25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Hunt is On, May 30, 2003
The Hunt for Red October
Although it was the first of the series to be published, Tom Clancy's The Hunt for Red October is actually the third novel in the Jack Ryan series. It propelled Clancy, who had been an insurance salesman with only a few letters to the editor under his writing belt, to best-selling superstar. His success with military and espionage-related fiction earned him a title he does not readily accept: father of the techno-thriller.
This novel, if I remember correctly, was the first work of fiction published by the Naval Institute Press, the publishing arm of the United States Naval Institute, a civilian entity which promotes all things naval, including the study of naval history, strategy, technology, and tactics. Some of the Naval Institute Press' other books include A.D. Baker's Fleets of the World, Clay Blair, Jr.'s Silent Victory, and Norman Friedman's Desert Victory: The War for Kuwait. But considering that although Clancy's novel deals with the workings of other federal agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency, the FBI, the National Security Agency, and both the Executive and Legislative branches, the heart of the story is a sea chase.
Based loosely on a 1975 incident in which a Soviet frigate attempted to defect to the West, The Hunt for Red October tells the by-now familiar tale of how Captain First Rank Marko Ramius and a group of selected officers aboard the Soviet Navy's newest Typhoon-class SSBN (the Navy designator for a nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarine, or "boomer") band together to defect to the United States and hand over the Red Navy's most advanced "stealth" submarine.
Ramius, you see, is motivated by one of the strongest emotions of all: the desire for revenge against the callous Soviet state. Not only for the death of his wife as a result of negligence by a well-connected surgeon, but for all the injustices he has witnessed from even his early childhood. His father, a Lithuanian communist and devoted Party apparatchik, was responsible for many deaths and unjust acts, and Marko, raised by a decent grandmother, sees both his father and the State as monsters who care for nothing but power and expansion.
In this novel, set sometime in the mid-1980s, Clancy introduces us to Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst being groomed by his mentor, Admiral James Greer, for better and more crucial postings within the Agency. Now currently assigned as CIA liaison in London (which puts this novel's setting to be after the current Clancy novel Red Rabbit), it is Ryan who first hands the U.S. its first intelligence data on Red October, courtesy of the British Secret Service.
The novel's focus is on Ramius' defection attempt aboard the Red October, which has been modified to use a "caterpillar" drive (described in the movie version as a "jet engine for the water") which enables a sub to glide through the ocean almost undetectably. It also deals with the Red Navy's desperate attempts to seek and destroy the defectors' submarine, and the almost equally desperate moves of an Anglo-American fleet to acquire Red October.
The novel, as if often the case, is far better than its film adaptation. Not that John McTiernan did a bad job with Paramount's 1990 feature film, but in slimming down the characters and situations to fit within a 2-hour movie, far too many exciting scenes were ignored and the scope of the sea chase is narrowed down from "seeing" almost the whole spectrum of the Soviet Navy in the novel to actually seeing one Bear-Foxtrot anti-submarine bomber and one Alfa-class attack sub. I am not saying the movie is not worth watching, but the book, with its various characters and storylines (some of them which would be woven back and forth in all the other Ryan novels), is far better.
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31 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An impossible book to put down, May 4, 2000
By A Customer
Russia's newest Typhoon-class nuclear missile submarine the Red October, equipped with a silent Propulsion system, sets sail from Murmansk. Meanwhile a mysterious letter is sent from the captain of the Red October, Marko Ramius, to the Chief Political officer of the Soviet Navy. Ramius has made a fateful decision, the Red October is heading west. The Americans want her and the Russians want her back. Soon after the whole Soviet fleet from the Mediterranean and North Atlantic are sent to hunt down the mighty ship. CIA-analyst Jack Ryan believes that Ramius is trying to defeat the west, however the Pentagon thinks that Ryan is lying and believe the Soviets, who told them that Ramius is a "mad man" and will launch a nuclear weapon at the United States. The Race between NATO and the Soviet Union begins, as does the most incredible chase in history.
Tom Clancy developes a strong feeling of intensity throughout the book. The suspense captivates the reader and makes it remarkably hard to put the book down. By using a lot of explicit, factual detail, Clancy is able to captivate the mind of the reader. The dialect used in "The Hunt for Red October" is also a major key, which helps this book keep the interest of even the least attentive readers. Clancy kept each page, each paragraph exciting, interesting and full of detail.
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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
The Hunt for Red October, September 7, 2002
The Hunt for Red October written by Tom Clancey is by far one of the best submarine action-adventure techno-thrillers to come along in quite awhile. The action is so convincingly gripping you feel like you're there watching the story play out in front of you.
The plot is some espionage coup and this is a Jack Ryan novel, Claney's main hero in the book. Red October is a new class of Soviet submarine and it's captain, Captain First Rank Marko Ramius and his command crew have a plan to hijack the submarine and defect to the United States. This book is at the height of the cold war in time frame and Clancy does an excellent job setting the ground work and stage of the book. Red October is the latest in technology th Soviets can muster an the United States wants to find out more about it.
There are action-packed submarine chases chock-full of high suspense as Clancy works the plot and sub-plots to a masterfull stroke making this book a real page turned. I finished this book in one evening as I was riveted to the story as the character development was solid to the storyline.
As we read on in the book, you feel the emotions and adrenalin rush, making this one of Clancy's best written books. Buy this book and you'll have a story that you can read and reread as the adventure will remain fresh and electrifying.
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