Home > The Hunt for Red October

The novel is sometimes referred to as the first real example of the techno-thriller, a hybrid between the spy thriller and science fiction in which attention to technical and operational detail about military and intelligence activities is paramount.

Many of the characters in the novel appear throughout Clancy's subsequent works, particularly Ryan, who is the central character of many of Clancy's novels.

The novel was made into a commercially-successful movie in 1990, starring Sean Connery as Ramius and Alec Baldwin as Ryan, and featuring James Earl Jones, Sam Neill, Peter Firth, Courtney B. Vance, and Stellan Skarsgård.

The novel also served as the basis for a computer game, as well as a board game.

1 Plot synopsis

Ramius intends to defect to the United States with his officers and the experimental submarine Red October which is equipped with a revolutionary stealth propulsion system making it extremely difficult to detect with regular methods. Cold war tensions are rising, because of fleet maneuvers and the dangers of a rogue submarine equipped with nuclear weapons. Ryan figures out what the submarine is up to, and through a combination of circumstances becomes responsible for seeing the sub to safety from the pursuing SovietThe Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR ( Russian: ; tr. Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik (SSSR) also called the Soviet Union ( ; tr. Sovetsky Soyuz , was a state in much of the northern region of Eurasia that existed from 1922 until 1 naval fleet.

2 See also

• Crazy IvanA Crazy Ivan is a Soviet submarine maneuver, characterized by any number of sudden and sharp turns, used by submarine crew to "look behind" them. Due to the acoustic distortions and noise caused by propeller blades, it is near-impossible to use convention