First edition very fine

8422622432

32-3

This book was a real struggle. I wanted to finish it because I like submarine stories, but the narrative was dominated by high-tech submariner background information that got in the way of the story itself. The first two-thirds of the book were dire, and even though it picked up in pace after that it was still a flimsy throwaway. ( )

I haven't read this since soon after it came out in the late 80's, although I've seen the movies numerous times over the years. It's every bit as good as I remember - even better, really, because this time around I didn't have any trouble keeping track of the boats and the subs. True, bits of it are dated (the average American salary being 20k a year, or even more startling, the superiority of the CRAY-2 supercomputer, which cost tens of millions of dollars, was available only at NASA and a few military centers, ,,, and had the same computing power of the first iPad.), but overall the action is fast, the writing intelligent, and the suspense top notch.

Having gone so long between reads, and having seen the movie enough times in between, I had forgotten how much the movie deviates - especially at the end - from the book. I'm generally pretty vitriolic about movie adaptations, especially when they significantly alter things, but full credit to the screenwriters; I don't know that the book's ending would have worked as well on-screen, but the spirit of the thing was caught perfectly. Re-reading this ending was like experiencing it for the first time and it was tense.

I'm thankful to Peregrinations for getting me thinking about this book again. I'm sort of tempted to re-read a few other Ryan books now. Or, at least, after Halloween Bingo.

I read this for Halloween Bingo 2022, but I'm still not sure which square I want to use it for - either Fear the Drowning Deep, or Film at 11. For now, I think I'll assign it to Fear the Drowning Deep, since that square has already been called. ( )