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The Triton Ultimatum
Book by Delaney, Laurence
247 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1977
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
August 30, 2016
I read this book as a paperback back in the mid-1980s when I was going through my ‘techno-thriller phase’ that started with Tom Clancy’s ‘Hunt for Red October’ and ‘Red Storm Rising’ novels. This novel was written back in the late 1970s and seems to be an attempted prophetic look at a nuclear disaster/strike occurring in the late 1980s or mid-1990s [my best guess].
The novel starts out with the newest, most advanced nuclear-powered missile submarine in the United States Arsenal being stolen from a naval base in Guam. We discover a team of ten individuals has been hand-picked by a former US Navy Lt. Cmdr. to hijack the weapons platform, which they do so with remarkable ease. [Perhaps American military security was this pathetic back in the 1970s? I have read other books [novels] where military weapons, vehicles, or technology has been stolen due to pathetic security measures on-base and around the base being penetrated]. Each of these individuals has a bone to pick with the United States in general and with the United States Navy specifically due to wrongs suffered at the hands of the US Navy [granted, these individuals refuse to take responsibility for their actions or recognize they suffered consequences for their bad decisions]; the leader of the group intends to teach the Arab nations a lesson they will not forget [via the stolen nuclear arsenal]. Interestingly enough, despite his ‘commander’s’ order to ‘dispose’ of the captured crew [i.e. – kill’em and turn them into fish food], Morgan [the leader of the hi-tech thieves] sets the surviving members of the submarine crew free knowing they will be rescued in a few hours after being released.
Through a series of flashbacks, we discover why various members of the team have it in for the US Navy and for the US in general. What we learn does not really endear the hijackers to the reader [in my opinion]. We also learn that Lt. Cmdr. Morgan had fallen in love with an Arab woman [a Saudi Arabian, to be specific] and plans to marry the woman once he discovers she is pregnant with his child. Tragedy occurs, however, when she is ‘accidentally’ murdered – it is an accident only in that some of the household servants were supposed to die and not her. Morgan figures out who killed her and begins to plan his revenge. The specific focus of his revenge is the Arab nations – he utterly despises them. The other focus of his revenge is a Japanese individual he learns leads a terrorist cell – this man whom he once considered a friend is directly responsible for the death of his lover and his unborn child.
On a side-note, we learn about other advanced weapons platforms the United States uses in terms of its naval forces. The advanced technology described makes it somewhat funny when one considers some of the more archaic forms of technology used in conjunction with the hi-tech stuff. We learn that the military [and the President] regularly uses SSTs as a means of transportation, that the United States has sent several manned missions to Mars, the Navy has incredibly advanced warships [including monster hovercrafts that are used as mobile gun platforms as well as transports for men, machinery, weapons, and arms], and that the US Military is once again top dog in the world [despite losses suffered in Southeast Asia and the Middle East] [which is why I consider it to be an alternate-history, futuristic ‘sci-fi’ kind of story].
Morgan ends up sending out a list of demands for ransom, only he never intends to accept any ransom payments. However, a surviving member of the original crew who was never initially captured and has been roaming free on the Triton-class submarine has been attempting to sabotage any attempts to launch the missiles. He nearly succeeds, but Morgan kills him in the end because the sailor is not [yet] a killer. However, due to damage caused by the sailor the submarine is forced to momentarily surface. Its surfacing causes the various navies searching for the stolen submarine to discover its whereabouts and move in to destroy the floating weapons platform. Morgan manages to launch all remaining nuclear missiles before the submarine is destroyed; he also has the satisfaction of knowing his enemy and the murderer of his future wife and child is also killed in the accompanying holocaust generated by the initial attempt to sink his stolen submarine [he nearly manages to miss the second assault, but the previous damage causes a fatal ‘leak’ that sinks the Lewis and Clark].
The President had suffered a mental breakdown during the initial launch of two missiles and subsequent hostage-taking of the entire city of Los Angeles. His chief advisor takes control of the Office of the President due to concerns that the Vice-President will also be incapacitated once he learns he is now the President due to the magnitude of the crisis. Despite twenty missiles being launched [each missile having ten MIRVs targeted at ten different targets] and an awesome ABM system in place, most of the world is devastated in the nuclear holocaust caused by nearly 200 warheads detonating around the world. Some locations in the United States were targeted, and some of those targets were destroyed. However, the Arab Nations, Europe, Asia, Russia, and China took the brunt of the damage, which leaves the United States as the ultimate top dog in the new world order.
It was a good book, overall. Lotta crude language and swearing throughout the book; some weird sexual shenanigans described. Revenge is a weird motivator, and reading about why people seek revenge is an iffy proposition at best – sometimes it works in a book and sometimes the offended merely seem to be whiny spoiled brats who should be taken out back and shot to put them out of their misery. The author of the book claims to have been a former submarine officer, so perhaps he knows how weak base security used to be [and hopefully no longer is in today’s environment] [assuming he’s not lying about his credentials].
Some of the book moved at a good clip; other parts of the book moved somewhat slow.
The novel starts out with the newest, most advanced nuclear-powered missile submarine in the United States Arsenal being stolen from a naval base in Guam. We discover a team of ten individuals has been hand-picked by a former US Navy Lt. Cmdr. to hijack the weapons platform, which they do so with remarkable ease. [Perhaps American military security was this pathetic back in the 1970s? I have read other books [novels] where military weapons, vehicles, or technology has been stolen due to pathetic security measures on-base and around the base being penetrated]. Each of these individuals has a bone to pick with the United States in general and with the United States Navy specifically due to wrongs suffered at the hands of the US Navy [granted, these individuals refuse to take responsibility for their actions or recognize they suffered consequences for their bad decisions]; the leader of the group intends to teach the Arab nations a lesson they will not forget [via the stolen nuclear arsenal]. Interestingly enough, despite his ‘commander’s’ order to ‘dispose’ of the captured crew [i.e. – kill’em and turn them into fish food], Morgan [the leader of the hi-tech thieves] sets the surviving members of the submarine crew free knowing they will be rescued in a few hours after being released.
Through a series of flashbacks, we discover why various members of the team have it in for the US Navy and for the US in general. What we learn does not really endear the hijackers to the reader [in my opinion]. We also learn that Lt. Cmdr. Morgan had fallen in love with an Arab woman [a Saudi Arabian, to be specific] and plans to marry the woman once he discovers she is pregnant with his child. Tragedy occurs, however, when she is ‘accidentally’ murdered – it is an accident only in that some of the household servants were supposed to die and not her. Morgan figures out who killed her and begins to plan his revenge. The specific focus of his revenge is the Arab nations – he utterly despises them. The other focus of his revenge is a Japanese individual he learns leads a terrorist cell – this man whom he once considered a friend is directly responsible for the death of his lover and his unborn child.
On a side-note, we learn about other advanced weapons platforms the United States uses in terms of its naval forces. The advanced technology described makes it somewhat funny when one considers some of the more archaic forms of technology used in conjunction with the hi-tech stuff. We learn that the military [and the President] regularly uses SSTs as a means of transportation, that the United States has sent several manned missions to Mars, the Navy has incredibly advanced warships [including monster hovercrafts that are used as mobile gun platforms as well as transports for men, machinery, weapons, and arms], and that the US Military is once again top dog in the world [despite losses suffered in Southeast Asia and the Middle East] [which is why I consider it to be an alternate-history, futuristic ‘sci-fi’ kind of story].
Morgan ends up sending out a list of demands for ransom, only he never intends to accept any ransom payments. However, a surviving member of the original crew who was never initially captured and has been roaming free on the Triton-class submarine has been attempting to sabotage any attempts to launch the missiles. He nearly succeeds, but Morgan kills him in the end because the sailor is not [yet] a killer. However, due to damage caused by the sailor the submarine is forced to momentarily surface. Its surfacing causes the various navies searching for the stolen submarine to discover its whereabouts and move in to destroy the floating weapons platform. Morgan manages to launch all remaining nuclear missiles before the submarine is destroyed; he also has the satisfaction of knowing his enemy and the murderer of his future wife and child is also killed in the accompanying holocaust generated by the initial attempt to sink his stolen submarine [he nearly manages to miss the second assault, but the previous damage causes a fatal ‘leak’ that sinks the Lewis and Clark].
The President had suffered a mental breakdown during the initial launch of two missiles and subsequent hostage-taking of the entire city of Los Angeles. His chief advisor takes control of the Office of the President due to concerns that the Vice-President will also be incapacitated once he learns he is now the President due to the magnitude of the crisis. Despite twenty missiles being launched [each missile having ten MIRVs targeted at ten different targets] and an awesome ABM system in place, most of the world is devastated in the nuclear holocaust caused by nearly 200 warheads detonating around the world. Some locations in the United States were targeted, and some of those targets were destroyed. However, the Arab Nations, Europe, Asia, Russia, and China took the brunt of the damage, which leaves the United States as the ultimate top dog in the new world order.
It was a good book, overall. Lotta crude language and swearing throughout the book; some weird sexual shenanigans described. Revenge is a weird motivator, and reading about why people seek revenge is an iffy proposition at best – sometimes it works in a book and sometimes the offended merely seem to be whiny spoiled brats who should be taken out back and shot to put them out of their misery. The author of the book claims to have been a former submarine officer, so perhaps he knows how weak base security used to be [and hopefully no longer is in today’s environment] [assuming he’s not lying about his credentials].
Some of the book moved at a good clip; other parts of the book moved somewhat slow.
August 30, 2016
So, yeah, I reread this on a whim, because I was looking for something 'quick and easy' and enough time had passed since I last read this book. It has an interesting flow to it, in that it is a mix of flashbacks, backstory, and 'present-time' intermixed throughout the first half of the book. Then, it totally focuses on what happens in a linear fashion. I cannot quite decide if the 'reasons' given in the book about why Morgan and the others choose the way they do justifies their choices, but it is interesting how Morgan's decision[s] blends in with and is able to be used by Klein's decision[s].
The character development is relatively decent. Some of the characters are pretty off-the-wall, so it is kinda crazy that these ten men are able to pull off the heist that they pull.
The ultimate motivation of the hijackers is fairly believable, in my opinion, based on how it is presented over the course of the novel. The author dies a nice job of making Morgan [Captain Morgan, anyone? hahahah that just now hit me, what with Morgan now being a 'pirate' in command of a military vessel at sea] a somewhat sympathetic villain in this piece. There are three other characters in the novel amongst Morgan's crew who get a little background story as well [Adamson, Jones, and Barth], but their motivations and backstories are most assuredly not as well-developed as Morgan's was. At the same time, I do not think it necessarily takes away from the story [although, now that I think about it, Barth's motivation for joining Morgan's crew of pirates is never revealed over the course of the story, which makes it more curious as to why he joined Morgan's crew].
Even after nearly forty years, it is a crazy book. Some of the technology does seem pretty dated [such as a Marine General, Thatcher, reminiscing about how computer screens reminded him of the Pong game he had given his daughters when they were children; if this was as far in the future as it implies, the screens should have reminded him of something else and not Pong]. Other technology seems like a reasonable attempt at foretelling what might be used in the future. Most of the future tech is primarily used by the US Military, but we also see some civilian uses [such as Air Force One now being an SST as opposed to a specially modified Boeing 747-400]. One would think that the Military would have done a better job at providing flying tanks instead of thin-skinned helicopters in which to transport Marines and other 'ground support units' into battle [after all, the US has had several manned flights to Mars]. So one would think the technological base should have been enough to have improved the survivability of soldiers and their modes of transport. But that is just me.
The author makes it seem 'easy' until one realizes that it was a special set of circumstances involving a select group of people to pull off the caper. Not just anybody could have succeeded in this mission; everybody involved had to have had specialized training. So it makes sense that those involved would have been disgruntled.
It does have a lot of language in it, and a good chunk of sex in it, for those not able to stomach such things. The violence is not disturbingly graphic, but there is some violence scattered throughout the book [such as a captive who is tortured for information; unlike today, where the torture would have been described in graphic, gruesome detail, it is mentioned almost in passing with, thankfully, very little detail provided].
Ah, well. I've gone and said more than I meant to say. It was fun traveling down reminiscing lane while reading this book.
The character development is relatively decent. Some of the characters are pretty off-the-wall, so it is kinda crazy that these ten men are able to pull off the heist that they pull.
The ultimate motivation of the hijackers is fairly believable, in my opinion, based on how it is presented over the course of the novel. The author dies a nice job of making Morgan [Captain Morgan, anyone? hahahah that just now hit me, what with Morgan now being a 'pirate' in command of a military vessel at sea] a somewhat sympathetic villain in this piece. There are three other characters in the novel amongst Morgan's crew who get a little background story as well [Adamson, Jones, and Barth], but their motivations and backstories are most assuredly not as well-developed as Morgan's was. At the same time, I do not think it necessarily takes away from the story [although, now that I think about it, Barth's motivation for joining Morgan's crew of pirates is never revealed over the course of the story, which makes it more curious as to why he joined Morgan's crew].
Even after nearly forty years, it is a crazy book. Some of the technology does seem pretty dated [such as a Marine General, Thatcher, reminiscing about how computer screens reminded him of the Pong game he had given his daughters when they were children; if this was as far in the future as it implies, the screens should have reminded him of something else and not Pong]. Other technology seems like a reasonable attempt at foretelling what might be used in the future. Most of the future tech is primarily used by the US Military, but we also see some civilian uses [such as Air Force One now being an SST as opposed to a specially modified Boeing 747-400]. One would think that the Military would have done a better job at providing flying tanks instead of thin-skinned helicopters in which to transport Marines and other 'ground support units' into battle [after all, the US has had several manned flights to Mars]. So one would think the technological base should have been enough to have improved the survivability of soldiers and their modes of transport. But that is just me.
The author makes it seem 'easy' until one realizes that it was a special set of circumstances involving a select group of people to pull off the caper. Not just anybody could have succeeded in this mission; everybody involved had to have had specialized training. So it makes sense that those involved would have been disgruntled.
It does have a lot of language in it, and a good chunk of sex in it, for those not able to stomach such things. The violence is not disturbingly graphic, but there is some violence scattered throughout the book [such as a captive who is tortured for information; unlike today, where the torture would have been described in graphic, gruesome detail, it is mentioned almost in passing with, thankfully, very little detail provided].
Ah, well. I've gone and said more than I meant to say. It was fun traveling down reminiscing lane while reading this book.
December 19, 2007
read 02.29.84
Read
August 23, 2008isbn,original
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews