Rating:  Summary: A good read, but some troubling factual errors. Review: The author does indeed put together a good plot that is somewhat less unbelievable than many others of this genre. It is crammed with facts that the author apparently has spent considerable time gathering. It is also filled with acronyms, some of which are obvious, others not so much so. But when Mr. Robinson mislabels the principal isotope of uranium (U-238) as U-239, and its relative abundance (99.3%) as 90%, one has to wonder how accurate the rest of the "facts" are. Nothing about uranium is more fundamental than the atomic mass of the isotopes, and getting pure U-235 would have been relatively easy if, in fact, it had been 10% of the total. But it was good company on two airline flights.
Rating:  Summary: This is a fairly well done techno-naval-espionage-thriller. Review: Patrick Robinson wrote an excellent novel in Nimitz Class. I went looking for more in Kilo Class - and I may have had an unreasonable expectation. Nevertheless, I was not disappointed. Kilo Class attempts to intertwine two very interesting plots that finally come together in the end. However, Robinson neglected to fully explore one of the plots as much as I would have liked. It would have been better if he had explored more of the storyline about the mysterious secret lab on the frozen Anartic island. Nonetheless, it could provide a beginning subplot for still yet another good novel. I look forward to Robinson's next techno-naval-espionage thriller!
Rating:  Summary: Pieces of a technothriller, poorly assembled Review: This book is erratically plotted, badly characterized, and poorly written. It is several classes below (or behind) the work of Tom Clancy, Larry Bond, Dale Brown, or Payne Harrison, to name just a few. Robinson seems to have most of the pieces of a decent technothriller, but neither the assembly manual nor the full parts list-nor the right tools to put it together. Bad pacing and a lack of proportion bedevil the plot, which lurches and bumbles and lunges, making lots of noise and precious little sense until stumbling exhausted into a thoroughly unsatisfying ending. Background information is conveyed clumsily if not after the fact, pulled like rabbits out of the author's hat to justify plot turns. Minor episodes are dwelt upon to exhaustion while critical points are tossed off in a paragraph or two. Threads are picked up and then dropped for hundreds of pages. In this "meticulously researched" book are errors of fact that a reasonably bright high-school student would spot. H. M. Admiral Sandy Woodward (whose Falkland Wars memoirs were co-authored by Robinson) weighs in with an afterword to explain just why the book's central concept (if not the development of it) might not be implausible-a task that should have been performed, and is clearly flubbed, by the text itself. There is no characterization in "Kilo Class", only the inert minutiae of personnel folders, the contents of each dumped out endlessly on one mindnumbing page after another when a new figure comes on stage. These characters evolve or emerge or develop not at all, neither in words nor in actions--they act and sound alike, American superheroes and Chinese or Russian baddies. The prose occasionally rises to banality; the sporadic attempt at lyricism would embarrass a college sophomore. Dialogue in particular is hamfisted: the assembled Captains America, for all their brilliance and advanced degrees, speak like third-grade dropouts, and feeble attempts to make the foreigners sound foreign make them sound merely badly translated into a pidgin of the same dialect. A prospective reader who's innocent (as I was) of the author's earlier "Nimitz Class" might want to consult its amazon.com reviews before taking this one on. Many of the negative comments there could be transshipped nearly intact to "Kilo Class"-and it is highly unlikely most of those (in my view) perceptive readers would bother to read, much less review, this novel. Once burned, twice shy.
Rating:  Summary: Bozo-class technobabble, high rankings notwithstanding! Review: This book fails as technothriller and as fiction. The plot lurches and blunders and lunges, making lots of noise and precious little progress (e.g., the first thread lies doggo for hundreds of pages and barely resurfaces until the last two pages) and finally comes to rest, not with a bang but a blurb, in a thoroughly unsatisfying ending. The characters almost to a man are cardboard cutouts-the Chinese and Russian naval officers are nearly indistinguishable from the U. S. Navy contingent and the token civilians. The prose is banal at best, embarrassing in the occasional galumphing attempt at lyricism.
Rating:  Summary: Excellent thriller on the high seas and under them Review: This is a good book-- very realistic. I also recommend Bob Mayer's series on Special Forces that Amazon now carries. I've read all six and enjoyed them greatly. Check out Cut Out, or Eternity Base or any of the others.
Rating:  Summary: Involving, high-technical page turner Review: I loved this book, much more than the first "Class". You get involved in different, coexisting stories and the whole plot runs faster and lighter, no "slow spots". Robinson isn't yet through his problem in keeping the same pace all over the novel: he works hard up to a quick, too quick, solution of his story (stories). But the next "Class" will be perfect.
Rating:  Summary: One of the best techno-thrillers out there Review: I cannot get enough of the excellent way Patrick Robinson writes his novels. I first read "Nimitz Class". After reading it I couldn't wait to get the sequel. It isn't quite the calibur of writing "Nimitz Class" was, but it was still a great thriller. I loved the details he put on the characters. I can't wait until the next book by him comes out. However, this is no book for a person looking for a romance novel. This just isn't that type of book.
Rating:  Summary: An excellant and believable read! Review: Great Tom Clancy-style story. The scenario is pretty believable but its believability could be improved by reading "Afterword" at the very end of the book, first. This will in no way diminish the suspense, but will, in fact, aid in the suspension of disbelief. All in all, a terrific read!
Rating:  Summary: A thriller that is not beyond the realm of reality. Review: In the book, Robinson envisions an expansionist China that is determined to become a military superpower in Southeast Asia by buying sophisticated Russian-built Kilo class submarines. The United States, anticipating China to employ its newly acquired submarines to conquer Taiwan, decides to thwart their delivery while they are in transit from the former Soviet Union. Robinson's book conforms with those policy analysts who predict that the next theatre of conflict would be Southeast Asia, with China replacing the former Soviet Union as the new threat to world stability. A scenario in which an economically growing and nationalistic China buys high technology weapons from the former Soviet Union to expand its regional power is a reality. China is only one of several nations that have purchased weapons programs from the financially beleaguered former Soviet Union which is eager to sell their expertise and military hardware to the highest bidder.
Rating:  Summary: Slow Starting but builds well as it goes along. Review: Not quite up to Nimitz Class but after a while becomes a real page turner. Characters are fleshed out real well and the technology is well researched. Have enjoyed both "Class" novels by this author and look forward to more.
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