Tidal Rip (Hardcover)

by Joe Buff (Author) "Commander Jeffrey Fuller let the hubbub of the cocktail reception swirl around him in the huge grand ballroom of the posh and historic hotel..." (more)
Key Phrases: top quiet speed, sonar speakers, kampfschwimmer team, Ernst Beck, Buenos Aires, Captain Fuller (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Submarine aficionado Buff stirs up his usual whirlpool of frightening undersea exploits, but in this fourth outing his formula is beginning to feel a little soggy. Like last year's Crush Depth, this adventure features Jeffrey Fuller, commander of the super sub USS Challenger, locked in mortal combat in the year 2011 with his usual enemy, a submariner from the German navy. This time out, that adversary is Commander Ernst Beck, at the helm of the jewel of the fatherland's U-boat fleet, the Admiral von Scheer. As in Buff's previous Fuller adventures, the world is in the chaos of nuclear war. The Germans have teamed up with the South Africans, where the whites have retaken control, to form the "Axis." On the other side, the "Allies" are a loose confederation headed by the United States and Great Britain. With the Allies struggling to hold onto central Africa and prevent the Axis from spreading its reach into South America, Fuller is dispatched to seek and destroy the von Scheer, which has been littering the floor of the Atlantic with the hulls of Allied ships for months. The action ends in an exhilarating if inevitable showdown off the African coast. Buff brings both a descriptive flair and an undeniable knowledge of undersea warfare to his series. Here, he has also wisely chosen to jettison a silly, plot-diverting love affair that Fuller has been nurturing for the past couple of books. Yet the inevitability of the ending, almost identical to others in the series, makes this one a tiresome journey.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Description

A new world war has begun. It is the year 2012, and extremists in Germany and South Africa have succeeded in staging simultaneous coups to forge the Berlin-Boer Axis, a cabal determined to take over the world. The key instrument of this war is tactical nuclear weaponry, where a single torpedo or cruise missile can destroy an entire ship or city. And while the war will be fought with high-tech weapons, it will be won or lost by the men who command them...

Commander Jeffrey Fuller is America's newest hero. Awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his victories in battle as captain of America's most sophisticated and deadly fast-attack nuclear submarine, the USS Challenger, Fuller takes grim satisfaction in the honor, knowing at what cost it came.

But he has barely enough time to receive the decoration before he is tasked with a new mission. An Allied convoy is steaming toward Africa, hoping to establish a beachhead on the continent that would enable a D-day type of invasion. The enemy has dispatched its most lethal submarine, the SMS Admiral von Scheer, a ceramic-hulled sub virtually undetectable by even the most advanced sonar technology, to ensure that the convoy never reaches its destination. Fuller's mission is to protect the convoy at all costs, even if it means battling the phantom sub to do it.

Then a nearly impossible mission gets even more difficult. Fuller discovers from intelligence sources that agents of the Berlin-Boer Axis are attempting to gain a foothold in South America, a development that would force the United States to fight the war on yet another front, an escalating conflict they can't possibly win. Now Fuller must make a no-win decision: deploy his team of Navy SEALs to South America to destroy the nuclear-armed enemy insurgents or patrol the depths of the Atlantic, seeking threats to the convoy? Even Fuller cannot be in two places at once, and the failure of either mission will mean defeat for the Allied cause.

Fuller's opponents have every technological advantage of modern warfare: nuclear-tipped torpedoes, high-velocity flechette projectiles, and hyper-accurate targeting computers. But a weapon is only as powerful as the man who wields it, and Fuller possesses the intellect, the nerve, and the guts that earned him victories over the most dangerous warriors in the Axis Navy. Stalking his prey beneath the waves where the pressure alone can kill, Commander Jeffrey Fuller knows that while one man's life may be meaningless, one man's death could change the course of the war.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 464 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow; 1st edition (November 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060009667
• ISBN-13: 978-0060009663
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #419,249 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Joe Buff -- fast becoming THE Submarine author to watch..., August 17, 2004

By	Jeff Edwards "RadioJeff" (Twin Falls, Idaho) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

It pretty much began with Clancy's 'Hunt For Red October' and shortly afterwards Michael DiMercurio took the Submarine baton and ran (is still running, actually) with it. Not long ago Patrick Robinson began his own Sub series (sorry, they just didn't *do it* for me) but it has been Joe Buff that has really made this particular techno-genre his own.

For those familiar with Buff's previous novels (Deep Sound Channel & Crush Depth) you know that a new Axis Power has formed between chiefly Germany and the newly white empowered South Africa against chiefly the United Kingdom and the United States. This is no ordinary war, either. It is a battlefield where the use of tactical nuclear weapons is an almost daily event. Somewhere in the back of my mind I wonder just how many nuclear weapons we have to dispense during this war because all those involved seem to be using them with reckless abandon. The war has created a major breakdown in shipping throughout the Atlantic, which has brought our story to several interesting and above all else, exciting missions in this series thus far. One item I have noticed that many readers did NOT enjoy was the passive love story arc that began with the first novel. Thankfully this storyline has been left firmly in the background of 'Tidal Rip'.

The action is swift and plentiful, and once again, amazingly realistic. A good friend of mine spent several years in the Silent Service and assured me that Joe Buff was the Real Deal when it came to the realism of how a future naval nuclear war might happen. Of course a lot is pure speculation, however given the circumstances that Buff has created starting with his first novel, the action of both sides is amazingly accurate. For those techno-thriller fans who enjoy their warfare on the realistic side, you simply cannot ignore these books. The plot is in MY opinion, quite compelling despite what some of the so-called 'professional' reviewers have written. Suffice it to say that if you enjoy tales of war written from the perspective of a submariner and you HAVEN'T read Joe Buff yet, you certainly have some great stuff to look forward to. Fine brain candy, and a chilling scenario which I fervently hope does NOT come to pass.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Even better crafted than the previous two, January 12, 2004

By	Alfred M. Neill "Penske Fan" (Goochland, VA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Buff's first novel, Deep Sound Channel, was for me a defining work in the genre. But after the shock factor at the massive scale of the limited nuclear war wore off, his two followup novels perhaps overdid that shock factor until it became numbing. After a while, it seemed that Buff had fallen into a trap of having to outdo himself, by scripting even more implausible escapes from even larger nuclear explosions. Those two novels, while certainly action packed, seemed to follow almost the same story line, with the climax of the third novel being the only real distinction between novels two and three.

I will leave the plot synopsis to other, but have to say that in this book, Buff gets back on track. We learn more about the politics of the ongoing war, and the battles become more than underwater slugfests. The submarines are quieter, the tension greater. I liked the addition of a new set of navy seals, led by a new character.

The war spreads, with "neutral" nations starting to lean one way or the other, and a spectre of escalation into full fledged thermonuclear war becoming a very real possibility.

Also, for the first time in the series, we see real growth in the character of Jeffery Fuller. For the first time I saw in him someone with the potential to lead a larger force. All in all, an enjoyable read that I voraciously devoured with great satisfaction.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tidal thriller, December 19, 2003

By	Douglas De Bono - Author of No Safe Harbor (Minnetonka, mn United States) - See all my reviews

This is the second novel I have read by Joe Buff (the other being CRUISH DEPTH).

TIDAL RIP is an extraordinarily satisfying thriller that continues the story of the Boer/Axis war against America. The situation is desperate as Europe has already falen under the new Nazi domination and the axis powers are attempting to link up in Africa. Just as in previous wars, a convoy on men and equipment is steaming across the Atlantic to shift the tide.

Into this mix fall two submarine commanders: Ernest Beck and Jeffry Fuller. They command the world's most advanced submarine platforms (ceramic hulled, deep diving predators). Beck's mission is to kill the convoy and possibly win the war. Fuller's mission is to kill Beck. They have the whole Atlantic in which to fight.

A very satisfying read. Just one caution: Once I got going, I just kept turning the pages and forgot about going to bed.