OK, so I finished this a while back, and despite it appealing to a lot of my interests, I honestly found it pretty meh.
I really enjoyed the realistic military/tactical aspect of it all, as that part is right up my alley, but… I did not care about the characters, the plot seemed hollow, and it seems like some things that could have been explored further were simply ignored.
For example, in the beginning these guys blow up a refinery. There are vague descriptions as to why, but after this it is practically not mentioned again. Whatever movement they were part of apparently disappears, and there are no repercussions for their home oblast.
The only thing this book has going for it, in my opinion, is that military nerds like me enjoy the detailed writing about the different types of hardware involved in the book.
So, since I am by no means a literary connoseur, I’m curious about what others think of this one.
The thing I remember most about this book is the heroic American Mary Sue rescuing an Icelandic damsel in distress from a traumatic sexual assault by Soviet soldiers, and then immediately afterwards she falls in love with him and they have sex in a hot spring or something. Standard conservative male military-nerd wish-fulfillment pulp fantasy written by a guy whose main protagonists are all thinly-veiled self-insertions.
That said, as a fellow nerd, I love it when Clancy tells me all the little details about a submarine, and it’s a fun read. But I wouldn’t call it good.