Customer Reviews

Scimitar SL2

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(24)

 

 

REALLY RATES ONLY ABOUT 0.25 STARS. Like many of the previous reviewers, I started this book with not quite high expectations, but certainly expected a diverting read. Boy was I wrong! It is so bad, it actually antagonized me. Full disclosure: I'm a retired USN person, and have some familiarity with the milieu. First the good stuff: the probability of the Las Palmas earthslide is almost 100%, according to much of what I've seen and read independently: it's only a question of when it will happen. Now the bad stuff: as others have noted, the naval terminology is egregiously wrong (Ensign junior grade? How junior can one be?); full Captains commanding an FFG (and oh by the way, in 2009, these ships will be about 40 years old and most are decommissioned now); ships and aircraft going the wrong way (course 270 is due west, not east), and so on. The characters need a lot of development to be even two-dimensional; the military coup is absurd; loooong spells of space-filling data describing volcanos, which is then repeated at least twice more; naval tactics allowing a known hostile to transit vast ocean areas with NO attempt at surveillance (lots of mention of SOSUS, but no discussion of what it is, how it works, or any explanation or rationalization as to why it didn't detect the BARRACUDA); no mention of any effort to find the source of the boat or its support, even though NSA determined that Chinese satellites were being used for communications, which is a VERY hostile act; using Antisubmarine Rockets (ASROC) to shoot down a cruise missile is ludicrous, since ASROC is a rocket-assisted torpedo, designed for ASW. One of the most unintetnionally funny parts was the starry-eyed characterization of Senator Teddy Kennedy as a staunch supporter of the military! Very bad book: if you must read it to keep your Patrick Robinson string alove, get it from the library: don't waste a dime purchasing it.

As a life-long Republican, I was amazed and insulted by this book. Only the Republicans can do anything, the Democrats are totally inept. This is the main premise of the presidential "crisis" that is pivotal to the book. Where was the Secret Service while this was happening? The idea is idiotic to say the least.

The story itself is an interesting idea, which is unfortunately so poorly executed as to be almost unreadable. The main idea is that a volcano in the Canary Islands will erupt and cause a "mega-tsunami" which will effectively destroy the east coast of the USA and the coast of Europe.

Unfortunately, Mr. Robinson can't even keep his technical details straight even when he is making them up himself. At one point, describing how the tsunami will form, he says it will start at 1 kilometer in height and then increase to 150 feet when it hits the east coast. Sounds like a decrease to me, but I never was good at math. In addition, what a tsunami is was explained at least three times in the book, to people allegedly intelligent, who you would think had heard of the concept.

Poor editing there.

As to the other technical details, they don't border on the ridiculous, they leap-frog right past it. F-15s being flown by the Navy, US Air Force squadrons embarked on a carrier, a Harpoon missile being used as an anti-air weapon! Did Robinson simply pick the names and nomenclatures of weapons out of a copy of Jane's All the World's Weapons Systems at random?

His cruise missiles use "sonar" altimeters to keep their altitude. The Patriots are either flying at "near the speed of light" or else possibly not capable of doing the intercept job. Which is it? The list goes on.

A pivotal plot point involves bringing an aircraft carrier out to search for the rogue submarine, the carrier being loaded with Seahawk sub-hunter helicopters. Pages are devoted to the transfer of these helicopters from this carrier, to another carrier already in the area. The danger and complexity involved in transferring the fixed wing aircraft from the already resident carrier to the helicopter carrier (also a Nuke class CVN) and the helicopters to the first had me wondering, why not just fly off the carrier that brought them? Needless nonsense that makes no sense whatsoever.

As to the sub hunt itself, it was idiotic from the start. We have the US Navy command searching for a submarine that they know they can't hear with passive sonar, and just using radar in the hope they will run across a periscope above water. Well, if you're searching for a sub you know is going to launch nuclear missiles, just use active sonar, right? Maybe not the same range, but effective nonetheless.

I could go on, but I'll leave it with this thought. Techno-thrillers, unless they are science fiction, must, and I repeat must, be plausible. They have to "follow the rules" as it were. Otherwise it's just bad, and I mean very bad fiction.

Love or hate Tom Clancy, but he always has his facts straight. In fact, if he read this book, he's probably laughing himself to sleep at night secure in the knowledge that Robinson poses no threat to Clancy in the techno-thriller genre.

Don't buy it, don't even borrow a copy. You'll waste your money, which is bad enough. But above all, you'll waste your time on a piece of idiotic drivel.

Scott Gaines' review is dead-on. I really liked the first 4 or so books. But this book and the previous one are just plain ridiculous. I won't go into details but I recommend you read Scott's review.

I wish the Patrick of Sea Wolf/Nimitz/USS Unseen would return.

While I enjoyed the plot of a majority of Mr. Robinson's books I found the inaccuracies of the book to be beyond belief. An example would be a Harpoon Missile being used to shoot down a cruise missle.

The Harpoon is a Surface to Surface or Air-Surface anti ship missile with a top speed under the speed of sound not an Surface to Air or Air to Air anti aircraft/cruise missile weapon platform which would have a speed in excess of Mach 2.

Another issue is the fact the he would lead us to believe that the SAS, arguably the finest counter-terrorist force in the world, would fail to sucessfully investigate the background of an officer under consideration for joining the regiment.

Mr. Robinson states in his book that he has numerous contacts within the military community and if so I would suggest that they be allowed to read the book before publication to correct inaccuracies such as I and others have detailed.

I am a big fan of this series of Sub, techno warefare books by Patrick Robinson. However this particular book did not hold my attention as closely as the previous books. Some of the descriptions of the obvious went on for pages and I found myself skimming through most of the descriptions. Also, where was the editing done? Last I checked the word was vulanologist, not volcanoologist. Also I found some of the technical stuff unbelievable and some wrong.

Most importantly, where were the twists? They were not there. Robinson's humorous and intelligent Adm. Morgan and company never really got into a major battle of wits with their adversary. They were almost told what to expect by the enemy. There were no good undersea battles or special forces as in Nimitz Class or Kilo Class or any of Robinson's others. As I said before, the twists and mind games were missing.

Maybe I was over eager to get my hands on this book. I would not discourage reading it, but do not start it with the great expectations I had when I flipped open the cover, maybe someone else may enjoy it more.

I hope the next offering from Robinson returns to the format and style of Kilo Class or Unseen, or Seawolf.

Hamas, the Moslem world's most organized terrorist group, had commissioned the building of a super nuclear submarine and loaded it with nuclear warheads. Can the United States stop Hamas from wreaking major havoc with their ultimate weapon?

The premise is intriguing and Patrick Robinson's research into naval operations, submarines, nuclear warheads, and terrorist communications are impressive. But Robinson's naval operations research becomes an anchor that sinks his novel with carboard characters, crass stereotypes and unbelievable subplots.

For naval operations veterans and other naval ops hobbysits, this book may have value in Robinson's painstaking detail in depicting the U.S. navy's strategy and maneuvers to stop the submarine. Robinson credibly debunks the infallability of sonar and plots an effective geography of the seas and defensive equipment that a submarine must navigate for real silence.

The normal reader will find much of these operational details tedious and wonder why the author could not have spent the same kind of care in his depictions of people. Robinson's rough-crusted-but-soft-inside hero is shallow ; the superevil-totally-heartless villain even more so. So disappointing.

The vast majority of readers who pick up Patrick Robinson's latest novel will immediately know what to expect. A tightly written, well paced adventure story, that, although occasionally defying the belief of the reader, can be forgiven in return for a well crafted story. Typical readers of Mr. Robinson's books already have an interest in military hardware and tactics, but will expect to obtain new insights into some of the more obscure features of today's war machines.

However these readers will be surprised by Scimitar SL-2. And not in a good way. This novel falls short of being a techno-thriller. Instead, this novel seems nothing more than a forrum for Mr. Robinson to vent his ultra-republican views. In this story all the republican characters instantly appreciate the danger their country is under, whereas any character that the author telegraphs as a liberal is ignorant, obtuse, and stagnant. The author leaves no grey areas in his characterisations. He claims that all republicans are patriots, and liberals seem bent on self-destruction.

Now I know what some people will be thinking: "Uh-oh, here's another weakling liberal who doesn't acknowledge the danger that the US is constantly under and just doesn't understand that the only way to ensure safety is through force, with the miltary being the ultimate force". I will refute this. As a New Zealand citizen I claim that I am politically agnostic when it comes to affairs of the US. Indeed, I'll admit that I even had to look up the terms 'republican' and 'liberal' to understand what the author was taking exception to. However Mr. Robinson managed to offend me with his one-dimensional colourisation of the world.

But the overt, closed-minded politics are not the only failings of this book. As entertainment this book fails. The book (re)introduces a set of unlikable characters - none of which progress through any form of arc. Oddly enough, the central Arnold Morgan character seems to be the alter ego that Mr. Robinson wishes he could be. Maybe he is the Superman for the over 50s. There is a lack of ambiguity throughout the story: Whenever one opponent attempts a strategy the opposing side quickly speculates that this is the one and only course they can take, which is simply not true (this speculation often appears on the very next page). The pacing, while starting off well, quickly degenerates to dwell on the inconsequential. Ironically, the climax of the book is anti-climactic. The third act occupies only the last five pages of the 374 page book. (I can only theorise that the toner in Mr. Robinson's printer was running out.) The dialog and prose never engage the reader in this section. And worst of all, this is the only military conflict in the book.

There have been other posts on this site about the technical inaccuracies in Scimitar SL-2. But as a fan of techno-thrillers I feel cheated by these. To give potential readers an indication of the types of inaccuracies they will find I will give a few here. If you do not take exception to these then you may find this book more rewarding than I did:
(Beware that there are potential spoilers in here:)
A submarine rounds Cape Horn from the Pacific to the Atlantic following course 270.
A missile is shot down with an ASROC missile.
A torpedo is dropped from a helicopter and immediately explodes agains the hull of an enemy.
Three frigates detect a submarine (using radar) but the submarine does not detect the radar sweeps or the cavatating frigates on sonar.
A character is a former US Army Master Chief.

Over all I found this book not only a waste of time, but aggravating and occasionally offensive - I can only assume that the blatant racism of the "heros" is shared by Robinson. Also his lack of respect for democracy baffles me. I would not recommend this book unless you are an avid Robinson fan (and share his political views).

"I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe its a terrible tragedy" - Tyler Durden

The premise is interesting, but the execution and political campaigning is amateurish. I'm a big fan of the techno-thrillers, but Patrick Robinson's pro-GOP, anti-Democrat bent is ridiculous... bordering on juvenile. This book is more like an episode of Johnny Quest as written by Rush Limbaugh. If you have only moments to spare before your plane starts boarding and this is the only available book at the news stand, then maybe give it a try. But you may be better off just staring at the seatback in front of you.

You know when an author has exhausted his genre when the entire naval climax takes less than a page and a half, and details on how the Eastern seaboard is evacuated takes over 30 pages. I can't tell you how delighted I was in skipping entire pages where Robinson just goes on and on about how Washington DC was being cleared of its treasures. I am so glad I got this book for the low, low price of $0.80 (not including shipping). This book is only slightly more palatable than a day old burger sitting in the heating tray at your local fast food burger joint. Hmmm... its a close call. Maybe I should have paid more attention to those 30 pages.

As a staunch conservative, I enjoyed the idea of reading an enthusiactically anti-PC novel, since virtually all other novels these days are blatently and pathetically PC regardless of subject matter. But this novel was so full of errors, contradictions, and obvious mistakes that I couldn't make myself love it.

On another but related point, anyone likely to read this novel has certainly read The Hunt for Red October. As such, any reader is likely to know at least a little about basic submarine warfare. I found myself continually exasperated with the silly way the rogue submarine was pursued (and repeatedly lost) and how "passive" sonar would ping and "active" sonar somehow was never an option. And don't get the idea that these were the worst holes in the story. This book was bad, really bad.