The Hunt for Red October
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- This is about the 1984 novel. For the film see The Hunt for Red October (film)
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| Recent US paperback edition cover | |
| Author | Tom Clancy |
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| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Series | Ryaniverse |
| Genre(s) | Novel, Techno-thriller |
| Publisher | Naval Institute Press |
| Released | 1984 (1st edition) |
| Media Type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 387 p. (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-87021-285-0 (hardback edition) |
| Preceded by | Red Rabbit |
| Followed by | The Cardinal of the Kremlin |
The Hunt for Red October is Tom Clancy's first novel, published in 1984. The story follows the intertwined adventures of Soviet submarine captain Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius, and CIA analyst Jack Ryan.
The novel is sometimes referred to as the first real example of the techno-thriller, a hybrid between the spy thriller and science fiction, in which attention to technical and operational detail about military and intelligence activities is paramount. Research for the Hunt for Red October was conducted using the Harpoon board game developed by Larry Bond.
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[edit] Plot introduction
The Hunt for Red October was inspired by a real incident. On November 8, 1975, the Soviet Navy frigate Storozhevoy mutinied. At the time, the Western powers believed it was an attempt to defect from Latvia to the Swedish island of Gotland. The mutiny was led by the ship's Political Officer, Captain Valery Sablin. The mutiny was unsuccessful, and Sablin was captured, court-martialed and executed. The novel was originally published by the U.S. Naval Institute Press—the first fictional work they ever published, and still their most successful.
[edit] Plot summary
Marko Ramius, a Lithuanian by birth, who has risen to high levels of trust in the Soviet Navy, intends to defect to the United States with his officers and the experimental nuclear submarine Red October. The Red October is equipped with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system (in the movie, a magnetohydrodynamic drive) nicknamed the caterpillar drive. In the novel, the propulsion system is described as a hydrojet system, making detection difficult for sonar operators on board opposing submarines.
Ramius' defection is spurred by several factors, in particular the death of his wife due to a doctor's incompetence. Because the doctor was the son of a Politburo member, he was beyond reproach. This, in conjunction with a long-standing dissatisfaction with Communism and the callousness of the Soviet establishment towards its sailors, ultimately exhausts Ramius' tolerance for the Soviet system's failings.
In the beginning of the novel, Ramius kills Political Officer Ivan Putin to ensure he will not hamper the defection. In a letter to Admiral Yuri Padorin, Ramius states that he is going to sail into New York Harbor. As a result, the entire Soviet Red Banner Northern Fleet (with the specific exception of missile submarines, to avoid confusion) is deployed to sink the Red October. This places the Soviet Northern Fleet, under the cover story of a search and rescue mission, well within 400 km of the American coast.
Ryan, a naval historian turned CIA analyst, deduces Ramius' plans. The U.S. high command meanwhile come up with contingency plans in case the Soviet Fleet has other intentions than the cover. As tensions rise between the U.S. and Soviet fleets, and the crew of a U.S. attack submarine stumble on the secret to detecting the Red October, Ryan must contact the Red October's rebellious captain to prevent the loss of a decisive technological advantage. Through a combination of circumstances, Ryan becomes responsible for seeing the sub, and Ramius, to safety from the pursuing Soviet naval fleet. After a clever diversionary tactic, the Americans find a way to help the Red October safely reach a river in Maine, where Jack Ryan's grandfather taught him to fish.
[edit] Characters in "The Hunt for Red October"
Many of the characters in the novel appear throughout Clancy's subsequent works, particularly Ryan, who is the central character of many of Clancy's novels.
They go to a river in Maine where Jack Ryan's grandfather used to take him to fish.
[edit] Film Adaptation
The novel was made into a commercially-successful movie in 1990, starring:
- Sean Connery as Marko Ramius,
- Alec Baldwin as Jack Ryan, and featuring:
- James Earl Jones as Admiral James Greer,
- Scott Glenn
- Sam Neill
The novel also served as the basis for a computer and board game.
[edit] Trivia
- President Ronald Reagan helped to fuel the success of The Hunt for Red October and Tom Clancy's writing career when he announced that he enjoyed the book at a televised press conference, calling it "unputdown-able". [1]
- Some of the technical details were prescient. For example, the Ada programming language is used to implement a computational fluid dynamics model on a Cray-2 supercomputer. Cray Ada Version 1.0 actually became available in 1988. [2]
- In the movie, the "revolutionary" magnetohydrodynamic drive that drives a majority of the plot is fictional. However, both superpowers actually did experiment with MHD propulsion, though neither could get it to work well-enough for use on board a ship. In the book, Red October uses a tunnel drive that operates similar to a jet engine.
- The name "Marko Ramius" does not sound typically Lithuanian. Most Lithuanian male first names end in "-as", and so "Markas" would be more likely. However, this is not a name commonly encountered in Lithuania either.
- The fictional Alfa-class submarine, V. K. Konovalov, that is featured prominently in the novel was named for Vladimir Konovalov.
- The Soviet Typhoon-class submarine, on which the Red October is based, contains three pressure hulls, carries 20 ballistic missiles, and is 175 meters in length. This is a mere 5 meters longer than the American Ohio-class submarine, but has twice the amount of displacement.
- In the book, said submarine travels up the Chesapeake Bay and near Tom Clancy's Calvert County home on the water. This was not the case in the movie.
[edit] See also
- Crazy Ivan
- Strozhevoi mutiny
- The Hunt for Red October (video game)
- The Hunt for Red October (film)
- USS Ethan Allen (SSBN-608)
- Soviet submarine Red October
[edit] External links
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