Tag Archives: submarines

Book Review of “OceanSpace”

oceanspaceIf you like my work, buy me a virtual cup of coffee at Ko-Fi.

It wasn’t until I started reading Allen Steele’s 2000 novel OceanSpace that I realized I’d read it before, and probably not too long after it was originally published.

As I was reading certain scenes, I recalled having read them before. The saving grace was that I didn’t remember what came next, so it was usually a surprise until I got there.

Two-time Hugo winner Steele put a great amount of research into his writing as evidenced by extensive list of sources at the back of the book. I’m also a sucker for diagrams and Steele’s invention of the sea platform Tethys 1 and 2 were great.

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Book Review: “Deep Sound Channel” (2000)

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Cover image for Joe Buff’s novel “Deep Sound Channel”

I just finished reading Joe Buff’s Deep Sound Channel: A Novel of Submarine Warfare (Jeffrey Fuller Book 1). I accidentally found out about Buff’s six-part series on the fictional USS Challenger when I was doing research on a short story I was writing. Intrigued, I found out that the first in the series was available through my public library system so checked it out.

Although the novel was written in 2000, it’s set slightly in the “future” of 2011. According to the blurb on Amazon:

The year is 2011, and in South Africa a reactionary coup has established a military government that has begun sinking U.S. and British merchant ships. NATO quickly responds, with only Germany holding back-until Germany starts nuking Poland and eviscerating the French. Now the South Atlantic is a battleground where nuclear-tipped missiles rule-and the only gun worth using is one that seeks and fires from deep beneath the sea.

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Film Review of “The Abyss: Special Edition” (1989)

abyss

© James Pyles – DVD cover for the 1989 film “The Abyss”

I hadn’t intended to watch a film on Sunday evening, but saw a DVD of the 1989 film The Abyss and said, “why not?”

Actually, this is the special edition, so it’s expanded quite a bit from what folks saw in the original theatrical production.

The movie opens aboard the USS Montana, an Ohio-class U.S. Navy sub. The sub encounters some strange light apparition near the Cayman Trough and, caught in its wake, is dragged across a rock formation, fatally damaging the sub.

With Soviet ships closing in to salvage the nuclear submarine, the Navy commandeers a private, underwater drilling platform operating near the Trough that’s led by Foreman Bud Brigman (Ed Harris) and crewed by a bunch of roughneck oil drillers.

Brigman’s estranged wife Lindsey (Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio), who designed the drilling rig, accompanies a group of Navy SEALs commanded by Lieutenant Hiram Coffey (Michael Biehn) down to the rig just before a hurricane hits, in an attempt to reach the Montana and search for survivors.

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