The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan)

The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan)
by Tom Clancy

The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Tom Clancy
Edition: Mass Market Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 1992-04-01
ISBN: 0425133516
Number of pages: 480
Publisher: Berkley
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Book Reviews of The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan)

Book Review: There is one woman in this book and she opens a door on p 254
Summary: 2 Stars

Look, I'm just not the audience this book is intended for. I'm female, Australian, in my early 30's and I have little to no interest in the military, the CIA and submarines. I had to read this book for a class, otherwise I would have abandoned it to a park bench somewhere around page 20. I can appreciate that Clancy has a frightening thorough and incredibly detailed knowledge of submarines and military tactics. Bully for him. He's also good at plot - the book is plotted with 100 pound bags of cement (and moves just about as quickly as Red October can turn in the water ie. v. slowly). Some characters are well rounded (Jack Ryan, Jonesy, Ramius, the Admiral) and others are quite intriguing.

Now for the bad news - this book moves about as fast as you would carrying those 100 pound cement bags up Mt Vesuvius. It is S-L-O-W. It has tedious sub plots and a bunch of forgettable characters who are dropped in only to perform some minor plot function. The book jumps around from submarines, to the military, to the CIA (who are apparently hard drinkers as they are constantly pouring drinks or lighting up a smoke - God save me from the late 70's and early 80's government worker), to the Russians, to the Americans, to Jack Ryan. It all gets a bit complex and too hard to keep up with. I don't give two figs about submarines, how they're made or reactors and torpedoes. So all of that was Boring with a capital B.

I have also discovered that not that many people have actually read this book. Half the reviews on Amazon seem to be for the movie (which is fine, but as I was forced to read through this almost 500 page behemoth boring book I refuse to let someone who spent a couple of hours watching Sean Connery on the telly act like they went through what I went through, nuh uh, no way) and pretty much everyone who saw me with the book said "I've seen the movie". So yeah, beware of people giving this book 5 stars who only watched the movie.

As I said, this book wasn't targeted towards women. The only women in the book are the wives of some of the main-ish characters who never actually appear in the book and instead are talked about as perfect wives (Jack Ryan's wife is a specialist eye doctor as well...whatever!) and mothers. The one woman in the book appears on page 254 and opens a door. Oh, and a secretary appears every now and then with some coffee. *insert eye roll here*

Read at your own risk and probably only if you really love the navy, you're interested in the Cold War and you love submarines. For those of us on Amazon who have actually read the book, I would like to humbly suggest we all get together and get tattooed or something because really, this was an experience that will long be remembered, but possibly not for the right reasons!

Summary of The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan)

Gripping military thriller about the chase after a top-secret Russian missile submarine.
Somewhere under the Atlantic, a Soviet sub commander has just made a fateful decision: the Red October is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. And the most incredible chase in history is on....

The Hunt for Red October is the runaway bestseller that launched Tom Clancy's phenomenal career. A military thriller so accurate and convincing that the author was rumored to have been debriefed by the White House. Its theme: the greatest espionage coup in history. Its story: the chase for a runaway top secret Russian missile sub.

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