Straits of Power

Rating:
Summary: Heart throbbing action to the last page!
Review: Joe Buff continues his reign as the premiere submarine writer
with Straits of Power. He continues to incorporate new technology with an understanding of geopolitics that frequently
scares the daylights out of you it is so real. With the precision of a surgeon Mr. Buff choreographs the battle sequences in such a way as to let you in on his formidable under
standing of tactical nuclear war. I had to slow my reading down so I would'nt finish to quickly. Jeffrey Fuller continues to evolve as a warrior and commander. The stakes for his life and career have never been higher than in Straits of Power.
As is the mark of a great writer Mr. Buff leaves you wondering about the fate of at least one of his major characters.

Rating:
Summary: Joe Buff succesfully navigates dire straits once more!
Review: Joe Buff's fifth novel in the Jeffrey Fuller saga of near future limited nuclear war at sea takes a successful leap forward into the world of 'spooks and spies'. In the climate of deception surrounding this latest mission, a new set of rules, or lack of them, must be assimilated into the total picture of a desperate attempt to head off major disaster for the Allied side, and possibly for all life on earth if the mission fails! Joe's premise of the Berlin-Boer Axis is deemed implausible by another reviewer considering Germany's present, and it's recent past. That attitude only bolsters Joe's own cryptic warnings about 'blind spots' that are sought out and exploited by our enemies, as in the 'implausible' attack on the World Trade Center on 9-11-2001. Implausible? Yes ! Until someone pulled it off! History is replete with examples of implausible deeds turned into devastating fact. The attack on Pearl Harbor revealed another blind spot leading to a catastrophe. Learning valuable lessons from that 'sneak attack ', the Allies in WW II practiced the same tactic repeatedly with enormous success. In sending the main european invasion force by the most difficult and implausible route, Normandy instead of Pas-de-Calais as the Germans expected, during the worst weather season for over water passage, surprise was achieved and victory was eventually won in Europe. Critical to making that implausibility an established fact were floating pontoon causeways placed by U.S. Navy SEABEES to overcome unfavorable tidal action on the Normandy beaches. Bringing large cargo ships close enough to land decisive amounts of men and equipment in the earliest, most dangerous hours was implausible to the Germans, but the Allies pulled it off anyway! The lesson to be learned and relearned is simple : Never confuse 'implausible' with ' impossible' ! Besides the vast technical and operational research behind Joe Buff's novels, their success is equally due to another feature of his fiction, self-talk of the characters taking the reader inside their deepest inner thoughts to explain the actions expressed outright in the dialogue and text. The interactions between Jeffrey and Ilse are essential to the total portrait of each of them. No one operates in a vacuum, outside distractions exist for us all. If this were continued by another character replacing Ilse, so be it! It's part of the thrilling adventure that keeps us coming back for more !

Also recommended: TIDAL RIP CRUSH DEPTH



Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Example of the Genre
Review: The latest installment of Joe Buff's highly original futuristic submarine series stands as an excellent example of the genre. As faithful fans know, this series pits the Anglosphere (US-UK) against a restored Wilhelmine Germany and its Boer-ish South African ally in a WWIII fought mainly at sea with low-yield tactical atomic weapons. Buff deserves kudos just for coming up with such a plot. Considering his premise's inherent implausability (Germany's 3rd World growth rates, moribund regulatory structure, aging population, and pacifist sensibilities combined with the increasingly dictatorial ANC regime in the RSA make them highly unlikely bad guys), the reader spends very little time questioning the book's politics because the action moves along at such a brisk pace.

In Straits of Power, Cmdr. Fuller heads into the Med. to forestall a German move on the Middle East. Buff also tries his hand at some spy vs. spy plot lines for the first time and succeeds brilliantly. The characters are a bit weak, but, thankfully, the love story angle is downplayed. The one character who comes alive is, once again, that old WWII movie standby, the conflicted Kraut -- Klaus Mohr.

Buff's description of the tactical details of sub warfare are the book's strongest part. You. Are. There. And the frequent use of low-yield nukes reminds the reader that, not so long ago, we faced an adversary in the USSR who considered the use of tactical nuclear weapons to be a vital part of their war-fighting doctrine -- and could again. After all, who says asymmetrical warfare has to employ low tech methods like the murderers of 9/11 did? A capable nation-state opponent could choose to counter our conventional superiority via high tech weapons like ASATs or nuclear torpedoes instead of box cutters.

Although not up to the standards of the amazing second book in this series (Thunder in the Deep), Straits represents a fine example of the modern technothriller and essential reading for anyone who likes a good submarine story. If Tom Clancy were still alive, he might write something like this.