Scimitar SL-2

Rating:
Summary: Should be 1/2 star.
Review: As a life-long Republican, I was amazed and insulted by this book. Only the Republicans can do anything, the Democrats are totally inept. This is the main premise of the presidential "crisis" that is pivotal to the book. Where was the Secret Service while this was happening? The idea is idiotic to say the least.

The story itself is an interesting idea, which is unfortunately so poorly executed as to be almost unreadable. The main idea is that a volcano in the Canary Islands will erupt and cause a "mega-tsunami" which will effectively destroy the east coast of the USA and the coast of Europe.

Unfortunately, Mr. Robinson can't even keep his technical details straight even when he is making them up himself. At one point, describing how the tsunami will form, he says it will start at 1 kilometer in height and then increase to 150 feet when it hits the east coast. Sounds like a decrease to me, but I never was good at math. In addition, what a tsunami is was explained at least three times in the book, to people allegedly intelligent, who you would think had heard of the concept.

Poor editing there.

As to the other technical details, they don't border on the ridiculous, they leap-frog right past it. F-15s being flown by the Navy, US Air Force squadrons embarked on a carrier, a Harpoon missile being used as an anti-air weapon! Did Robinson simply pick the names and nomenclatures of weapons out of a copy of Jane's All the World's Weapons Systems at random?

His cruise missiles use "sonar" altimeters to keep their altitude. The Patriots are either flying at "near the speed of light" or else possibly not capable of doing the intercept job. Which is it? The list goes on.

A pivotal plot point involves bringing an aircraft carrier out to search for the rogue submarine, the carrier being loaded with Seahawk sub-hunter helicopters. Pages are devoted to the transfer of these helicopters from this carrier, to another carrier already in the area. The danger and complexity involved in transferring the fixed wing aircraft from the already resident carrier to the helicopter carrier (also a Nuke class CVN) and the helicopters to the first had me wondering, why not just fly off the carrier that brought them? Needless nonsense that makes no sense whatsoever.

As to the sub hunt itself, it was idiotic from the start. We have the US Navy command searching for a submarine that they know they can't hear with passive sonar, and just using radar in the hope they will run across a periscope above water. Well, if you're searching for a sub you know is going to launch nuclear missiles, just use active sonar, right? Maybe not the same range, but effective nonetheless.

I could go on, but I'll leave it with this thought. Techno-thrillers, unless they are science fiction, must, and I repeat must, be plausible. They have to "follow the rules" as it were. Otherwise it's just bad, and I mean very bad fiction.

Love or hate Tom Clancy, but he always has his facts straight. In fact, if he read this book, he's probably laughing himself to sleep at night secure in the knowledge that Robinson poses no threat to Clancy in the techno-thriller genre.

Don't buy it, don't even borrow a copy. You'll waste your money, which is bad enough. But above all, you'll waste your time on a piece of idiotic drivel.

Rating:
Summary: Going Downhill Fast - Ghostwriters?
Review: I have read all of Mr. Robinson's novels so far. About two back, the details such as naval ratings, types of aircraft, etc., began to be completely erroneus. While he has some interesting plots and characters, the devil is in the detail. In Scimitar SL-2, Robinson hits new lows! A character is a former US Army Master Chief? Which US Army is this? Chief Warrant maybe, but Master Chief? Not unless USN or USCG. Chief Master Sargeant in the air force but not the Army. Same goes for another character who is a USN Ensign junior grade. Yeah right. Or a Bell AH1Z Super Cobra with a crew of 3 and room for a passenger! How about an F-15 Tomcat, or a Secretary of State for Defense?? While these are small details, they are things I know about. It makes the things I don't know much about suspect, such as his research on nuclear weaponry and volcanoes, etc. Maybe he is starting to use ghostwriters, like some of the other authors of this genre. Too many mistakes in his research or lack of it.

Rating:
Summary: Political pamphlet
Review: I'm French and enjoy reading in English, particularly when submarines are involved. I was to start off with very dissappointed, since Mr Robinson usual brings you into the depth of the oceans. However here the plot is different and after some 40 pages the end is guessable. It is then just how interesting the read is... That's where pages after pages my dissappointement came, since there was no substance and moreover some kinds of juvenile political claims that I found irritating both as a French citizen and a pro American. The author's vision on the capacities of Democrats to run the US is a case of shortsighteness and when it gets to France, it's pathetic. For the author's information Gaston is a First name that has not been used in France for over 60 years, but that is a reflection of how well the author is documented. I could develop for pages on... it is a nice demonstration of american imperialism... is the book sponsored by the Bush family ?
Does anyone think that should islamic terrorists be in possession of a nuclear submarine and nuclear weapons that they would sail around the world blowing apart a few volcanoes before starting up a mega tsunami that could wipe out the East Coast of the US... I think they would go straight for the big blow.
I have enjoyed Patrick Robinson's prior books but this one is not to be remembered. No way close to Clancy or Forsyth.

Rating:
Summary: The most frightening military thriller of the year
Review: If Stephen King has in fact retired, I think I have found his worthy successor. His name is Patrick Robinson. Robinson writes military thrillers, probably more properly classified as naval thrillers. And no, these are not books that speculate as to what Britney Spears might be wearing tomorrow. We're talking naval thrillers, as in big ships that can wreak havoc and destruction from far away. Does Robinson write horror novels? No. Is he as good a writer as King? No. What Robinson does do, however, is tell a great story, and tell it well, and scare the living vinegar out of you along the way. If anything, he is scarier than King. We all know, even while reading a King novel, that serial killer clowns don't come crawling out from under bridges, that there aren't towns in Maine inhabited by vampires, or that trucks don't attack people on their own. Robinson, however, deals with real boogeymen, the guys who are out there, right now, plotting the demise of you and me, and the United States and Israel, and now even Russia. Between the nightly news and the possibilities presented in SCIMITAR S-2, Robinson's latest novel, I haven't slept in days.

Before I read SCIMITAR S-2 I didn't waste more than a brain cell or two thinking about tsunamis. If someone had asked me to define "tsunami" I would have stood up straight and tall as I was taught to do at St. Agatha Grade School and said, "tsunami: a really big wave that only occurs in Japan but that we don't have to worry about in the United States." As it turns out, I would be wrong. Robinson goes into great detail about the causation of tsunamis, and about how the fixings for one that could wipe out the entire east coast of the United States exists in the beautiful, idyllic Canary Islands. If that isn't enough to keep you awake all night, he brings a brilliant, deranged fundamentalist Islamic terrorist into the mix, a guy who has the inspired idea to set the wheels in motion to cause such an event to occur --- by shooting a nuclear missile into a volcano.

Fortunately, Robinson has already created a hero to deal with the lunatic. He is United States Admiral Arnold Morgan, who is blunt, gruff, and to the point; a straight-shooter with a spine of steel tempered in the fires of war. There is only one problem: Morgan is no longer a United States Admiral. Given the boot by a new president hardly worthy of the title, Morgan has resigned himself to retirement until he receives a cryptic, taunting message from an old adversary --- the very man behind the plan to obliterate the East Coast. Knowing only that something big, dangerous and deadly is about to occur, Morgan interjects himself into the pending crisis, where he finds that his most significant adversaries are not the terrorists who plot the destruction of the nation, but the leaders who consider themselves anointed to lead the less-enlightened masses to glory while ignoring the clear signs of slaughter ahead.

Morgan and his former Navy colleagues do their duty, while Robinson provides an over-the-shoulder view of how the job of intelligence monitoring, gathering and analysis gets done. Robinson occasionally gets mired in the exactitude of the weaponry hardware involved, and as a result there are points in SCIMITAR SL-2 that read more like Janes Weekly (not that there's anything wrong with that) than a novel. This dry recitation lends an authenticity to the book, which, when combined with the hard science of volcanoes and Robinson's demonstrated knowledge of the way the world works, makes for a thrilling and frightening non-stop read.

SCIMITAR SL-2 may well be the most frightening book you will read all year, a novel that will bring even the most faith-challenged among us to their knees, praying that the events contained therein will never happen. If you wonder why Ed Koch feels that the issue of terrorism trumps all others, read SCIMITAR SL-2 and wonder no longer.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub

Rating:
Summary: SCIMITAR SL-2: A TECHNO-THRILLER OR A POLITICAL OPINION?
Review: Mr. Robinson does an outstanding job researching and building characters and plots. He researched this story well, drawing on the potential threat of the mega-tsunami from the Cumbre Vieja volcano. The story is backed by scientific publications and is a very good story. However it is sprinkled with polemics. On page 12 he refers to the new Democratic administration in terms reflecting his personal political sentiments.

On page 182 Robinson refers to "...dovish Secretary of State for Defense, Milt Schlemmer,...". Mr. Robinson, there is no "Secretary of State for Defense." The story is centered on an ultimatum made by terrorists to an unconcerned President (who recently won the election by a narrow margin). The military had a serious concern about the ultimatum. In plotting the coup, the military shows their contempt for Congress when General Scannell on page 247 states, "...there is no provision for Martial Law being declared without the whole rigmarole going though Congress. And we don't have time for that." Then Morgan chimes in on page 248, "...we don't have time to sit and wait while those damned Congressmen twitter around like a bunch of schoolgirls." Then retired Admiral Morgan holds a coup-d'etat by placing Marine guards in the White House to cut off phone lines and intimidates the President to resign. There is no sign of the Secret Service that protects the President. The absurdity continues on pages 267-268, "The High Command of the United States Armed Forces was trusted implicitly to tell the truth and to operate objectively, free from political or civilian agendas. The members of the Supreme Court understood that perfectly [the coup]." The next paragraph he mentions Morgan informing Senator Edward Kennedy of the "palace coup." Then Senator Kennedy is portrayed as some how convincing the other [ninety nine] senators that the coup d'etat is in the best interest of the country and their agreeing is sheer nonsense. There are no members in the House of Representatives involved in this process, namely the Speaker of the House, just the Senate. Then retired Admiral Morgan interprets the Twenty-fifth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution for the Congress and U.S. Supreme Court on page 268. There are other absurd scenarios, like where the de facto dictator of the United States, retired Admiral Morgan, tells the President of France where he can go.

On page 376 Mr. Robinson writes, "...since the Patriot was traveling as close to the speed of light as possible." That would be a very fast missile indeed if it approached the speed of light!

This would have been an excellent work if Robinson had left out the discussing the U.S. government and his politics. The whole ridiculous scenario of the coup and discussing opinions on political and social issues detracts from a techno-thriller and ruined a good story.


Rating:
Summary: Fast paced and interesting story, could it happen one day?
Review: Patrick Robinson is back with his long-awaited follow-up to the excellent BARRACUDA 945, where we first met ex-SAS turned HAMAS General Ravi Rashood(aka Ray Kerman). The story opens in London when Rashood and some fellow terrorists kidnap Dr Paul Landon, a renowned expert in natural disasters. They force information out of him on volcanic eruptions and their effects, and how to set them off . . . Landon is later executed.
The year in this book is 2009. The Republican Administration is ousted from the White House by a new Democrat President, Charles McBride, a thinly-fictionalised Clinton or Kerry. Admiral Arnold Morgan and his fellow military chiefs have also resigned or retired. Morgan, the regular good guy in Robinson's books, marries his secretary Kathy and they honeymoon in the Canary Islands, which are well-described here. Morgan and Kathy visit the mountains of Cumbre Veija, a dormant set of volcanoes and see four Arabs which Morgan suspects are up to no good. One of them, unknown to him at the time, is Rashood.
Nobody thinks anything of it at first, until Lt James Ramshawe, a brilliant intelligence officer, has a hunch. It is later learned that after the unexplained eruption of Mount St Helens, HAMAS, using a second BARRACUDA-class submarine stored for them by the devious Chinese navy for money, and armed with North Korean-built missiles, has hatched a plan to force the withdrawal of all US forces from the Middle East and the creation ofa Palestinian independent state by forcing the Israelis off the West Bank - or the BARRACUDA will fire nukes at Cumbre Veija and create a mega-tsunami which would destroy America's east coast and parts of the European coastline as well.
The President refuses to believe it, passing it off as a sick hoax. This President is more interested in the welfare state, it seems, than security of the country. Admiral Morgan fails to convince this new Administration, so when a second eruption triggered by HAMAS missiles occurs and the President still refuses to believe it is a terrorist attack, Morgan stages a coup in the White House and Paul Bedford, the more patriotic Vice President, is sworn in. Morgan then organises a mass evacuation of the East Coast.
There is also a massive naval operation to locate the Barracuda(a former Soviet sub purchased by HAMAS through China) all across the Atlantic. Whilst well-detailed, there were a few errors - F15 Tomcat??!! Probably just a typo. Plus that was a hell of a fluke shot with a Harpoon, why not just let the Patriots get on with the job. And while the build-up was excellent throughout, both with the naval deployment and the evacuation of the East Coast of the USA which would make for some great panic scenes in a movie adaptation, the ending was a little weak. I suspect the author had to finish it in a hurry, though there is another instalment on the way in May called HUNTER KILLER featuring the same characters!
The scientific background was well researched - Cumbre Veija is a very real threat. However there were a couple of goofs - railroads are commandeered to assist in the evacuation, firstly the Long Island Railroad would be no good to evacuate New York as its tracks are confined to Long Island, a place very much at risk from a mega tsunami. And the Southern Railroad does not have trackage rights to New York, CSX operate freight up there last time I looked. And I thought the SR was now called NORFOLK SOUTHERN?
Robinson also goes a little into depth about what wine characters drink and where it came from, as usual, however I take back any criticsm about food and wine as I have done it in a book I have had published as well.
But overall, an exciting read! Recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Absolute Tripe
Review: REALLY RATES ONLY ABOUT 0.25 STARS. Like many of the previous reviewers, I started this book with not quite high expectations, but certainly expected a diverting read. Boy was I wrong! It is so bad, it actually antagonized me. Full disclosure: I'm a retired USN person, and have some familiarity with the milieu. First the good stuff: the probability of the Las Palmas earthslide is almost 100%, according to much of what I've seen and read independently: it's only a question of when it will happen. Now the bad stuff: as others have noted, the naval terminology is egregiously wrong (Ensign junior grade? How junior can one be?); full Captains commanding an FFG (and oh by the way, in 2009, these ships will be about 40 years old and most are decommissioned now); ships and aircraft going the wrong way (course 270 is due west, not east), and so on. The characters need a lot of development to be even two-dimensional; the military coup is absurd; loooong spells of space-filling data describing volcanos, which is then repeated at least twice more; naval tactics allowing a known hostile to transit vast ocean areas with NO attempt at surveillance (lots of mention of SOSUS, but no discussion of what it is, how it works, or any explanation or rationalization as to why it didn't detect the BARRACUDA); no mention of any effort to find the source of the boat or its support, even though NSA determined that Chinese satellites were being used for communications, which is a VERY hostile act; using Antisubmarine Rockets (ASROC) to shoot down a cruise missile is ludicrous, since ASROC is a rocket-assisted torpedo, designed for ASW. One of the most unintetnionally funny parts was the starry-eyed characterization of Senator Teddy Kennedy as a staunch supporter of the military! Very bad book: if you must read it to keep your Patrick Robinson string alove, get it from the library: don't waste a dime purchasing it.

Rating:
Summary: Could a Nuke Really Set off a Volcano?
Review: The real question you have to ask about this book is, "Would the explosion of a nuke really cause a volcano eruption that would in turn cause the most destructive mega-tsunami in history." I don't know. Mount St. Helens blew with a force estimated at 24 megatons. That's about 2,000 times the Hiroshima blast. "Mike" the first US H-bomb was 15 megatons.

Mount St. Helens was triggered by an earthquake that caused a landslide that effectively removed the cap off of a high pressure chamber under the middle of the mountain. So yes, a fairly small nuke might releive the pressure on a volcano that is getting ready to blow anyway. Cause a tsunami, I think the volcano needs to be under water. Most destructive, if it hit New York, yup.

With that as a start, then this book begins to make sense. After this you start to get into other questions like how to deliver the weapon, where to place it, and so on. If you're a navy fiction writer, then you've got to use a boat to deliver the device, and simply putting it into a cargo container wouldn't be very cool. And of course your adversary has to be another navy man.

OK, now I've told you the story. Is it a good story? I liked it. To be sure there are some technical mistakes like a missile going near the speed of light - well the author meant sound. That's no worse than so many mysteries where revolvers have safeties and never, never fail to go off when they are dropped on the ground. The characters are supermen. They're kind of like people you wish could go solve problems rather than the politicians that we get into office.

This book is an easy, fast read, not bad for a cold winter weekend.

Rating:
Summary: Political soapbox - not entertainment.
Review: The vast majority of readers who pick up Patrick Robinson's latest novel will immediately know what to expect. A tightly written, well paced adventure story, that, although occasionally defying the belief of the reader, can be forgiven in return for a well crafted story. Typical readers of Mr. Robinson's books already have an interest in military hardware and tactics, but will expect to obtain new insights into some of the more obscure features of today's war machines.

However these readers will be surprised by Scimitar SL-2. And not in a good way. This novel falls short of being a techno-thriller. Instead, this novel seems nothing more than a forrum for Mr. Robinson to vent his ultra-republican views. In this story all the republican characters instantly appreciate the danger their country is under, whereas any character that the author telegraphs as a liberal is ignorant, obtuse, and stagnant. The author leaves no grey areas in his characterisations. He claims that all republicans are patriots, and liberals seem bent on self-destruction.

Now I know what some people will be thinking: "Uh-oh, here's another weakling liberal who doesn't acknowledge the danger that the US is constantly under and just doesn't understand that the only way to ensure safety is through force, with the miltary being the ultimate force". I will refute this. As a New Zealand citizen I claim that I am politically agnostic when it comes to affairs of the US. Indeed, I'll admit that I even had to look up the terms 'republican' and 'liberal' to understand what the author was taking exception to. However Mr. Robinson managed to offend me with his one-dimensional colourisation of the world.

But the overt, closed-minded politics are not the only failings of this book. As entertainment this book fails. The book (re)introduces a set of unlikable characters - none of which progress through any form of arc. Oddly enough, the central Arnold Morgan character seems to be the alter ego that Mr. Robinson wishes he could be. Maybe he is the Superman for the over 50s. There is a lack of ambiguity throughout the story: Whenever one opponent attempts a strategy the opposing side quickly speculates that this is the one and only course they can take, which is simply not true (this speculation often appears on the very next page). The pacing, while starting off well, quickly degenerates to dwell on the inconsequential. Ironically, the climax of the book is anti-climactic. The third act occupies only the last five pages of the 374 page book. (I can only theorise that the toner in Mr. Robinson's printer was running out.) The dialog and prose never engage the reader in this section. And worst of all, this is the only military conflict in the book.

There have been other posts on this site about the technical inaccuracies in Scimitar SL-2. But as a fan of techno-thrillers I feel cheated by these. To give potential readers an indication of the types of inaccuracies they will find I will give a few here. If you do not take exception to these then you may find this book more rewarding than I did:
(Beware that there are potential spoilers in here:)
A submarine rounds Cape Horn from the Pacific to the Atlantic following course 270.
A missile is shot down with an ASROC missile.
A torpedo is dropped from a helicopter and immediately explodes agains the hull of an enemy.
Three frigates detect a submarine (using radar) but the submarine does not detect the radar sweeps or the cavatating frigates on sonar.
A character is a former US Army Master Chief.

Over all I found this book not only a waste of time, but aggravating and occasionally offensive - I can only assume that the blatant racism of the "heros" is shared by Robinson. Also his lack of respect for democracy baffles me. I would not recommend this book unless you are an avid Robinson fan (and share his political views).

"I don't know, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe its a terrible tragedy" - Tyler Durden

Rating:
Summary: Scimitar SL-2
Review: While I enjoyed the plot of a majority of Mr. Robinson's books I found the inaccuracies of the book to be beyond belief. An example would be a Harpoon Missile being used to shoot down a cruise missle.

The Harpoon is a Surface to Surface or Air-Surface anti ship missile with a top speed under the speed of sound not an Surface to Air or Air to Air anti aircraft/cruise missile weapon platform which would have a speed in excess of Mach 2.

Another issue is the fact the he would lead us to believe that the SAS, arguably the finest counter-terrorist force in the world, would fail to sucessfully investigate the background of an officer under consideration for joining the regiment.

Mr. Robinson states in his book that he has numerous contacts within the military community and if so I would suggest that they be allowed to read the book before publication to correct inaccuracies such as I and others have detailed.