Blow Negative ("The Best Novel of the Navy Since the Caine Mutiny") Review

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Blow Negative ("The Best Novel of the Navy Since the Caine Mutiny") Review"Blow Negative" (and what a title!) tells the fictionalized story of the men who invented the nuclear navy. The "hero" is Sampson Greice, an obvious stand-in for Hymam Rickover, who pushes ahead various innovations that will make obsolete the diesel-electric submarines of two world wars and take the US Navy into the next century. The story is largely told through the eyes of Lt. Joy, a former destroyer sailor now consigned to submarines. In the years immediately following the end of WWII, Joy finds himself reluctantly aboard Greice's aging submarine, but manages to make something of a transition to the otherworldly ways of the "Silent Service". Through other crewmen, Joy learns the two marks that have made Greice an outcast among other officers: his unconventional ideas about the next generation of submarines (subs with steam engines? subs armed with missiles? Subs with vertical launch tubes?) and the fact that he's pretty much hated by his superiors. After a complicated string of events - thankfully depicted from within the sub - Joy gets his dolphins, yet is nearly killed in a catastrophe that all but destroys the sub and virtually ends Greice's career. Joy, once a man willing to follow a crowd, nevertheless matures, tracks Greice down to an obscure Naval Research command, and joins his crusade to bring the navy into the next century (even as the present century wasn't quite half over).
"Blow" is fun - probably more now than it was when first written. In an era with cookie-cutter "Pat Robinson" novels, it's refreshing to find something as old as "Blow" which has a very period feel to it. Apart from the fact that it is a novel, it's still historically suspect. While Admiral Rickover was outspoken on many issues, Greice speaks barely a word for the first half of the story - and much of what we know of him comes from his enemies. Unlike the real Rickover, Greice actually has experience with subs as fighting machines. That said, the book also gives short shrift to Greice's resilience - after the tragedy early in the book, we lose sight of him and don't meet up with him again until he's ensconced in the command that will create the first generation of SSN's. How Greice managed that bit of career resurrection is not quite explored, and we see little of subs themselves once he goes to work on the nuclear navy.
That said, "Blow" is still a must-read, a biting near-satire of the technothriller before that term ever really existed. "Blow" gives us insecure and in-over-their-heads submariners in dangerous ships instead of the typical mechanized officers in cutting-edge submarines. It's over the top, full bodied and seldom droops into skim-worthy. If you can find a copy of this anywhere, grab one.Blow Negative ("The Best Novel of the Navy Since the Caine Mutiny") Overview

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