America (Jake Grafton Novel) [MP3-CD]

Rating:
Summary: "A Well Spun Tale"
Review: A definite improvement over the previous Grafton novel, CUBA. Coonts hooks you in the first couple chapters as a new SDI satellite goes missing before it can achieve orbit. If that weren't bad enough, a group of Russian and German mercenaries hijack the most advanced submarine in the world, the USS America. Some pretty good action scenes. I liked how Coonts brought out the sense of disaster when Tomahawks armed with electro-magnetic warheads are used on major American cities. Good job on the characters. The most memorable had to be Kolnikov, the Russian who hijacks America. A stern skipper who at the same time always levels with his crew. He's super shrewd and often times doesn't seem to care if he lives or dies. Jake Grafton comes off as an everyman with one heck of an important job that at times can feel overwhelming. Still he tackles it full bore. USMC Commendant Flap Le Beau was another guy to get behind. Not a uniformed butt kisser, but a leatherneck through and through who's not afraid to do grunt work. My one complaint is there was not enough of Grafton's right hand man, Toad Tarkington. The guy is great for comic relief.

Good story with good characters. Nice intrigue and countermoves. The climax on the cruise ship and America rocked!

Rating:
Summary: A great thriller.
Review: A master at work on technical thriller is at his peak. I loved the book.

Rating:
Summary: Jake Grafton rides again
Review: America is another strong effort from Coonts. The book moves very quickly. It will be difficult to put down. In the story, the USS America, a brand new, state-of the-art submarine, is hijacked by a group of terrorists that had been trained to do just such a hijacking of a Russian sub. Enter Jake Grafton, who is tasked with finding the super-silent sub and determining the linkage with the disappearance of an anti-missile satellite in the opening of the book. Coonts brings together a range of characters, while effectively blending a number of sub-stories within the main story. Many of the characters carry over into Coonts' next book, Liberty. If possible, read America before you read Liberty. (I read them in reverse order and believe that both would have been better had they been read in the order they were written.)

Rating:
Summary: Jake Grafton rides again
Review: America is another strong effort from Coonts. The book moves very quickly. It will be difficult to put down. In the story, the USS America, a brand new, state-of the-art submarine, is hijacked by a group of terrorists that had been trained to do just such a hijacking of a Russian sub. Enter Jake Grafton, who is tasked with finding the super-silent sub and determining the linkage with the disappearance of an anti-missile satellite in the opening of the book. Coonts brings together a range of characters, while effectively blending a number of sub-stories within the main story. Many of the characters carry over into Coonts' next book, Liberty. If possible, read America before you read Liberty. (I read them in reverse order and believe that both would have been better had they been read in the order they were written.)

Rating:
Summary: You'll Force Yourself to Finish
Review: I really agree with everything the previous review wrote (Jon Davidson, August 8). It is rare that someone already wrote most of what I thought. The only difference is that I think the book is more in the range of 3 stars than 4.

When I started reading this book, I had to check the copywrite date. I know I had seen and/or read the opening scene somewhere before, and more than once. A submarine is hi-jacked. That has been done a number of times before. Most recently in a movie about a German sub (U-571?) and earlier in a Steven Segal movie. And the action is always the same, shooting people coming up/down the ladder, trapping people in the hallway and capturing the crew in the bunks and mess.

But, the book starts out strong as our hero (Jake Grafton from earlier Coonts books) plays detective and follows clues. The detective story is fairly strong. And there is a subplot with a burglar who turns into a spy that is very engaging.

However, the detective story finally loses out when the sub starts launching missiles and causing catastrophic events. Ever since Tom Clancy nuked the Superbowl and blew up the Whitehouse, everyone has to go one better. Threat of disaster is no longer good enough. You have to have destroy something to show menace.

The end really peters out, with the heroes and their wives on the Love Boat while America is being attacked. It is all handled like a light adventure, even after the wives are captured and about to be killed.

What is even worse, is how Coonts tries to make the main Russian badguy and his partner as sympathetic, likeable characters. They have murdered tons of seamen and civilians, but you are supposed to like them because they took mercy on some other people. I am betting that they turn up in future books and eventually become good guys.

In spite of the bad points, it is still interesting to read, especially in the beginning. It is certainly better than any of the latest Clancy books.

Rating:
Summary: Grafton's Back
Review: In America: A Jake Grafton Novel by Stephen Coonts used methods of direct and indirect characterization to strengthen the novel. This is shown in the characters of Rear Admiral Jake Grafton and the Russian Janos Ilin; because of the use of this device in America: A Jake Grafton Novel I enjoyed this novel very much
In the case of Rear Admiral Jake Grafton Stephen Coonts does a very good job of direct and indirect characterization. In the case of direct characterization he went straight ahead and described the physical appearance of Rear Admiral Jake Grafton. But in the case of indirect characterization e only gives away slight clues to his personality every so often during the book.
One of the other interesting characters is Janos Ilin the Russian. Throughout the book Coonts gives a little bits of information regarding the character of Janos Ilin. Janos is a somewhat shady character who we get the impression that he works for the Russian Foreign intelligence service.
All in all the literary device of characterization help increase my liking of this book.

Rating:
Summary: Jake Grafton & friends save the world... again!
Review: Published in 2001, Stephen Coonts' novel America is the 9th in the series starring his U.S. naval air hero Jake Grafton. We first met Lieutenant Grafton in the 1986 novel Flight of the Intruder as a carrier-based A-6 Intruder pilot in Vietnam. In subsequent novels, he has advanced in rank to now Admiral, moved to the Pentagon, & saved the United States (& the world) from increasingly evil villians & ever more technologically complex weapons.

In this novel, the first U.S. SuperAegis space-based missile defense system satellite is hijacked at launch, crashing it into the eastern Atlantic for salvage by a European billionaire & the European space agency. A super-silent, ultra-sophisticated, U.S. nuclear submarine is stolen by Russian & German pirates who then fire "Flashlight" energy pulse Tomahawk cruise missiles at Washington, DC & New York City, frying all devices with integrated electronic circuits, in essence crippling those modern cities. These two events are linked, & it takes Jake Grafton, his loyal aide Toad Tarkington, their CIA operative buddy Tommy Carmellini, old friend Marine Commandant Flap Le Beau, & their wives to figure the situation out & then rectify it as usual.

Jake Grafton is a modern literary hero approaching Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan in stature (although Clancy's much longer books allow him to more deeply develop his character). I am a fan of both. My favorite Jake Grafton novels are the earlier ones in which the immediate tension of naval aerial combat & war itself is better communicated. They were also great books for becoming acquainted with the workings of miltary planes & aircraft carriers. The later novels have gotten more farfetched in terms of plot and weaponry. The novel America continues that recent trend, at times stretching believability. However, it is an enjoyable read, & Jake Grafton fans & other miltary literary buffs should not miss it.

Rating:
Summary: One of the better Jake Grafton adventures
Review: Stephen Coonts must be one of the most inconsistent technothriller authors writing today. He has produced one true classic in the genre - "Flight Of The Intruder" - and ever since, the ride for the reader is one of ups and downs. His track record has been to pen one or two so-so or outright bad novels, then get serious and fire off a gem. So, in between good reads such as "The Red Horseman" and "The Intruders", we are also served clunkers such as "Final Flight" and "Cuba". It has become such that a "buyer beware" tag should accompany every Coonts novel, just to be on the safe side.

Fortunately, after the debacle that was "Cuba" and the tepid "Hong Kong", he got down to business and wrote "America", which turned out to be a pretty darn good story. The plot that Mr. Coonts lays out - that of a hijacked, top-of-the-line sub and the havoc it wreaks on the Eastern Seaboard - is unique in this genre that has grown to be jammed with Tom Clancy-lookalike plots.

After a prologue that will eventually tie into the main plot, Mr. Coonts doesn't waste any time diving headlong into the action, leaping right into a gripping opening sequence in which the submarine "America" is hijacked. Enter hero Jake Grafton, tasked to find out who the bad guys are and to figure out a way to get the sub back. Grafton begins his sleuthing amidst the missile attacks, and deals with a Russian operative who may not be all he seems to be. The pages fly by as the plot unfolds, leaving the reader wondering how everything will tie up in what is sure to be a riveting conclusion.

Except that the conclusion sort of fizzles out. I would echo the sentiment of another reviewer in that the final 100 pages seemed to be written as if Mr. Coonts had run out of gas and was coasting the rest of the way home on vapors. Suddenly the pace slowed, and some of the side stories are mostly wrapped up in an all-too quick and "tidy" way as a means of falling into the solution of the main plotline. This is followed by the climatic confrontation with the bad guys, which is curiously set aboard a cruise ship and leads to a "happily ever after" sort of ending that seems all too clean and sterile, given the story that had led to this point. The cruise ship element felt way out of place, and only seemed to serve the purpose of making sure the characters of Callie, Toad, and Rita had some print space in this story where they were otherwise largely ignored (and not missed by this reader).

I wavered back and forth on rating this at three stars or four; it really could have gone either way. In the end, though, I gave "America" four stars because - conclusion aside - it was an entertaining book. Additionally, when evaluated with his other work, "America" was a far better effort by Mr. Coonts.

I can only hope that his next book is as good or better, but given his track record over the years, we'll have to wait and see. The good ones tend to be few and far between.

Rating:
Summary: great story, mediocre writing
Review: This is the first Stephen Coonts book I've read, and I have to say, this guy needs an editor in the worst way. He's a great storyteller. The plot drew me in quickly -- and it was actually rather prescient, having been published before the 9/11 tragedy.

But the writing is just sloppy. The same piece of information is frequently delivered twice in the same scene, as though the author decided to move it and then forgot to delete the original mention. He refers to characters by their full names incongruously and often, sometimes more than once in a paragraph when the characters have already been introduced. (Occasionally they've been introduced more than once, as though the author had forgotten he'd already done it). Mystifying acronyms show up all over and aren't defined until later, but the NSA is for some reason referred to by its full name throughout the book. These seem like minor details, but they're distracting; to me, they disrupt the flow of the narrative.

If you're not a writer, these things probably won't bother you. It really is a good story, and I'd love to see it made into a movie. Coonts, unlike Tom Clancy, describes technology in just enough detail to make it interesting, but not with the sort of excruciating obsession with minutiae that makes Clancy's books too bloated for me to bother with. Coonts' description of the sub <i>America's</i> control room is so vivid I can picture myself there. The characters are surprisingly believable for this sort of book, although some could do with a little more detail.

But as a writer... well, by page 20 I was seriously considering marking the paperback up in red ink and mailing it back to the publisher with my resume and rates.

Rating:
Summary: great story, mediocre writing
Review: This is the first Stephen Coonts book I've read, and I have to say, this guy needs an editor in the worst way. He's a great storyteller. The plot drew me in quickly -- and it was actually rather prescient, having been published before the 9/11 tragedy.

But the writing is just sloppy. The same piece of information is frequently delivered twice in the same scene, as though the author decided to move it and then forgot to delete the original mention. He refers to characters by their full names incongruously and often, sometimes more than once in a paragraph when the characters have already been introduced. (Occasionally they've been introduced more than once, as though the author had forgotten he'd already done it). Mystifying acronyms show up all over and aren't defined until later, but the NSA is for some reason referred to by its full name throughout the book. These seem like minor details, but they're distracting; to me, they disrupt the flow of the narrative.

If you're not a writer, these things probably won't bother you. It really is a good story, and I'd love to see it made into a movie. Coonts, unlike Tom Clancy, describes technology in just enough detail to make it interesting, but not with the sort of excruciating obsession with minutiae that makes Clancy's books too bloated for me to bother with. Coonts' description of the sub America's control room is so vivid I can picture myself there. The characters are surprisingly believable for this sort of book, although some could do with a little more detail.

But as a writer... well, by page 20 I was seriously considering marking the paperback up in red ink and mailing it back to the publisher with my resume and rates.