Rating: 
Summary: Submarine Expierence
Review: After 20 years in the Navy with 15 of those on Nuclear Subs the crew members woundered what it would be like if our deterent efforts failed.Mr,Buff suggests a possibility that is all too chilling. The capabilities of the near future Submarines is very smothly woven into a story of a war that we must win. This story line has a lesson of what we need to avoid in the future.
Rating:
Summary: Hold onto your Seat
Review: Buff drops you right into the action, grabs you, and sends you on a roller coaster, breath-taking ride where he doesn't let you come up for air until that last paragraph on the last page. An unforgettable action-adventure avalanche that keeps you on the edge of your seat. A great read by a great author!
CAPT David E. Meadows, U.S. Navy
Author of the SIXTH FLEET series and
the upcoming JOINT TASK FORCE.
Rating:
Summary: Really, really, really terrific!!!
Review: Crush Depth has more depth to it than most other submarine novels of the last ten years combined! Wow!!! Joe Buff has create an entire whole world in which you, fellow Amazon readers, will become totally enthralled. In the post 9/11 world, we see Germany turning to the right politically and not supporting American vital defense interests in Iraq, and we see violent efforts by South African white extremists to restore apartheid and make a independent Boer homeland. Joe Buff's "Berlin-Boer Axis," which he first created with Deep Sound Channel and then more with Thunder in the Deep, was truly visionery. Crush Depth's characters, action scenes, geopolitics background, are ground breaking acomplishments!!!
Rating:
Summary: Nonstop Action
Review: Crush Depth is an extremely fast-moving submarine-driven global warfare thriller that kept me up long past my bedtime. The characters are well-defined, and the matchup of wills between two enemy deep-diving ceramic-hulled submaries is topnotch. Commander Jeffrey Fuller of the USS Challenger starts his race for personal and Allied survival at a disadvantage in his mano-y-mano mission to sink and [destroy] supersub Voortrekker, the proud and feared ultimate weapons delivery platform of the Berlin-Boer Axis. "Limited" tactical atomic torpedo and missile exchanges between the subs change the face of both this war and this planet as the two leviathons take the battle to the very ends of the Earth. The character development of Lieutenant Commander Fuller is to be applauded as he moves from Challenger's XO to her captain, gaining a stripe in the process. With the increase of his command, we get a revealing insight into the mental matchup between Fuller and his nemesis, Jan ter Horst, the Boer captain of Voortrekker. Only by disciplining himself to out think ter Horst can Fuller hope to complete his mission - the destruction of Voortrekker at any cost, his submarine and her crew included - and thereby keep the unstable political and nuclear situation the world finds itself in ten years from now from deteriorating into all out worldwide nuclear war. Author Joe Buff's cast of characters, from Voortrekker's narcissistic captain ter Horst and his straight-thinking first officer van Gelder, to Fuller and his battle group commander and former captain, Commodore Wilson - not to mention Ilse Reebek, the female oceanographer whom Fuller and ter Horst have both relied upon and intimately known - are well-defined and believable. If you like seafaring warfare stories that place you in the control room under fire with the nautical reality of authors such as DiMercurio and Poyer and the thrills and believability of Clancy, then you will devour Buff's Crush Depth in only a few bites and still be hungry for more.
Rating: 
Summary: A Dark "What-If" Thriller that Chills and Engrosses
Review: Crush Depth is the third segment of Buff's submarine saga that pits Jeffery Fuller and the Challenger against the German submarine Voortrekker. America is at war with the Germany-South Africa axis and the fighting has escalated to a point at which tactical nuclear weapons are used at sea. America is being attacted on its own shores and must retain control of the sea to keep from being overrun. Buff has created a plausible scenerio of war that is sure to interest readers and makes his book difficult to put down. Buff's novels bring an added depth that many other war novels lack. His book are character driven as opposed to simply being of the shoot-em-up type. He also takes the reader on board a nuclear submarine in such a way that it is easy to imagine yourself as one of the crew. The book is thrilling at times and poignent at others. It is a quality read and should not be overlooked by anyone with an interest in war or submarines. Also recommended: Deep Sound Channel and Thunder in the Deep by Joe Buff.
Rating: 
Summary: To say 'riduculous premise' is a criminal understatment!
Review: Hey - wait a minute before you get angry at me for not liking this book. I very much wanted a cool submarine action thriller to sink (no pun intended) my teeth into. The reader is presented one absurd premise after another. The "bad guys" are horribly racist South African white guys that reinstate apertheid & ultra-nationalist Germans(a.k.a. ultra-racist Nazi's) - puh-leez. The author, like many before him, proves he is too cowardly to choose a realistic foe - instead he bows at the alter of "political correctness." I tried to put that out of my mind and continued to read with the hopes that I would get "sucked-into" some cool sub action. The author asks the reader to blindly accept that Germany and South Africa posses loads of offensive high-tech weaponry. I'm talking loads and loads of offensive weaponry, including mach 8.5 cruise missiles and an endless supply of tactical nuclear warheads. The author asks the reader to blindly accept that the U.S. would choose NOT to unlease a decisive nuclear strike if our oppoents only use tactical nukes. If you can swallow all that then I suggest that you buy this book. The diaolgue is is O.K. (except for the crazy German sub Captain - who is just a really nasty white guy).
Rating:
Summary: To say 'riduculous premise' is a criminal understatment!
Review: Hey - wait a minute before you get angry at me for not liking this book. I very much wanted a cool submarine action thriller to sink (no pun intended) my teeth into. The reader is presented one absurd premise after another. The "bad guys" are horribly racist South African white guys that reinstate apertheid & ultra-nationalist Germans(a.k.a. ultra-racist Nazi's) - puh-leez. The author, like many before him, proves he is too cowardly to choose a realistic foe - instead he bows at the alter of "political correctness." I tried to put that out of my mind and continued to read with the hopes that I would get "sucked-into" some cool sub action. The author asks the reader to blindly accept that Germany and South Africa posses loads of offensive high-tech weaponry. I'm talking loads and loads of offensive weaponry, including mach 8.5 cruise missiles and an endless supply of tactical nuclear warheads. The author asks the reader to blindly accept that the U.S. would choose NOT to unlease a decisive nuclear strike if our oppoents only use tactical nukes. If you can swallow all that then I suggest that you buy this book. The diaolgue is is O.K. (except for the crazy German sub Captain - who is just a really nasty white guy).
Rating: 
Summary: Crush Depth
Review: How the leading players respond to that which forces them into action provides the heart and soul of a good book: character development in the face of conflict. Crush Depth has lots of the latter, and little of the former. The deeper I went with Crush Depth, the more preposterous it became. The United States Navy sends its most powerful submarine out with a sailor who doesn't know port from starboard, but allows him to steer the boat. Yeah, right. In the final search for the enemy submarine, Buff writes: "Then he had a better idea. 'I think I know where they are. They're where we'd least expect them to be, dead ahead to the south. They probably stopped completely the moment they slowed to break our sonar contact...'" [422] The situation is transparent, lacks accuracy--I'm not a submariner, but I doubt if anything in the water stops completely the moment it slows--and it's so predictable. Captain Fuller, referred to throughout the book as "Jeffery", shows no growth throughout. His character is cartoonish, B movie-ish. Say, that's where the conflict comes in--the book is set up for the screenwriter: torpedoes here, a firefight against superior forces there, atomic bombs here, there, and everywhere. The romance is on, then off, setting up the ex-lovers where they have to work with each other as Captain and Lieutenant, another typical Hollywood stunt. But Ilse returns at the end of the book/movie in "a white silk blouse and nice jeans". "I missed you," she says. "Can I come in?" Puh-lease. It's just-in-time everything in Crush Depth, so why bother? This book crushes the reader in a tedium not often found in techno-thrillers. This book doesn't rate one star.
Rating:
Summary: Out Clancy's Clancy!
Review: I am such a huge fan of this writer! Everything he writes I can't wait to get my hands on. A writer that never disapoints!
Rating:
Summary: Fantastic reading!
Review: I am such a huge fan of this writer! Everything he writes I can't wait to get my hands on. A writer that never disapoints!
| 
