by a squad of subs. The TAG commander is a "rider" with no command authority on the Chung Nam. But he and his team, determined to stand by an ally, disobey orders to evacuate (crossdeck) along with the rest of the American presence. Faced with typhoon seas and an unidentified enemy; Lenson aids Commodore Jung and the ship's company in such diverse ways as, among other things, calculating threat probabilities on his laptop and working with a belowdeck repair and rescue detail. The battle rages... and then the true destructive power of the enemy's weapons is discovered. Now, Dan must convince his superiors to approve a daring proposal in hopes of preventing mutual destruction in the strait!
This thriller is highly engrossing in many respects besides the tautly-told main plot of battle against foe and sea. For instance, it convincingly portrays the tensions and strains that an American naval officer could experience aboard a foreign nation's ship. A few of the South Korean officers speak passable English, and they teach Dan a few phrases of Korean, but the language barrier isolates Dan and seriously impairs the allies' abilities to work together. Chung Nam's captain despises Lenson's sometimes ugly-Americanness, and the commodore's aloof leadership challenges Dan. Basically, Dan can't help feeling like a fish out of water in a navy so alien. Even his digestive system is thrown wildly out of whack by the food and the stress, leaving Dan in less than fighting trim during combat.
But here is one nit to be picked: the narrative's formulaic inserts occasionally break the surface. We learn one of Lenson's team has a penchant for underage Korean girls, and sure enough, he gets himself arrested. That plot is ripped from past headlines about American military men and Asian host countries' women. And what do you think happens to another man, whose command decision on his own ship cost some sailors their lives? Does he get a chance to redeem himself? KOREA STRAIT can and does lean into the predictable.
On the whole, though, Poyer delivers a suspenseful and, unfortunately, plausible scenario. The real world Koreas, China, Japan, and America all have great stakes in that ongoing political and military brinksmanship. One of these days KOREA STRAIT might not be fiction anymore. KOREA STRAIT is an expert tale of the modern Navy, authored by a real pro. (nearly 4.5 stars)Korea Strait: A Novel (Dan Lenson Novels) Overview

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SSN Review

SSN
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SSN ReviewAt least, it's not a typical Clancy book. Prospective purchasers should know that this is a "novelization" of the Tom Clancy: SSN computer game. As a book, it falls somewhere between his imaginative and intricate fictional works, such as Hunt for Red October and Rainbow Six, and his non-fictional studies of various military units. I love both, but SSN does not measure up to either type of previous work. As a novel, it dispenses with characterization altogether, and the plot, such as it is, is merely a recitation of battle after battle, with very little depth or complexity. (Lack of "depth" in a submarine novel -- now that takes talent!) The book fares better as a study of submarine operations, and yet it still falls short of Clancy's capabilities. Even the author's fictional works do a better job of explaining procedures and terms. By the 200th time you read "Make tubes 1 and 2 ready in all respects, including opening the outer doors," you'll wish this book were being shot out with the torpedos. In short, the book reads like a video game -- one that you're watching someone else play. If you want the involvement, if you want to be caught up in the action, then skip the book and buy the actual game.SSN Overview

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The Caine Mutiny: A Novel Review

The Caine Mutiny: A Novel
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The Caine Mutiny: A Novel ReviewThis is perhaps not the greatest novel ever written about World War Two, but it may be the most readable. This is an engrossing, ingenious, and well-written story of ordinary men at sea, placed in an uncommon predicament. Their predicament is simple: their captain is a spectacularly bad leader. This leads to consequences that Wouk develops brilliantly. Wouk's own experience in the US Navy gives this book a gritty authentic feel. The reader really gets a flavor of what it must have been like to be a junior US Naval officer aboard a destroyer-minesweeper. The discussions of officer efficiency reports, the codebreaking duty, casual discipline, and more, all ring true.
The real story is the maturation of Willie Keith. At the beginning of the novel he is a spoiled, overprivileged lad living an aimless life. His time in the service, and the unusual predicament in which he finds himself, hardens him into a true fighting-man in a way that has happened to countless thousands of servicemen. Wouk tells this story exceedingly well, in a manner that most readers will be able to easily relate to. I found this novel to be an unusually good read primarily for this reason. Wouk's writing is first-rate, and it is easy to see why this novel appealed to readers of the early 1950s, many of them with fresh memories of World War Two. The flavor of that war lingers in the novel even today, and gives the twenty-first century reader a notion of what those times were like.
This is altogether a remarkably good novel, deserving of every one of its five stars.The Caine Mutiny: A Novel Overview

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Typhoon Review

Typhoon
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Typhoon ReviewAfter reading arguably the most famous sub-novel of all time ('The Hunt For Red October') I was thirsting for pretty much anything that had to do with submarine warfare...unfortunately most of what is available really stinks (except for Michael DiMercurio who is excellent) but when I discovered 'Typhoon' quite by accident, I stumbled upon a fantastic story about the largest undersea machines the world has ever known. The Typhoon class Russian missle submarine is BIG, as long as the American boomers, but TWICE as wide--and 1 ship alone could wreak havoc and kill millions of people with its stretegic ICBM's. What happens within the pages of 'Typhoon' are similar to what almost happened in the Soviet Union at the beginning of Gorbechev's reign when a military coup, afraid that the impending breakup of the country would ruin their career's, nearly toppled the government. In this chilling scenario, a select few Russian military leaders decide to take matters into their own hands by precipitating the entire event by launching missles on their OWN country hoping to place blame in such a way as to stall or completely halt the coming democracy.
I don't mind telling you that this actually put chills down my spine to think that whoever is in charge of these ships actually COULD do something like this. A very sobering thought, indeed. Thank heavens for Admiral Zenko and a life dedicated to preserving peace with the use of the underwater machines he helped to design. Zenko makes the startling discovery of what is about to happen, and without a second thought, hijacks his own submarine and head's out to sea. Another wrinkle is placed within this story when the USS Reno shows up to do their assigned 'spy mission' and tries to make sense of what is happening between two of the largest subs in the world and why they act like they are on opposing teams.
IF you are looking for a hair-raising techno-thriller-adventure, than 'Typhoon' should definitely be ON that list. Simply put, this is an exciting story well told by someone who definitely knows the in's & out's of submarine operations (or does a great job of simulating it).Typhoon Overview

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