The Hunt for Red October

A Jack Ryan Novel

By: Tom Clancy

Narrated by: Scott Brick

Length: 18 hrs and 42 mins

Publisher's Summary

Don't Miss the Original Series Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan Starring John Krasinski!

The #1 New York Times bestseller that launched the phenomenal career of Tom Clancy - a gripping military thriller that introduced the world to his unforgettable hero, Jack Ryan - nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.

Somewhere under the freezing Atlantic, a Soviet sub commander has just made a fateful decision. The Red October is heading west. The Americans want her. The Russians want her back. The chase for the highly advanced nuclear submarine is on - and there’s only one man who can find her...

Brilliant CIA analyst Jack Ryan has little interest in fieldwork, but when covert photographs of Red October land on his desk, Ryan soon finds himself in the middle of a high-stakes game of hide-and-seek played by two world powers - a game that could end in all-out war.

©1984 Jack Ryan Enterprises Ltd. (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Thank GOD you got a new narrator!

I had the previous release of this audiobook that was narrated by J. Charles, and my god was it horrible. I love this book. I had it on audio cassette that had excellent narration, but when I went digital this was one of the first books I got from Audible. And I could barely finish it, J. Charels was so bad. His 'Russian' accent sounded like the Count from Sesame Street. But Scott Brick has done an excellent job on all the books he has narrated, and when I saw he re-narrated this, I jumped at the chance to get it. To everyone who has the older release- get this one instead. It's SO much better!

A Classic Reinvigorated

This is the novel that catapulted Tom Clancy to stardom, and it is truly a classic. It’s been available on Audible for a while, but in an early, badly narrated rendition. Now Scott Brick has recorded “The Hunt for Red October” to go with the many other Clancy tales he’s narrated, and Brick has done Clancy’s masterwork full justice.

“Red October” is the first-published (and the shortest) of Tom Clancy’s “Ryanverse” novels, although chronologically it comes after “Patriot Games” and “Red Rabbit.” It is a tense and engrossing story, filled with techno speak that seemed oddly clear to me even when I didn’t know what the heck they were talking about, not being up on the inner workings of nuclear submarines and other military paraphernalia Clancy describes--apparently so accurately that when the book first came out some people in Military Intelligence were afraid he’d breached security.

Although the basics of the story are pretty well known (thanks to the Sean Connery/Alec Baldwin movie), the full-blown plot is extremely complicated, with many characters and a lot of similar names. But it’s so well done I got swept up in the story without getting bogged down in the minutiae. In short, it’s extremely well written. And although the technology was cutting edge in 1984, one of my favorite scenes was our first-ever glimpse of Jack Ryan, working on a military history tome in WordStar, printing out his manuscript on a dot matrix printer, and saving the files to multiple floppy disks. Sadly, I am old enough to remember all three of those relics.

“Red October” is a must-read for anyone open to enjoying a military thriller, and who can overcome any prejudices about (or of course already agrees with) Clancy’s right-wing, hawkish, politics. In case the info is useful, I’m a female who likes romance novels (along with other genres), my politics are center-leaning-left, and I enjoyed the book immensely. You don't have to be a hawk to root for the Americans, and many of the Russian characters--even those who are not defecting to the Wonderful West--are portrayed with dignity, humanity, and surprising depth and understanding.

Spectacular

This is my third go through with The Hunt for Red October. It is a spectacular story, one of the, if not THE best that Tom Clancy has ever written. I read the paper book once and a long time ago I listened to the original audio recording back during the prehistoric days of audiobooks. Scott Brick’s rendition of this book is nothing short of amazing. His voice is literally like chocolate.Initially I was a little disappointed in the fact that Marco Ramius’s voice was not that of Sean Connery, but Brick’s brilliance very quickly overcame that.

The combination of a brilliantly written book read by one of the best reader’s out there made this experience incredibly enjoyable. I wholeheartedly recommend this book to anyone... especially someone who is never listened to an audiobook before... as this will certainly hook them.

great book. horrible narration

Scott Brick seems to turn exciting stories into pedantic, yet somehow breathless lectures. Not EVERY sentence needs to be overcome in emotion.
edit: I had to return the book. I just can't get past the whiny questioning uplift at the end of every sentence. Listen to the sample. seriously.

Scott Brick!

Such an amazing book deserves an amazing narrator, and Scott Brick is such a narrator.

A production note: I don't know what happens at 51:51, but it sounds like Brick does an extra take that isn't removed. Small detail, but it was noticeable. Great story and narration though!

This is just too detailed for me.

The story line is good. The research & knowledge of the subject is amazing. But the detail spaced me out. I always have to rewind to not miss key points. Too much technical details & character development for audiobook. Maybe reading it is different.

Very Good

I can see why this book is rated so highly because the story is quite good and well written. For me as a 57 year old female, sometimes my mind would wander from all the technical information and military and political jargon.

Scott Brick was a great choice for narrator.

I would recommend.

Tom Clancy's finest work read brilliantly!

The Hunt for Red October is by far my favorite work of Tom Clancy. The Performance is as excellent as the story. Truly does justice to Mr. Clancy's work.

Boring

Maybe it was just this specific book but it focused too much on things I didn’t feel mattered to the plot. Focused too much on the Russian origin vice explaining how Ryan played into the story. Patriot games was much better

A Must Read

This book is such a fantastic read. Tom Clancy’s first book will always be a classic.