3 reasons to join The Hunt for Red October guided read-along
We get underway next week
Welcome back to the Two Navy Guys Debrief, the (mostly) weekly forum where we take on real—and fictional—national security issues.
The Red October read-along gets underway next week!
In honor of the 40th anniversary of the release of The Hunt for Red October, we’ll be guiding a group reading of the novel, starting next week. Each week, we’ll publish a summary of the action, some color commentary on what is happening in the story, and maybe even a few writerly notes on why the novel works so well—or, in some cases, falls a little flat. (Remember, this was Tom Clancy’s first novel.)
Dust off that old copy from your bookshelf, or buy a new one, and join us. David managed to score a 1984 first edition (former library copy, well used) from the Amazon used books section.
Reading schedule
Not a fast reader? Not an issue, this is not a speed read. We’ll cover about 50-60 pages a week, which means it will take us 7 weeks to complete the book. If you can devote 15-20 mins a day to reading, you will have no trouble keeping up.
A note about the reading plan below. Clancy does not use chapter numbers. Instead, he employs Days, as in Chapter One is called The First Day.
October 20: The First Day to The Fourth Day
October 27: Days 5 and 6
November 3: Days 7 and 8
November 10: Days 9 and 10
November 17: Days 11 to 13
November 24: Days 14 and 15
December 1: Day 16 to end
Still on the fence? Here’s three reasons to join us.
This book never should have become a bestseller
In the 1980s, Tom Clancy was an insurance salesman in Maryland, not far from the US Naval Academy. He never served in the military or even set foot on a submarine, but was a self-described geek about military hardware and sought out relationships with military personnel.
His debut novel, about a rogue Russian missile submarine, was packed with authentic details he gleaned from his research. How accurate was he?
Less than a year after the book was released, after his plebe year, David spent eight weeks on a fast-attack submarine at sea. The senior enlisted man on board, called the COB for Chief of the Boat, stopped reading The Hunt for Red October, because it was “too much like being on watch.”
It was published by the US Naval Institute Press, which is a non-fiction publisher associated with the Naval Academy. It was USNI’s first fiction title. A military officer who read the manuscript recommended the book not be published because it was a national security risk.1
David served on a Los Angeles-class fast-attack (see the picture above) like the USS Dallas in the book. In our weekly roundups, David will offer a submariner’s perspective on the accuracy of the novel. (Unclassified details only!)
The Hunt for Red October defined a new genre
In 1988, the New York Times dubbed Clancy the “king of the technothrillers,” a new kind of novel that featured globe-trotting action, intrigue, military clashes, and lots of technical descriptions.
Today, these types of novels are very common, including from writers like us, and we can tell you from personal experience that Clancy’s influence is felt to this day.
For example, in 2018, when JR and I received the book cover design for Rules of Engagement from the publishing team at St Martin’s Press, we were shocked.
This was a book about cyberwarfare, but the cover had a line drawing of a submarine. David reached out to our editor for an explanation.
His response was succinct: Submarines sell books!
The cover was not changed.
The book was a product of its time
Those of us who served in the military during the Cold War will recall how the Soviet Union seemed like an all-powerful enemy bent on destruction of the West. When David was in submarines in the late 80s-early 90s, these were the enemies we trained against in order of priority:
The Soviets
The Soviets
The Soviets
Everybody else
Nearly every minute of our training time was focused on the Soviet threat—and anyone who has spent time in the military knows that you train all the time.
Conventional wisdom was that the US submarine force was so outnumbered that we would need to take out 3 Soviet subs for every one of ours to have a chance of winning the next war. And it was largely true2
From 1945 through 1991, the Soviet Union produced 727 submarines—492 with diesel-electric or closed-cycle propulsion and 235 with nuclear propulsion. This compares with the U.S. total of 212 submarines—43 with diesel propulsion (22 from World War II programs) and 169 nuclear submarines.
While we may have had some hints that the Soviet Union was running on fumes, that was not a hopeful sign. A desperate enemy is a dangerous enemy.
The point is that when THFRO hit bookstores in late 1984, the public was primed for a US vs USSR (i.e. Good vs Evil) narrative. Additionally, the Silent Service was a shadowy aspect of the nuclear triad that was filled with tantalizing intrigue.
Timing is everything. The book was at the leading edge of a wave of public imagination. Two years later, the movie Top Gun was released and the novel Flight of the Intruder came out, also published by the US Naval Institute. The next year, Ronald Reagan made his famous “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. In 1990, THFRO was released as a blockbuster movie.
Set the Maneuvering Watch and prepare to go to sea with the Red October!
Start your Kindles. Energize your reading lamps. We’ll see you back here next Sunday for the first installment of Red October Read-along.
Be happy. Stay healthy. Read (or listen to) a book.
As always, thanks for being a supporter –
David & JR, AKA the Two Navy Guys
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https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/1998/february/soviet-navy-how-many-submarines#