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Title: H.M.S. Unseen by Patrick Robinson, McCallum David ISBN: 0-06-109801-9 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: 01 March, 2000 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.48 (97 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Ending is simply too rushed
Comment: I've read some of Patrick Robinson's books (Nimitz Class, Kilo Class, HMS Unseen, USS Seawolf).
I noticed some common traits among them :
- A lot of time is used to build up a plot that ends abruptly. Feels like running into a wall.
- The whole book is based similarly. Lots of effort in building up the plots and characters, and then rushed into a wall towards the ending.
- The US military seems to be all-seeing, all-knowing, but is willing to execute a plan that plunges a country into ruins at a suggestion of a single man. Without further checks. (In HMS Unseen)
- Seems like only the US and UK are the good guys. The military heads of other countries seems like lunatics when compared.
(Spoiler) I remember reading about how Ben Adnam got from "HMS Unseen" into Scotland, and then building up his fitness. The whole event was detailed down to what he bought, eat, and wore. Even his timings for his runs were detailed. Whereas in the final part of the novel, everything was rushed, as if the author cannot wait to finish the book and get it published.
The book is good for its plots, but the execution leaves much to be desired. I'd suggest anyone reading this book to go for the big picture, and not pay so much attention to the details. Otherwise you might feel somewhat shortchanged.
Rating: 3
Summary: Countries do get framed
Comment: Patrick Robinson novels are one of my guilty pleasures. While they are not great literature, they are page-turners. I can hardly put them down and by the end am literally bleary-eyed.
With every book, I ask myself whether the writing has improved. I think that it has, to some extent, although in this novel his favorite adjective seems to have become "big." He believes, apparently, that you are what you eat: all the heroes and heroines burnish their glamor with sumptuous feasts in "big" candlelit dining rooms, while Ben Adnam splurges on fish and chips.
There may be some truth in this. Nick Flower, the CIA's master spy in _The Spike_ (a novel from ca. 1980 no less loyal to the West than Robinson), proved, upon his long-delayed but climactic self-revelation, to be a quietly cultured individual who "had a palate" and distrusted anyone who didn't, such as his young hamburger-gulping nemesis. But aside from that, no glamor. On the contrary, Flower reminded people of an aged praying mantis or "a survivor of Buchenwald." One yearns for a few characters as quirky as that from Robinson.
That said, I'm delighted at the character development given Adnam in this book. It's a very interesting advance for the author. On the very morrow of his latest triumph of terror, Adnam finds himself-- as he had fully anticipated-- a man without a country, almost literally washed up and hiding out in Scotland. Everywhere he goes reminds him of happier times as a student years ago, and particularly of his brief bliss with the one woman who ever loved him. Knowing that his later deeds had cut him off from her ever loving him again, he spirals down into periods of remorse, loneliness, nostalgia, and depression. His every waking hour becomes torture, while he is afraid to go to sleep for the nightmares. Why did he do it all? He loses his cool and does several careless or even reckless things, seemingly indifferent to being caught. He visits Edinburgh Castle especially to spend awhile in the chapel gazing at an old stained-glass window commemmorating a fiery Scottish patriot whose enemies would today call him a terrorist, looking for an approving smile from the figure's face. In a brief casual conversation with an Irish boy "going into politics", by which he means the Irish Republican Army, Adnam discourages him from becoming a terrorist, impressing him with the fact that taking this step is irretrievable and will make him nothing but an expendable pawn, to be chewed up and spit out by his own cause. There is more to Ben Adnam than the steely killing machine that we had come to know and hate. Not many jihadists, in moments of doubt, breathe a prayer to a Christian saint.
I've read somewhere that the name "Nemo" means "no man" or "no name" and wonder whether the name "Adnam" might be an allusion to the same idea. Suffice it to say that in this book we get a glimpse into some of the darkness and complexity that Jules Verne gave his brilliant submarine terrorist 130 years ago. I agree with those who found the ending abrupt and disappointing, hoping that Adnam's redemption would be more than an interlude.
Apparently I'm the first to comment on this book since George W. Bush was ushered into the Oval Office and proceeded to prove Robinson ironically prophetic. Unfortunately, life seems to have imitated art, with flesh-and-blood Arnold Morgans blustering their way into Iraq under pretexts now looking suspiciously spurious and delusive-- their string-pullers lack the exculpating ingenuity or subtlety of a Benjamin Adnam. Robinson seems to admire Morgan, while some readers dismissed him in 2000 as made of cardboard (or shall we say a paper tiger) and totally unrealistic. Would that he were just a figment of fiction in our corridors of power.
Rating: 4
Summary: Spellbinding beginning - downward spiral ending.
Comment: The first half of the book is Robinson's best effort ever. This is true in light of everything that happened in the world after this book was published.
Not being a military person, a lot of the descriptions regarding equipment was lost on me. That was not really a problem since it did not detract from the plot or characters.
I believe the ending of the book came to fast and was not well thought out. I do not believe any President would give that type of order.
This book was far better than the Shark Mutiny.
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Title: Kilo Class by Patrick Robinson ISBN: 0061096857 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: 01 April, 1999 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Nimitz Class by Patrick Robinson ISBN: 006109594X Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: 01 April, 1998 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: U.S.S. Seawolf by Patrick Robinson ISBN: 0061030651 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: The Shark Mutiny by Patrick Robinson ISBN: 006103066X Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: 03 December, 2002 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Barracuda 945 by Patrick Robinson ISBN: 0060086629 Publisher: HarperCollins Pub. Date: 29 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.95 |
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