The Hunt for Red October » (Unabridged)

Known for originating the techno-thriller genre, Tom Clancy writes complex novels dense with hardware and international intrigue. Perhaps the strongest indication of his power as a writer is the fact that he is often treated by the media like a character in one of his books, asked for opinions about military readiness and the subject of rumors about being debriefed by the Pentagon. Not bad for a former salesman who was rejected for service because of bad eyesight.

The Soviet's most valuable ship -- a new ballistic-missile submarine with their most trusted and skilled naval officer at the helm -- is attempting to defect to the United States. It is high treason on an unprecedented scale, and the Soviet's mission is to seek and destroy her at any cost.

If the U.S. fleet can locate the Red October and get her safely to port, it will be the intelligence coup of all time. But the submarine has a million square miles in which to hide and the deadly game of hide-and-seek is on.

"THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER is a thriller that stands in a category all alone. With his rich imagination and grasp of advanced technology, Clancy has created a dramatic and realistic adventure." (Publisher's Source)

Gale Research

Conceived before the author, an insurance agent, had ever set foot on a submarine, it is "a tremendously enjoyable and gripping novel of naval derring-do," according to Washington Post Book World critic Reid Beddow. The book contains descriptions of high-tech military hardware so advanced that former Navy Secretary John Lehman, quoted in Time, joked that he "would have had [Clancy] court- martialed: the book revealed that much that had been classified about antisubmarine warfare. Of course, nobody for a moment suspected him of getting access to classified information." The details were actually based on unclassified books and naval documents, Clancy's interviews with submariners, and his own educated guesses, the author asserts. Admitting that "neither characterization nor dialogue are strong weapons in Clancy's literary arsenal," Richard Setlowe in the Los Angeles Times Book Review nonetheless expressed an opinion shared by other reviewers: "At his best, Clancy has a terrific talent for taking the arcana of U.S. and Soviet submarine warfare, the subtleties of sonar and the techno-babble of nuclear power plants and transforming them into taut drama."