"The Hunt for Red October" gets an F-minus before I'm half-way done. The plot is great and Clancey makes no errors on matters of military equipment. But he fails due to character bloat. I'm barely half-way and already have logged some 80 names. I can't be exact, as Clancey has an even worse habit of not giving the person's full name at once. Or, he'll refer to the same character by title or nickname. Boo, Clancey. I wanted to read a spy novel, not memorize the Sedro Woolley phone book.
Clancey gets caught up in military egotism. I lost count of how many admirals, captains and executive officers he names. Clancy, nobody cares what their names are except other egotists. Instead of cooking up stereotypical characters, why don't you use the time to proofread your own writing? Do you know you refer to the protagonist as both "Jack" and "John"? Which is he?The book is more detailed than the movie, but I advise you merely skim-read it and ignore the blast of names, most of whom are mentioned once (Wynne Greville, Hans Tofte, Bud Wilkins, Barry Somers, Charles Goodman, Tony Parker, ad nauseum). How many damn useless departments does the US military have, anyway? Everybody has a hidden agenda and is answerable to somebody other than who he works for.
I also looked up several of the undersea features Clancey mentions, such as the Reykjanes Ridge (which exists) and Thor's Twins (which may not, depending on who you believe). There are numerous web sites that purport to analyze the book, but which are nothing more than movie trivia, which we already have enough of.
I dropped in to see how the on-line ordering system works at Wal*Mart. You must use a credit card or a pre-paid card, they will not take cash. The card seems the better deal if you don't want to be profiled, until you discover the cards are incompatibly priced with most of the merchandise. If you want something that costs $150.01, you have to purchase a $200.00 card. The clever bastards don't let you split a purchase over two cards, so it's spend the other $49.99 or eat it when the card expires. Way to go, Sam, you are so smart I can hardly put my feelings into words.
The scooter is in the shop today for the 100-mile checkup. They are made in China but assembled here and you get a variation in skill levels. For example, my throttle control cable was loose. Sadly, they let my buddy go, saying the head office didn't like him. That is precisely why I avoid working for small companies. Too much of a small office job is based on social variables, the effective opposite of professionalism and productivity. I like an inert workplace. Those who go to work to socialize should join a dart club. Or something.
Trivia. Extensive trials with scale model tanks exhibit much the same performance and kill ratios as full size tanks. Still one of the top ranking, though it has not been manufactured since August 1944, is the Tiger Tank. Wiki states a later variant, the Tiger II (King Tiger) once hit its target from over 2-1/2 miles away, kind of hard to believe. Crews reported the tanks were "roomy".
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