The Med

Rating:
Summary: The Real Navy - Real Med
Review: "The Med" is a great read. I say this not just because I'm a former destroyer sailor who enjoys an authentic rendering of naval action, though the book would have repaid my time on this basis alone. "The Med" is also a compelling story with believable characters (some sympathetic, some contemptible) dealing with real issues under real stress.

The central character, Lietunant Junior Grade Dan Lenson, is an appealing man whose integrity you can feel as you watch him struggle with the question of just how far one has to go in the name of duty. Just how much one has to put up with from a swine with four stripes. You see him realize, intellectually and viscerally, that the orders he gives (or doesn't give) may decide whether men live or die. The Queeg-like Sundstrom (not as crazy as Queeg, but as conniving and perhaps even more inadequate) shows how everyone's life can be put in danger by a dithering, totally self-centered, incompetent commander.

I don't know how people who've not been in the Navy will react to the build-up of tension between the junior officer Lenson and the incompetent and evil commadore. For those who understand what total control a commander at sea has over a subordinate, and what serious business it is to even appear to question authority, there will be some electric moments. (By comparison, telling a civilian boss to shove off is nothing; I've done it more than once with hardly a measurable change in my blood pressure.)

The story is a believable and complex one (that could go from novel to headline anyday) involving an amphibious task force in the Mediterranean compelled by terrorits to go into action fraught with physical, political, and military peril. In sub-plots we follow a squad of marines fighting each other until they face a real enemy; a first-rate chief machinists mate who must battle old, balky equipment as well as officers who demand too much (some things never change); and an officer's wife who must decide whether she loves her husband as much as she hates the Navy. These are played out against the background of vicious Middle East politics and resentments and the struggle between a good officer pushed almost beyond humnan endurance and a horrible officer in busines for himself.

And boy does Poyer - a former Navy officer - reproduce Navy life accurately. Not just in the speech and jargon, though that's right on. I could almost smell the salt water and feel the ship roll under me as I read. I almost expected to hear a bosun's whistle (fortunately, I didn't taste the creamed chipped beef). He has everything down right: the Marines' cocky attitudes, the chiefs' raunchy stories, and the weariness of the sleepless drudgery that makes up so much of Navy life at sea. Poyer's Navy is so real I feel that after I've read all his novels (and I plan to) I'll rate another hash mark.

Rating:
Summary: Back to the shores of Tripoli with Poyer and Lenson
Review: A US amphibious assualt fleet steams the menacing waters of the Eastern mediterranean, it's flag officer all but despised by his subordiantes. Meanwhile, the ships comprising the task force begin breaking down, while the men who run them seem pre-broken-down themselves. When a PLO splinter group uses ethnic unrest on Cyprus to seize a group of Americans as hostages, teh stage is set for disaster. As a further omen of disaster, one of the Task Force's officers is named Dan Lenson, a USN Lieutenant who seems to bring trouble wherever he goes both here and in other books by DC Poyer. While news of the hostage situatiuon, which shifts from Cyprus to an abandoned resort inside Syria, comes soon, that Lenson's wife is one of the hostages is Lenson's wife, remains deliberately suppressed.

Though looking like a techno-thriller, "The Med" as Poyer fans have come to expect, is more of a charachter-driven novel set in a Navy unit. Here, the major players are Lenson, his wife (struggling, confornting, ala Stokholm, her feelings for her captors), Sundstrom, Lenson's unpopular commander (who thinks everybody is setting him up for disaster, and is paralyzed by indecision), Givens, and African-American marine terrorized by his more militant corporal, Wronowicz, the career engineer of a Navy destroyer, and Harisah, the so-called "Majd" who commands the terrorists. As in "The Gulf", these charachters don't always intersect (the UDT divers who remain apart from the focus of Lenson thruought much of that book), but that only clues one into how expansive the subject is. The non-charachter driven parts of the book are refreshingly anti-techno (mostly Wronowicz's epic efforts to change a propellor-shaft bearing while his destroyer is at sea). While a feel for nautical-mechanics of the nuts-and-bolts of amphibious warfare help for an understanding of what's going on, the effects of thsoe efforts in sheer exhaustion are easily visualized. The book climaxes in a seemingly doomed rescue-attempt (though the assault-force has the best chances of getting to the hostages, a rescue attempt seems a more apt job for some special forcers team). The action seems underwhelming, and it's hard to understand what's going on sometimes, though this is probably because Poyer is writing outside of his element. By the end of the book, we know it's not exactly a happy-ending, but things seem way-too pat. Still, the writing and the charachter formations are what drive Poyer books and help them surpass techno-thrillers.

Rating:
Summary: Back to the shores of Tripoli with Poyer and Lenson
Review: A US amphibious assualt fleet steams the menacing waters of the Eastern mediterranean, it's flag officer all but despised by his subordiantes. Meanwhile, the ships comprising the task force begin breaking down, while the men who run them seem pre-broken-down themselves. When a PLO splinter group uses ethnic unrest on Cyprus to seize a group of Americans as hostages, teh stage is set for disaster. As a further omen of disaster, one of the Task Force's officers is named Dan Lenson, a USN Lieutenant who seems to bring trouble wherever he goes both here and in other books by DC Poyer. While news of the hostage situatiuon, which shifts from Cyprus to an abandoned resort inside Syria, comes soon, that Lenson's wife is one of the hostages is Lenson's wife, remains deliberately suppressed.

Though looking like a techno-thriller, "The Med" as Poyer fans have come to expect, is more of a charachter-driven novel set in a Navy unit. Here, the major players are Lenson, his wife (struggling, confornting, ala Stokholm, her feelings for her captors), Sundstrom, Lenson's unpopular commander (who thinks everybody is setting him up for disaster, and is paralyzed by indecision), Givens, and African-American marine terrorized by his more militant corporal, Wronowicz, the career engineer of a Navy destroyer, and Harisah, the so-called "Majd" who commands the terrorists. As in "The Gulf", these charachters don't always intersect (the UDT divers who remain apart from the focus of Lenson thruought much of that book), but that only clues one into how expansive the subject is. The non-charachter driven parts of the book are refreshingly anti-techno (mostly Wronowicz's epic efforts to change a propellor-shaft bearing while his destroyer is at sea). While a feel for nautical-mechanics of the nuts-and-bolts of amphibious warfare help for an understanding of what's going on, the effects of thsoe efforts in sheer exhaustion are easily visualized. The book climaxes in a seemingly doomed rescue-attempt (though the assault-force has the best chances of getting to the hostages, a rescue attempt seems a more apt job for some special forcers team). The action seems underwhelming, and it's hard to understand what's going on sometimes, though this is probably because Poyer is writing outside of his element. By the end of the book, we know it's not exactly a happy-ending, but things seem way-too pat. Still, the writing and the charachter formations are what drive Poyer books and help them surpass techno-thrillers.

Rating:
Summary: A truly outstanding novel of epic proportions!
Review: As a fellow Naval Officer,I know naval terminology and ships. David Poyer provides all the action and sounds found on naval vessels. His indepth knowledge provides realistic sights and sounds of the "old Navy". I highly recommend this book and the other Navy series to anyone interested in great mysteries.

Rating:
Summary: The US Navy in a realisitic book.
Review: I have to say that this book was good. I have never served onboard a ship, but Mr. Poyer paints a detailed picture of the life. The Med deals with Lt. Lenson, a young officer, and his life that occurs during short period of time. The terrorist plot was all too realistic.
My only complaint is for the excessive use of swear words throughtout the book. ...

Rating:
Summary: Authentic characters
Review: I'm not surprised that Poyer's sea novels are required reading in the U.S. Naval Academy's Literature of the Sea course. Although I myself am not ex-navy, its easy to see that Poyer's sea noverls -- and certainly The Med -- realistically depict the difficult choices that a Naval officer can find himself making. The Med forces its protagonist, Lt. (j.g.) Lenson, to choose between what's right and what will advance his career -- between Annapolis installed blind obedience and the higher good.

The characters are well drawn. They are definately not the one-dimensional cartoons found in most military-based novels and movies. Even the "villains" are complex and plausible. They are people you've met and known. Their failings and virtues are amplified by the hugely stressful circumstances they are placed in and the high stakes of the action.

There is less jargon in The Med than in The Circle..... In giving The Med four stars I am saying Poyer wrote a truly excellent novel.

Rating:
Summary: Not as good as his later stuff
Review: This is bit different from many of Poyer's other works. The center of the action is the USS Guam (a helicopter assault carrier). This is a different perspective and he carries it off well. Having read his later works first, I can see the impending disaster of Dan Lenson's marriage. The ending is bittersweet. You can see Poyer developing as a writer and his attention to detail is second to none. You know the man has been down in those engine rooms.

This is a good read for naval action buffs.