Welshrogue

A south American country makes a challenge for ownership of a British station in Antarctic and leading the way to stop them is America’s first stealth warship, the USS Cunningham. At the helm is an untried female leader, commanding a crew on their ships first action.

This is the first of four books to feature Commander Amanda Lee Garrett, a new age heroine in a mans Navy. Set slightly in the future, the USS Cunningham and the weapons are not so much futuristic as just not available today. This isn’t a book that deals with the fantastic, rather this is real life, just in a few years or so. From the first few pages, you are drawn into the crews lives. You buy into what they are doing, and why they are doing it. As the plot progresses, you get caught up with what the USS Cunningham is going through.

This is an excellently written book. Similar to a Tom Clancy but without the overkill of techno babble. This is a story about the crew first and foremost and the situation they find themselves in. The crew act like people, they have fears, worries, anger. The battle scenes are wonderfully written and don’t confuse the reader, which can often happen with the high tech battle field of today/tomorrow.

Mixed in amongst the battle is a simmering attraction between Commander Garrett and their new helicopter pilot. This is almost as good as the action, as these two try to fence around what they are both feeling aware of their place aboard ship.

As previously mentioned, this is the first of four books by James H. Cobb. For some reason after his last book, no more have appeared although I did find a short story by him in a Stephen Coonts edited book about a futuristic APV that was as good as his nautical books. Here’s hoping he writes some more.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 8th, 2006 at 9:14 am and is filed under Book of the Day, Books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.