Nimitz Class: Export Edition [Unbound]

Product Details

• Unbound: 528 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061096849
• ISBN-13: 978-0061096846
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,646,472 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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2.0 out of 5 stars Avoid sneak attacks by, May 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Nimitz Class: Export Edition (Unbound)

Class refers to a generation of ships named after the first ship of that generation. In Nimitz Class, a fictitious US aircraft carrier of the Nimitz Class is vaporized in a nuclear explosion. Signs point to a carefully planned act of terrorism involving a rogue "Kilo" Class sub with a nuclear-tipped torpedo. Unable to prove the theory at first, US military leaders stick with an embarrassing cover story (it was all an accident) while sending a brilliant nuclear weapons expert on an international hunt for the skipper of the rogue sub. In an intelligent move, the handsome and brilliant analyst sets off for Scotland, where the RN trains prospective skippers for command of her subs and those of other nations (called the "perisher course" because it's the greatest single health hazard to the career of would-be submarine commanders). Scotland is also the best place to start because, unlike the US, the RN trains skippers for diesel-electric subs which are more likely to have been involved in the carrier attack than nuclear subs. (Diesel subs, due to their electric drive are inherently quieter than nuclear boats; there are also more of them in the hands of "rogue states" than nuclear boats). While a lead is pursued in Scotland, US forces zero in on an Iranian naval base housing Kilo class subs (Russian-built boats being one of the more modern of their kind) and strike it. This is a common trend in Pat Robinson's books in which America's military leadership has no trouble committing rash, boneheaded or simply irresponsible courses of action like attacking other countries' militaries - and neglecting to even consider holding themselves responsible when the rationale proves thin. This wouldn't be a such a problem were Robinson not as enamored with American military leaders as he makes obvious that he is. Back in Scotland, our hero suffers a run of great luck - actually, it's we who suffer since the book bombards us with the following coincidences: our heroic investigator hooks up with the one of the RN's legendary submarine-command trainers (the "Perisher in-Chief") and his lovely daughter. Looking through report cards of prior trainees, the investigator zeros in on a likely suspect who, lucky again, was also courting the Perisher's ravishing daughter. The trail points to Israeli submariner, but then takes a sharp swerve when it appears that the culprit is not all he seems, and it takes the intrepid naval investigator a scant few pages to discover the rogue's submariner's true origins when the Israelis proved unable to for years. Back on our side of the Atlantic, military leaders hit a brick wall while trying to trace the rogue sub to Russia's Black Sea fleet: it's "impossible" to cross the shallow waters of Turkey's Bosporus submerged. Before the President will authorize the USN to form his attack subs into a huge nuclear wolfpack to hunt the rogue down, he wants proof that the Bosporus theory isn't as implausible as it sounds. Instead of joining the hunt then, our hero joins a team of elite RN submariners who aim to prove the case, and sail submerged from the Med into the Black Sea.
This was a horrible book - much more fun to write about than actually read. Besides the laughably bad dialog (are we yanks that alien to the British? an African-American character who sounds like he walked off an episode of the "Little Rascals") and the license the author grants to the American military to take whatever overt action it wants on the most scant pretext, it's just an incoherent yarn. The author seems more in love with the intricacies of military hardware than actually fastening them into a plot anybody can follow. The author devotes so much time telling us about the workings of a Nimitz Class carrier, that you half expect him to use another one in the story once the first one is destroyed. Instead, once the author has shown us how much he knows about aircraft carriers, any other use (like advancing the story) is unimportant and can be discarded. The story throws twists and turns in your direction (the rogue submariner is Israeli - then he's not; the attack was orchestrated by Iran, then Iraq; submerged transit through Turkish waters is impossible, no it's possible) but never bothers to flesh any of them out before changing track. None of the characters are remotely convincing - Robinson eagerly makes them sound brilliant without making them all that smart, and lets them talk tough without being very responsible. The plot is full of implausible ideas. The story could survive these leaps of logic if Robinson gave us any reason to, but he seems to take for granted that we'll believe the vaunted Israeli military would be tricked into accepting a hardcore Iranian (or Iraqi) agent into its ranks. The idea of "proving" the hero's theory of a submerged crossing from the Black Sea by trying to repeat it has a monster hole anybody can navigate: while successfully copying the theorized submarine transit would prove the hero's theory, failure would not conversely disprove the theory. Robinson doesn't appreciate that technothrillers are all about that - taking a technically implausible idea and showing how impossible it's not. Unlike most mediocre technothrillers which lamely avoid this challenge, "Nimitz" tries to elude it twice. Robinson not only ducks the Israeli-Iran (or Iraqi) dilemma, but doesn't begin to explain the rogue Kilo managed to sneak past defenses of a USN carrier battle group geared by design and training to find hostile subs. (failure to address that is not just a plot lapse, but one of many technical errors which abound in this book which hails itself as "frighteningly realistic". "Nimitz" puts technical correctness over plot and character development, but doesn't even get that right.) The moral of this story is simple - avoid sneak attacks by poorly written books.