How About The WORST Naval/Submarine You've Ever Read?

[Subnuts]

Sure, we're always fast to RECOMMEND a book or shower it with glowing praise. But how about the worst book you've ever forced yourself to read?

My money is still on Ed Offley's Scorpion Down. So horribly pompous, boring, and filled with -inducing twists of logic. The review I wrote of it on another site is even more bitter than the one I wrote for it here. I basically summarized it by saying that the author was pissing on the graves of 99 sailors for his own financial gain. Apparently, a woo-woo site by the name of militarycorruption.com picked up on this review recently, and called me a hysterical disinformation agent working in upper levels of the Pentagon, under the personal payroll of George W Bush. Sorry to dissapoint you folks, but I'm just a civilian who happens to enjoy using my brain.

Runner up would probably be Patrick Robinson's USS Scorpion, which I don't remember much of besides being a tedious racist diatribe against the Chinese.

[Sailor Steve]

Pride Runs Deep, by R. Cameron Cooke.

Reviews at Amazon are varied, and at least one reader there, and one here, loved it. My personal take was that it was just another novel, and it left me flat. In spite of the author's years of submarine surface, he didn't make me feel like I was there, and the characters seemed stereotypical to me; not to mention the subplot about two-guys-in-love-with-the-same-girl.

It's been done before, and it's been done better.
http://www.amazon.com/Pride-Runs-Dee.../dp/0515138339

You must really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, dislike this book Subnuts. To start another thread after dissing the book in your regular review.

[Subnuts]

Originally Posted by waste gate

You must really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, dislike this book Subnuts. To start another thread after dissing the book in your regular review.

It's transcendently awful. It's the Manos: The Hands Of Fate of submarine books. And now, some people think I'm a government disinformation agent for not buying into it. :rotfl:

Originally Posted by Subnuts

It's transcendently awful. It's the Manos: The Hands Of Fate of submarine books. And now, some people think I'm a government disinformation agent for not buying into it. :rotfl:

Do you think the book is politically motivated? As a 'government disinformation agent' you should know.

[Torplexed]

Originally Posted by Subnuts

It's transcendently awful. It's the Manos: The Hands Of Fate of submarine books.

Does it feature Torgo as some sort of disturbed torpedo officer? "When ya gotta shoot me out the tube boss...unk"?

[Bill Nichols]

Red Star Rogue - one of the very few books I've felt like throwing against the wall in disgust.

[TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Subnuts

Runner up would probably be Patrick Robinson's USS Scorpion, which I don't remember much of besides being a tedious racist diatribe against the Chinese.

Did you mean USS Seawolf? I just read it too see how bad it really was and wow its that bad. Any story that has a SSN being forceably towed by a PLAN Destroyer has got to take the cake.

Just dive and pull the SOBs under with you, then surface after they've all drowned and cut the cable.

And the ending why does someone always blow their brains out in Robinson's books. Thats twice in a row for crying out loud. I was expecting the CO to go on CNN or MSNBC and spill the beans after what the POTUS did to him not have him eat his own gun. I know people in the military are loyal but I dout their that loyal.

I enjoyed his first three books but after that wow talk about a turn down hill. In Seawolf the oh so mighty Arnold Morgan probaly says it best "This has got to be the most incompatant navy and adminstration in the history of the US" (or something close to that). So lets boil it down in Robinsons first 6 novels the US loses an Aircraft Carrier, A Seawolf class SSN, the vice President is killed, the President's son turns trator, the Strait of Hormuz is shut down, Taiwan is captured by China and the US is attacked with Cruise Missiles. All the adminstration does is say its the Democrats fault and sit on their hands helpless, I think a monkey flinging poo in the oval office could do a better job than these idiots.

Just so no one has to read any of Robisons books after HMS Unseen let me boil them down for you: Arnold Morgan is your one and true GOD, Democrats hate America, everyone but Americans (and occasonly the English) are all inferior, and the US Navy doesn't know a Russian attack sub from its own @$$ holes unless Arnold Morgan tells them what to do.

Are these books a joke, a strange pariody of reality or is this guy serious?

[AntEater]

I've read in Wikipedia that many people consider Robertson's books parodies, voluntarily or not.
It always struck me as odd that Robinson is british, while at the same time writing more or less very US centric books.
Normally, in UK novels, the Amis need a smart british guy to get things done: James Bond, Mike Martin and who else.
In Robinsons books, the US does it all by themselves, usually by just killing everybody and his dog.

But I must admit that such writers have had a very positive influence on my life:
The day I read my first Clive Cussler novel, I realized I could be a writer as well.
:rotfl:

[XabbaRus]

Anyone else noticed how Tom Clancy's books get longer with each one published but take even longer to actually ge to the story and the action?

[Konovalov]

Originally Posted by XabbaRus

Anyone else noticed how Tom Clancy's books get longer with each one published but take even longer to actually ge to the story and the action?

That probably explains why I only got as far as The Sum of All Fears. I should have given up at the Kardinal of the Kremlin.

[Big Paul]

I don't mind Clancy, although I do agree with an earlier post that he appears to be living his life vicariously through Jack Ryan! The technical stuff did get a bit long winded in the end, and Ryan's rise to president was pretty laughable, where next? The Pope? God? I gave up after The Bear and the Dragon. As for SSN, it had me in convulsions of laughter after the first few chapters. One thing that REALLY gets on my goat is how he has every English character saying "Quite" at every opportunity. As for Patriot Games, I think he sees us Paddys as saying "Begorrah" and "Saints Alive" at every turn. His greatest crime is referring to Guinness as beer and writing that it has "a thin layer of foam"

He needs shot for that!

Patrick Robinson's books are pretty much brain out books, I somehow can't imagine an SAS man doing a miraculous conversion to Islam and becoming a one man military machine. As for Admiral Morgan, I quite like him, he's quite a guy! Good books for a boring night with nothing on telly.

Worst factual (and I use that term VERY loosely) book is Red Star Rogue, pure supposition from cover to cover, read it once and put it in the bookcase where it has stayed to this day, I'd donate it to our local charity shop, but I wouldn't want some poor soul reading it and taking it seriously.

Worst film was Crimson Tide.

Das Boot for Beavis and Butthead viewers. If I was Gene Hackman, the XO would have been rendered unconcious and handcuffed in the ships storeroom. It made Red October seem like a documentary.

[Captain Vlad]

Originally Posted by AntEater

The day I read my first Clive Cussler novel, I realized I could be a writer as well.
:rotfl:

I like Cussler.

I don't like to admit, but God help me, I do. He's like those fun, bad movies you used to see on late night TV that you'd be making fun of as you watched them but somehow, you just couldn't make yourself change the channel.

[AntEater]

It isnt Naval or Submarine, but it is the worst
http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/SF-Archives/Misc/eyeargon.html

The Eye Of Argon by Jim Theis (1970), considered to be the worst SciFi/Fantasy story ever.

[Grayback]

[quote=TLAM Strike]

Originally Posted by Subnuts

Just so no one has to read any of Robisons books after HMS Unseen let me boil them down for you: Arnold Morgan is your one and true GOD, Democrats hate America, everyone but Americans (and occasonly the English) are all inferior, and the US Navy doesn't know a Russian attack sub from its own @$$ holes unless Arnold Morgan tells them what to do.

Are these books a joke, a strange parody of reality or is this guy serious?

I could never go for the parody theory because Robinson's books lack two essential elements needed for effective satire: 1st they're boring. What's the point of a story with a message that you sleep through? Robinson's stories are belabored with mindless minutiae that are often so irrelevant, they're almost unreadable. In Barracuda you get set up for this great hunt for the rogue missile sub - instead you get this prolonged and pointless diatribe against democrats. Earlier in the book, the main character has a sit-down with these Ayatollahs to get them to bankroll his venture to attack the USA - but before we get there, Robinson has the character observe an Iranian missile boat, noting that it carries missiles powered by engines built on Toulouse.

2nd - satire or parody work well when you get the idea that the subjects of the parody are the story's punchline. Instead, the Robinson's own writing is his biggest joke - plot ideas that go nowhere, a singleminded obsession with what people are eating (ironically, the principals can afford fine cuisine - you'd think the economy would have been beaten senseless by the many geopolitical reversals occurring in Robinson's books) and despite his being hailed for his realism, a habit for getting it horribly wrong (ensign junior grade? British Commandos on patrol with Israeli troops in the West Bank? cruise missiles used against aerial targets?)

Those are my reasons for concluding PR's horrible writing to be something other than parody, but I've got two others for why he's so bad. Beside his overheated (frequently pompous) prose, it's the plot-holes that dog each of his books:

In Nimitz Class we've got a CV nuked by a single SSK, just the sort of target that the carrier's screen and ASW planes should have picked up;

In Kilo Class, we've got the US in a huff because the Chinese are getting Kilo SSK's (even the Russians call them "Kilo"?) which could effectively shut the entire USN out of any invasion of Taiwan - by the end KC, a single US sub has singlehandedly sunk about 6 of the subs, including 2 submerged and part of a convoy that includes both surface ships and russian nuclear boat. The Russians, who are transporting the subs, obligingly try screening the Kilo's behind purposefully roiled water - the noisemaking proves better at shielding the US Sub from the convoy than it does the Kilo from the US Sub.

In Barracuda, Hamas (!?) buys a nuclear sub that they plan on only using once - they could have just used a tramp freighter loaded with missiles.

And lastly (because I haven't gotten to Ghost Force yet) Hunter Killer takes the cake. A Saudi Prince has had it with his country's current regime because of its financial destabilization and the West's subversion of it, colludes with France to subvert and financially destabilize his country. The French, knowing this will be a covert operation, make sure that the commando Jacque Gamoodi is enlisted by two top officials who tell him (and his wife) everything (right down to the Saudi Prince who got everything rolling). The planned operation has Saudi Arabia collapsing under the very sort of attacks you'd think they'd have anticipated (cruise missile attacks against petro-industrial targets; guerrila attacks against airbases, etc) and despite the fact that a number of French took part in the attack, the only person the French treat as a liability is Gamoodi. Plotholes big enough to sail the Red October through.