The frigate Ariadne, fitted with sophisticated electronic equipment, patrols the Aegean Sea. Her official mission is to carry out a hydrographic survey. Unofficially, she is the eyes and ears of NATO - a spy ship. By the author of "Where Eagles Dare".
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Sailing in the Aegean, NATO spyship HMS Ariadne sights two disasters at once, a bomber crashing into the sea and a large yacht sinking. The plane turns out to have been loaded with nuclear weapons, and the survivors rescued from the yacht appear somehow responsible for the plane's destruction. With potential saboteurs aboard, the crew of the Ariadne must raise the one activated weapon and carefully dispose of it. MacLean (The Lonely Sea has trumped up so many aspects of this novel that he has taken the fun out of it. Rather than have the spies seized and flown off, he keeps them on the frigate. Instead of bringing in experts to remove the weapons, he leaves the job in the hands of the ship's captain. He also ups the stakes: if the unstable nearby volcano, Santorini, erupts, the combined explosions would create a nuclear winter. The contrived plot together with MacLean's stiff writing style make for a lazily composed adventure. Paperback to Fawcett.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
From Library Journal
In the Aegean a large airplane crashes at almost the same time a luxurious yacht is sinking. Commander Talbot of the Ariadne , a sophisticated British ship that is part of NATO, picks up the yacht's survivors, among them a wealthy Greek businessman. The downed plane, it is learned, contains hydrogen bombs and atomic mines, one of which is ticking. If the mine explodes in that spot, earthquakes, volcano eruptions, tidal waves, ozone cracking, and possibly the end of the world could ensue. Talbot and his crew piece together a fiendish plot involving the Greek, drugs, terrorism, and international blackmail. While a large portion of the book reads like a field manual for reclaiming submerged atomic devices, the pace is swift and relentless. (The involvement of the U.S. President, and his decision to keep the whole thing quiet to avoid credibility problems, is more than a bit eerie.) Fans of MacLean will enjoy this, as would any reader of thrillers. Robert H. Donahugh, Youngstown & Mahoning Cty. P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Alistair MacLean's worst book,
This review is from: Santorini (Hardcover)
Alistair MacLean, one of the great adventure storywriters of all time, went into a precipitous decline beginning in the 1970s. "Bear Island" (1971) is the last of his stories that can hold a candle to his great work of the 1950s and 1960s. From that time on, the decline is relentless, with each book being worse than its predecessor."Santorini", published in 1986, is the last sad evidence of this prodigious talent in decline. The book is static and talky, with no adventure, no suspense, no tension. And, worst of all, virtually all of the action takes place "off screen" and is reported to our nominal heroes as they converse in brave understatement meant to convey the greatest heights of modest heroism. Upper lips don't get any stiffer than those of Commander Talbot and his Number One Officer. In "Santorini" MacLean expends all of his energy laying on very thick the cataclysmic consequences that would result from the explosion of the atomic and hydrogen bombs that lie in the hold of an aircraft lying at the bottom of the sea. This is typical of his latter work: he tries to create suspense by escalating to nearly world-ending destruction the consequences that would befall mankind if the villain has his way. At the same time, in the latter books, MacLean creates heroes that appear to be supernaturally talented and cunning - so much so, that never for a moment does the reader believe that the villain - a "genius", according to the author - has a chance of succeeding. In his latter works, his tendency to hyperbole clearly gets the better of him. His protagonists are supermen, and his villains are the earthly manifestation of evil, making Satan himself seem like a choirboy by comparison. Their boundless evil provides justification for the ruthless tactics of the protagonists. In the black-and-white moral universe of MacLean's latter stories, the only way to defeat such villains is to replicate their ruthlessness in the name of "good". This is not a very becoming trait in a writer, especially when it is dwelled on as much as MacLean tends to in some of this books. "Goodbye California", for example, is an ugly piece of work that - if it could for a moment be taken seriously - would deserve the label "fascist literature". There is laziness about even his early work that simply goes out of control in the latter books. In "Santorini", for example, every character uses the word "inevitably" - not because it makes sense for them to do so, but simply because the author is too lazy to come up with dialogue that distinguishes one character from another. "Santorini" ranks below such abysmal efforts as "Goodbye California", "Floodgate", "Athabasca", and "Partisans", and stands, to my mind, as the worst of an outstanding writer's work. Anyone interested in good adventure stories should steer clear of MacLean's latter work. Read the outstanding tales he wrote in the 1950s ("HMS Ulysses", "The Guns of Navarone", "Fear Is the Key") and the 1960s ("The Satan Bug", "The Dark Crusader", "When 8 Bells Toll").
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Worst MacLean book...really sad to see what it all came to.,
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This review is from: Santorini (Mass Market Paperback)
Alistair MacLean, in his heydey, was the best writer of action/adventure. His heroes were heroic in wonderfully droll and understated ways. You never knew who the bad guy was...there was always a traitor in the midst of the good guys. The action was relentless. Lots of close escapes, twists and PLOT. Things happened. A lot of them. One adventure after another. Often his plots were little incidents in a larger war...especially World War II.Many of his best books took place on ship. His first, HMS ULYSSES, still stands, in my opinion, as one of the gritiest and most stirring examinations of everyday life and death on a British ship at the height of the war. It feels almost like DAS BOOT...you can almost smell the grease, the fear, the steel and the heroism that arises from the fact that there really was no other option. Other books, like GUNS OF NAVARONE, SOUTH BY JAVA HEAD, etc. etc. were a bit more interested in outrageous entertainment, but they were entertaining. They felt carefully plotted, and if MacLean wasn't the best writer out there...he was a good plotter. Old-fashioned in the extreme...no sex, no cursing, no gory details. But brisk, witty and exciting. As MacLean grew older, and his audience turned to newer writers...his writing became both flacid and desparate. His plots and the stakes his heroes played for often dealth with saving the world from annihilation. But his knowledge of modern life was sketchy at best. In SANTORINI, in 1986, he still calls nuclear weapons "atom bombs." There seems to be no understanding of computers. No true grasp on any believable geo-political condition we might recognize. His writing, never one for brilliantly observed characterizations, is totally devoid of any distinction between characters. Everyone talks EXACTLY the same...Brits, Americans, Greeks. Presidents, sailors, admirals and criminals. They are the same...if they didn't have different names we wouldn't know who was talking. The "situation" that the characters are dealing with is indeed earth-threatening...but no one seems terribly upset or in a huge hurry to deal with it. And MacLean only seems to have the sketchiest idea of how the mechanics of what the characters do work. I imagine the book was written out of force of habit. MacLean was probably old and disinterested...but still under contract, or trying to leave more money for his heirs, or something. But what he also left is a completely forgettable book, one to be avoided at all costs. I'm very saddened to say this, because in the 50s and 60s...he was the master of what he did. Read one of those old novels, and even though it will feel old-fashioned, you'll know you're in the hands of skilled craftsperson.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sadly, I have to side with the nay-sayers on this one.....,
By
This review is from: Santorini (Mass Market Paperback)
It's probably pipped by 'Goodbye California', but 'Santorini' ranks right up there as Maclean's worst book. If I were say that the story begins with an aircraft crashing into the sea and potentially triggering the countdown of its cargo of nuclear bombs, you'd think this would be a taut, suspensful thriller. But despite this fairly interesting start, 'Santorini' is boring, talky and dull. As with most of his later books, far too much time is spent talking....yes, we GET how immense the threat is and how international governments are watching events with baited breath, no need to spend the entire book endlessly repeating this. So what should have been a real page-turner becomes a chore to get through. You keep hoping that something will happen to kick the story into another gear, but it never really does.Characters were never Maclean's strong point, but here they're cardboard thin. Grave, solemn heroes who can do no wrong and never raise a sweat, a villian who is easily identifiable and has no purpose other than to be a "bad guy", heroines whose only role is to be "classic Greek beauty" love interests. It's notable that nearly every single character here has a name that Maclean has used before: Talbot, Carrington, Andropolous, McKinnon.....if an author can't even give his characters original names, you know you're going to get cardboard cut-outs. And the plot goes nowhere, we don't even find out what the villian's purpose was; one of the protagonists is forced to narrate "well, we THINK his plan was this...." but nobody seems to know, least of all the reader. 'Santorini' is a tired, uninteresting book that does more harm than good to the Maclean legacy. What a sad way to bow out.
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