broman@noscvax.UUCP (Vincent P. Broman) (10/20/85)
The Hunt for RED OCTOBER
Tom Clancy
Naval Institute Press, 1984
(recently out in paperback, also)
A quick review by Vincent and Ilene Broman
The Hunt for RED OCTOBER is wildly popular here in San Diego, Navy
City, because of its vivid portrayal of submariners, international
intrigue, and an ordinary man maneuvered into heroic deeds. An
acquaintance aboard an attack submarine told me that his captain had a
prepublication copy of the novel to review in order to make suggestions,
but the draft got commandeered by so many others aboard that it took a
long while to be returned. Clancy has really done his homework in
researching the technical details and day-to-day flavor of naval
operations.
The author focuses on events more than people, but two characters
attain three-dimensionality, more or less. Marko Ramius is the crack
Soviet Submarine commander who engineers a chance to defect to the USA
and bring the newest "Typhoon"-class sub, the RED OCTOBER, with him.
When the Soviet Navy hunts his sub with orders to shoot, the US Navy
discovers his intention also and tries to grab him first, and a juicy
tale begins. The recounting of Ramius' background helps us to
understand his disaffection and to believe in his ability to execute an
amazing escape plan, but once the action gets going, his character
unfolds much less than his plan does. Jack Ryan is a historian who does
analyses for the CIA. Chance and his colleagues' esteem for him get him
more deeply involved in the developing crisis than he wants. He also
gets to deal with the morals and practice of intelligence work in a way
he was able to avoid at his desk.
The story is told in multisensor fashion, jumping all over the
world, with interesting peripheral characters and subplots, and many
views of military operations and capabilities. The author is good at
spinning a yarn, adding twists, and building interest up to more than
one climax. The energy of the story flags during certain CIA twiddlings
and in the many preparations for the Naval operations in the Atlantic,
but otherwise, you are swept along.
An exception to Clancy's generally thorough research is an amusing
naivete regarding modern computing. I suspect that he has recently
bought a PC to write on (an Apple?), and his view of supercomputers is
based on that experience. When an engineer is hired to predict the
performance of the RED OCTOBER, he dusts off an old hydrodynamic
submarine model, translates fortran to ada, and adjusts it for RED
OCTOBER's design, all in a few days. His debugging is limited to one
short test run. Then he's given single-user access to a Cray-2, where
he types in the input parameters of his model on the system console,
then accepts a little wager with the operator as to how long the run
would last. "That's a right lengthy program you've input, sir. Betcha
my baby can run it in ten minutes." When the program didn't crash,
everyone believed his results.
Clancy's picture of American and Soviet technologies is "Anything
you can do, I can do better", which is reassuring to us Americans. It
also fits in with his black view of Soviet politics and society, in
comparison to American democracy and fair play. He does have a good
point here and there, but the black and white hats mostly serve to
sharpen the drama.
Despite its shortcomings, this book is recommended as an exciting
instructive, and current tale.
P.S. Does anyone think they can identify the agent CARDINAL among the
soviets seen in the story?
Vincent Broman (619) 225-2365
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