H.M.S. Unseen

By: Patrick Robinson

Narrated by: George Guidall

Length: 16 hrs and 51 mins

Publisher's summary

The H.M.S. Unseen is one of the most efficient, lethal submarines ever built. But suddenly, on a training mission off the English coast, it vanishes, baffling military intelligence on both sides of the Atlantic, including national security adviser Admiral Arnold Morgan. A missing weapon is dangerous enough. But then the unthinkable begins to happen.... Planes begin blowing up across the skies.

Searching for answers, Morgan is convinced that only one man can be behind all these devastating events: his archenemy, the world's most cunning - yet reportedly dead - terrorist spy. Determined to stop his old nemesis, Morgan must use all his wits to find a madman armed with a powerful sub hidden somewhere in a million square miles of ocean. What Morgan doesn't know, however, is that the fanatical terrorist has a plan of his own, one that will bring these two intense warriors face-to-face - and only one will come out alive in one of the most chilling spy stories of the year.

©1999 Patrick Robinson (P)1999 Recorded Books, LLC

Great listen!

Great novel filled with intrigue and suspense. The narration by George Guidall was spot on for me and kept me coming back for more. I will be moving on to the next book, Sea Wolf. Can't wait to start it.

My favorite alternative to Clancy

Exiting and interesting story.
I wish there were more technical elements which supported and advanced the narrative while smoothly dovetailing with dramatic plot twists. I do love to see the return of our bad guy.

Note— Vice President flies on Air Force 2, the Secretary of State occupies Air Force 3.

Seems like every book has a couple of minor, yet cringy oversights or simply miss facts, but then again to be fair, I am a Clancy fan.

fantastic!

I liked this book so much
A very interesting plot, deeply developed and believable characters and very well researched technical and military environment
The one problem are the few stretched and a bit impossible to pull off situations
I am going to buy another book by this author
And so should you

Not as good as Nimitz Class or Kilo

this story provides a lot of background the characters from Patrick Robinson's earlier books while giving its own storyline.

Great book

Good book good narration
Look forward to next Patrick Robinson book hopefully with George Guidall👍

I wish Audible had the entire series!!!

Where does H.M.S. Unseen rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This book is excellent and there is no better narrator than George Guidall. As an ex-submariner, I was impressed with the story and the knowledge of the author. I really hated for the story to come to an end. I wish Audible had the entire series but they are a few novels short. I will get all of the ones that they do carry though.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Admirable Morgan is a no bs character and he's not afraid to make decisions.

What about George Guidall’s performance did you like?

George Guidall does an excellent job of giving the characters life. His performance in this book is up to the high standards that I have come to expect from him. I look for books that he narrates and just like the Admiral Morgan series, I have purchased books simply because he narrated them.

Fascinating, best of series!

Enjoyed this book from start to finish! Read entire series in sequence, well written and real to the world politics.

it's good because Patrick Stewart wrote it but...

Well, the premises took a huge swallow and everything worked out. (You have to love being part of a story where good people prosper and lots of things blow up). But it only works if you don't hold too tightly to reality. I enjoyed it.

Great series until half way through this.

I love the characters and the story. A terrorist from a previous book causing more trouble. Yes interested, then the story books down in the middle.. however the narrator is exceptional

Cut-Rate Clancy

This book was published in 1999 and nominally takes place starting in 2004. As might be expected with this timeline, many of the details were overtaken by events: in addition to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the author refers to the then unknown causes of the crashes of TWA Flight 800 (spark in an empty fuel tank that caused an explosion) and USAir Flight 427 (taken down by a rudder jackscrew problem that was extremely difficult to diagnose.) Since the plot revolves around terrorism, this is significant and should be born in mind when making a decision to read it.

A major part of the techno-thriller genre is its attention to details. Tom Clancy famously caused investigations into the details of his books because they regularly revealed things that military people thought were secret. While I'm willing to make allowances for things the author couldn't have known, there are many details that the author both could and should have known. A few of the major things that broke my suspension of disbelief:

* The KC-135 is closely related to the Boeing 707, not the "military version of the DC-10".
* The 'U'-class submarines are not the only diesel-electric submarines that the UK has ever built. In fact (virtually?) every submarine in WWI and WWII was a diesel-electric design. The major advantage of modern diesel-electric subs is that they can react their diesel fuel without conventional combustion, so don't need to surface to run the diesel.
* "Air Force 1" is a call sign, not an airplane. It is used by any USAF aircraft carrying the president of the US. Similarly, "Air Force 2" is the call sign of an aircraft carrying the Vice President but not the President. There is no such thing as "Air Force 3".
* Adding a very large openable pressure compartment with sensitive electronics outside the pressure hull of a submarine (a major plot point) would be extraordinarily difficult. The increased buoyancy would be very difficult to handle without fundamental re-engineering. Further, any such compartment would be very difficult to add while maintaining the navigation properties, and even more the quietness, of a sub.
* Any even vaguely competent passive sonar operator would be completely unable to miss the sound of a RHIB crossing the surface nearby.

According to the author, his technical advisor was Adm. Sandy Woodward (of Falkland Islands War fame). I don't see much excuse for missing these sorts of details.

Leaving aside the technical issues, the protagonist of this book is the principle terrorist involved in the plot. He is the primary focus character and the primary viewpoint character throughout. While there might be a place for such a book, it was not at all what I was expecting from previous books in the series.

And the ending of the book was deeply disappointing in pretty much every way. I won't say more for fear of spoiling the book, but it was both contrived and incompatible with the character of the protagonist as it had been established previously (including in this book.)

In an interview at the end of the audiobook, the author claims not to write multiple drafts of his books. The author should really have written a second draft of this book.

The chapter-by-chapter writing here is good enough to keep this from getting a rating of '1'. but there are enough other issues to keep me from rating this any better than '2'. This is a very sad continuation to a series that started quite well. Unfortunately for me, I purchased both this book and its sequel at the same time, but that may end up being just a sunk cost. At this time, I have no interest in reading any more in this series.