Kilo Class (Audio Book)
   Patrick Robinson/Read by George Guidall
  1998 Recorded Books Inc/HarperCollins Pubs USA
   ISBN: 0694519782


An explosive naval techno-thriller set in the not-so-distant future. China has ordered 10 Russian Kilo Class submarines for its plan to close off the international shipping lanes around the island nation of Taiwan. The US Naval Black Ops team try to avoid WWIII while sinking the deadly subs. Unbeknownst to all, Taiwan has its own plans on a wind-whipped island at the bottom of the world.

Coming up as I did during WWII in an island nation our family listened to the daily accounts of sea & air battles. After the war there were many plays & memoirs to hear over the airwaves. My brothers also had a boardgame with opposing navies where battles were fought all over again.

So listening to Kilo Class had a familiarity peculiar to my childhood. By the second tape, however, I'd forgotten my quilts, found my topographical world atlas & had it spread out upon my sewing board just as, some 50 years earlier, my brothers had spread maps on our dining room table - all the better to follow the action.

I listened to George Guidall's pleasant reading of Kilo Class, reminding me of BBC broadcasters of yore - not that he had a British accent, it was simply he spoke clearly & invitingly.

I listened as an ocean research ship disappears off the edge of the world leaving a desperate SOS; as a team of USSN SEALS make their way into Mother Russia; as monster barges glide up the Volga; as Taiwan readies for the coming fusion with China; as China's admirals convene to make sense of disaster; as Los Angeles Class subs speed under Northern icecaps & an armada of Russia's navy chug around their arctic coastline heading for the China Seas.

Patrick Robinson has created one fine adventure with a dozen well fleshed-out movers & shakers of an unheralded war where success & failure alike cannot be disclosed. You become privy to the ways of three national navies & their brass in the new tepid war.

Coming up in a country where the Yanks stood head & shoulders above a short & wiry people, I noticed Patrick Robinson's penchant for describing his Americans as over 6 feet tall & in excellent health while his Russians & Chinese were less so, if just as interesting. Part of this author's skill was in making all the top brass irascible & flawed by arrogance.

Patrick Robinson has a redeeming sense of humor & a fully honed suspense edge, my beloved would wave disconsolately as I headed for my sewing room & tape deck, eager to be in the company of everyone in Kilo Class.

I enjoyed the listen immensely - George Guidall is a master story reader & spoke the Russian & Chinese names with comfortable fluency, guiding me into a world I'd not thought about; introducing people I wouldn't normally meet & taking me all around the world & safely back home.

Patrick Robinson's story-telling is like a Steven Spielberg movie - covers a lot of ground, includes a huge cast(some of whom I'd liked to have known more) & a larger picture of nations hunched over their board games, plotting devious things to do with their pieces.

Even with the cliches of complacent, bemused Russians; envious, wary Chinese & doggedly wily Americans & all their opinions of their counterparts; even with the bigger-than-life heroes & their squeaky-cleanness, Kilo Class is one ripping good naval & political yarn!

I listened to Recorded Books' unabridged version & Amazon.Com lists only an abridged edition.
(04/24/00)

Rebecca