The hero of Joe Buff’s SEAS OF CRISIS is Cmdr. Jeffrey Fuller, he of the USS Challenger, America’s most mighty nuclear-powered submarine. Fuller’s navigating through the Bering Strait when he learns he’s been promoted to oversee a battalion of attack subs and that his new mission renders him and his entire crew expendable. He soon learns why: He has to transport a group of Russkies through treacherous, mine-strewn waters into Russia so that he can unload a nuclear missile against his own country. The reasons for this are a little too complicated to go into here, and to do so would ruin all the suspense anyway.
I’ll see any movie set on a submarine, but strangely, I cannot recall having read a book set on a submarine before, so this military thriller marks my first (and I’m not sure I could have picked one with better graphic design). Any good submarine story should come standard with claustrophobia, political face-offs and terrors of the deep, all of which SEAS has. What it doesn’t have is the ol’ reliable periscope, because it’s set several years into the future when imaging technology has made them obsolete. By setting his novel in 2012, Buff could take the fantasy route and pimp this out with all kinds of out-of-this-world gadgetry, but instead he keeps things rather plausible. Combine this with its all-too-real global terrorist theme, and suddenly your sub story grows a whole new level of scary.
I like that Fuller – though clearly the one to root for – isn’t your typical flawless, cardboard good guy. His outer confidence belies the uncertainty he sometimes feels inside, and his military career – though spectacular – isn’t all aces. References are made to his previous mission, which resulted in the loss of several lives; I assume this took place in the previous book of the now-six-titles-strong series, STRAITS OF POWER. I fear the other characters aren’t as memorable; once you load a bunch of white guys into a confined space, they all start becoming interchangeable to me, no matter how many times you make notice of an accent or haircut.
Buff can’t help be compared to Tom Clancy, an author I can’t get into because of his tendency to dump a lot of info and jargon at the sacrifice of action. Buff does this, too, but in much smaller bites, so the dry spots are fewer and further between. For that reason alone, those seeking hardware-and-weaponry thrills should give SEAS a shot, but the tense showdown that threatens to turn into a full-scale international war is a better one (even if the outcome is not a surprise). –Rod Lott
Buy it at Amazon.
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- BOOK WHORE >> 1.3.06
