In the mid 2000s, China tries to buy seven Kilo-class diesel
submarines from Russia. The Americans aim to prevent this. Meanwhile,
something odd is going on at Kerguelen Island.
The Chinese plot is to use these submarines to deny American
forces access to the seas off Taiwan, and then to reconquer that
country. As before in Nimitz Class, Robinson is practically
fetishistic about the ultimate superiority of the diesel submarine
over any other sort of warship.
The plot doesn't always make a great deal of sense, with lots of
gung-ho American independent action beyond even what George Bush Jr
would have thought reasonable. (And yeah, I still think Robinson may
have been parodying standard technothrillers; all the American navy
men are built like linebackers, they all have beautiful wives, and so
on.) Everything swings towards the American side, with just one Los
Angeles attack boat and one SEAL team ending up destroying all the
Kilos without loss to themselves. The bad guys don't even get a shot
off.
Really what the book is about is not the plot, and certainly not the
characters, but the series of technical set-pieces: a storm at sea, a
submarine attack in the North Atlantic, some yachting, a SEAL
operation, a submarine transit under the North Pole, and some more
submarine attacks. Read at that level, it's great fun. It's a pity the
characters are so sketched-in, but to be honest I'll take this over
something that gets the technical details wrong but the characters
right. (Better to leave out the tech completely if you can't get it
right.)
Followed by H.M.S. Unseen.
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