User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
(Update: *I have somewhat changed my mind on the book, rating this book from 1star to 2stars after watching an interview to see where the authors were coming from in writing this book. They write the book to serve a cautionary tale (not as a "techno military thriller") to warn us about a confrontation between nuclear countries could quickly go out of control. But you still WILL get bogged down by the technical aspects of the "wars" which did not make sense at all. So still poorly written my criticism still stands 😛 But I do wish they had spend more time in refining the writings and the storyline.
Interview of the authors:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FMqKb...
2020/3/26)
Short review:
Unrealistic, illogical, not well-researched, lack of interconnectedness between characters and too much loose ends. And the plot felt apart after chapter 4.
The author really hit the triple threats in writing a novel:
Paper thin characters, plot that does not make sense, No clear message to communicate with readers.
To be fair there were some attempts to communicate with the readers through the narration of what happen to two of the main characters in the end, but characters development were so poor, I found it very difficult to emotionally relate to them.
And there were at best 20pages out of 300 or some pages of actual "wars" to make up the shortfall, which is what people actually paid to read.
Long reviews:
*trigger warning, some people may be offended, don't be a snowflake, just a book review. take it easy.
Prologue:
As a Sci-fi and military fan the topic of really hit the peak of my interest. I had never had such high expectation for any book of fiction. I was a little bit disappointed at Chapter 5 because the plots were falling apart, but I was still naively hoping for the author to turn it around and it turns out to be the biggest disappointment in all of my readings. This is why I am so critical of the book.
My opinion on the authors:
Both authors have Zero understanding of Chinese political culture, nuclear posture and strategic thinking. I'll bet they had never been to China nor talked to an actual Chinese person.
My personal experience on finding the <2034...> on Wired
I seldom read fictions, I read mainly classics, history and philosophy, also I read academic research on finance and the economy as they are related to my work.
I have read the first five chapters on Wired and was very intrigued, I have to say I was never so interested in a book.
I waited very long for the release since I have read the first chapter back in January and religiously checked on Wired everyday in hoping they release the next chapter earlier than the announced day. And it turns out the first five chapters was about 75% of the book, leaving those whom actually bought the book feeling shortchanged. And the ending was a huge disappointment and a lot of things throughout the first five chapters that does not quite make sense or just not quite elaborated upon which I thought were plot twists to be revealed in the last chapter, but contrary to my hope they ended up just being loose ends that did not get tighten up. And the authors offered no explanations whatsoever.
To the book itself overall,
The battle scenario is totally unrealistic. In his book the Chinese Air force does not exist nor does China have any AWACS capabilities, nor A2AD capabilities nor any situational awareness of its immediate coastal areas. Somehow a military confrontation between China and the US in 2034 that has no space battles component, no hypersonic missiles, no high altitude hypersonic reconnaissance which seems highly unlikely. Because those weapon I mentioned are already in deployment and shown to the public on Chinese National day parades Oct 1st 2019. Such as the DF-17 hypersonic missile and WZ-8 hypersonic reconnaissance drone.
On the China part,
Main Chinese character Lin Bao (An American born Chinese)with both American and Chinese nationality and a CCP member, who was mentally torn apart on the inside by the confrontation between US and China, and ideologically disapprove everything Chinese government and the CCP stands for with latent admiration of America's "liberal democratic values" and somehow he rose to the top of Chinese military force command chain. OMG, I don't think Americans can get more narcissistic and self-absorbed, but they do keep excelling themselves. 👏👏🤦♂️🤦♂️
Here are some facts about China and the CCP, just so you know:
First of all, China does not accept dual nationality. Secondly, foreign nationals are certainly not allowed to apply for CCP membership which is just one of the clear factual errors among many.
Thirdly, A CCP membership is not your Costco card or target loyalty card, they don't just let anyone whom applied to join. Again, you don't have to believe me, go look it up yourself.😉
These obvious mistakes that you can fact check and self-correct with a simply google search only exposes the American elites' idiotic and arrogant view of how the Chinese nation and society works and their prejudice on the concept of Chinese culture and intellect.
Some others obvious factual error, like tactical nuclear bomb destroying a whole city of 10million and 33.24million. A modern tactical nuclear bomb is normally 1-10kt（TNT yield equivalent) and at best 100kt hence the word "tactical". look it up. However you modify an F-18 you are not gonna mount a 100kt tactical nuke on it, the bomb's dimension is simply just too big for a multirole fighter/bomber). And Shanghai is over 6300sq km in land Area. A fall onto the ground detonation of a 10kt nuclear bomb would at best destroyed 10-20 city blocks and that's about it. The numbers just does not add up.
Another fatal logical error is that America retaliated against China's sinking of 2 American Carriers with a "tactical" nuke (150kt that contradicting the definition of tactical) that leveled a Chinese coastal city of 7m population(Zhanjiang)which is impossible as explained above. Pushing aside the obvious moral problem of committing war crimes on the American part retaliating against civilian targets with nuclear weapon just because China had sunk some US navy warships. After America had killed 7million Chinese, the American administration decided it is safe to conduct business as usual with the president and the entire cabinet at Whitehouse as if nothing had happened? Are you kidding me? Does the entire US executive branch got a death wish or something ? Especially after China had "magically" shut down the phone internet and electricity at Washington D.C. as a demonstration of technological capabilities on Cyber. That's just defying common sense, I don't know what is the exact protocol is after striking a nuclear armed country with nuclear bomb, it is certainly not to have the president and the cabinet to keep working in the White house. Tell me that I am wrong. 🥱🥱
(this is not spoiler, this is the part that already published on Wired free to read to anyone)
Therefore it is safe to conclude the author had no understanding on how nuclear weapon are deployed and how nuclear deterrence works. The world just don't have respect for America anymore, after a series of cluster-F**** US policies both domestic and foreign that lasted for 2 decades ( Bush Jr. Obama and Trump ). Economic mismanagement at home and multiple failed military adventures that lasted till today and still going on. All of these had stirred up global resentment against America and left its coffers in massive debt.
On the India part,
I might be bias on the country although I do respect its history and past achievements, also I have worked with many Indian colleagues while I was in Singapore. but it have an industrial sophistication equal that of China in the 90s. The country does not have a large population of well-educated work force, and I am not even talking about PHDs and Masters, I am talking about low to medium skilled workers that can qualify work at the garment factories and operate semiautomated textile machineries or read the blueprint at a construction site and immediately go to work. In order to qualify those positions you have to be able to read and to have reasonable mathematic skills and rudimentary understanding of physics and chemistry. And unfortunately a lot of young Indians do not meet the fore mentioned standards.
This is a country that till today its agriculture infrastructure is so weak it can not even achieve food self-sustainability. Not the least to say India to have the potential to achieve comparable industrialization of Today's China in 15years.
In the next 10years, with the onslaught of the 4th industrial revolution (IoT, 5G, AI, additive manufacturing and automation), there would not be any labor intensive sweatshop factory that can compete with Chinese factory that require Zero person and no lights. This is not sci-fi fantasy. There is already a XiaoMi phone unmanned factory that produces one smartphone per second with hundreds of robots and 5G IoT sensory equipment at a Beijing high tech industrial park and it started production in August 2020. My point is in the next 10years instead of yielding population dividend, the vast proportion of young but not well-educated nor well-skilled Indians are more likely going to be a source of economic burden and instabilities as they get out-competed by robots in other countries (namely China and Japan and etc.). And India had not accumulate enough wealth and build enough physical and social infrastructure to retrain them to make a transition nor to cushion the blow.
India build only one aircraft carrier and it took them 17 years from planning to commission. Go google how long it took for China to build its first domestically build aircraft carrier?
Therefore it is reasonable to assume that India had a very low chance of intergrading itself into the global manufacturing supply chain in a very big way and becoming a fully industrialized country for at least in the next 30years. Certainly not in the level of development depicted in this novel.
One anecdotal evidence is according to IMF for every year 6 out of 7dollar earned in the manufacturing capital will leave India and park in Tax heaven nearby i.e. Singapore & other places in the form of "reinvestment" and "connected trades" and eventually ended up in manufacturing activity or other investment somewhere in Africa Europe and the ASEAN countries . I know this because that was my job for the last 8 years to advise rich Indian on what to invest in Singapore. Many of my clients are Indians. And they told me, they prefer just make a dash run for money and then migrate to better places with lower taxes, higher capital returns and better labor laws and less regulatory "hurdles"(i.e. brown envelopes to officials) .
They are proud Indians, but just don't have too much faith in their countries.
The part which annoyed me the most,
There are quite a lot of trash talking throughout the pages and casual American narcissisms intended to vilified China based on his cold war era ideological believes which had no connections whatsoever with the reality of the Chinese nation and the Chinese society today.
Personal Rant while I was reading the ending:
*Trigger warning: If you don't like what I wrote above then you are NOT gonna like what I write below
Here is a thought experiment:
If the CCP regime and its government are so utterly authoritarian, corrupt, oppressive, and fundamentally illegitimate (and doom to collapse) then how does China had grown from a post WWII wasteland(35yr average life expectancy 10% literacy in 1949) to the 2nd largest economy today and poised to Challenge American supremacy in every domains(already surpassed America's GDP by PPP measure in 2015 and surely would have surpassed American GDP in 2034 by any measure).
For example, My parents are both professionals (a cardiovascular surgeon and database engineer) whom are incidentally not CCP members. They lives under the "oppressive" CCP "regime" for their entire life.(except for foreign holidays and conferences)They had such a bad life only had seem their personal wealth increased from less than USD$10,000 to USD$3.5mil in the last 30years while consumer price increased for perishable goods was about 3-10 times, durable goods have actually gone down in absolute price(i.e. cars, home appliances and consumer electronics). What happens to my parents had been a very common experience among the citizens of Shenzhen. Other Chinese people in small towns and rural village had seem their lives improved significantly in the same period but not as dramatic. You know.... hopeless Orwellian dystopia run by an oppressive CCP dictatorship.🤔🤔🤔
While in America, according to Nobel laureate Professor Joseph E. Stiglitz(who wrote my economic textbook as I studied in America 13 years ago) The medium income for an American male full time worker had not increase for 42 years and at the bottom real wages had not increase for 60years, both adjusting for inflations.*1 More than 40% of Americans don't have $400 dollars emergency cash. more than 60% of Americans don't have $800 dollars emergency cash. And Top 3 richest Americans now owns more wealth than the bottom 60%.*2
You know......Freedom, liberty, human rights and prosperity😏😏😏
Chinese average life expectancy had increase from 35-77years old (1949-2020), at the same time America the country claimed they have the best healthcare system somehow had manage to have their average life expectancy in gradual declines. Note: The current life expectancy for U.S. in 2021 is 78.99 years*3. China spend a little less than 6% of its GDP on overall healthcare but managed to cover 95% of its population with public healthcare insurance. Mind you China does have 4times of the U.S. population but only have 70% of the size of American economy. At the same time America spend 19.8% of its GDP covering 90% of its population. America spends 10 times as much as China per capita on healthcare only to achieve a more or less similar outcome. Yup, best healthcare in the world.🤦♂️
The BIG QUESTION IS (a question which I think about a lot )
Why there is such epistemology gap in recognizing the reality of China between Chinese people who actually lives in China and America's perception of China?
Reference:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iaw4n...
2. https://abcnews.go.com/US/10-american...
3.https://www.macrotrends.net/countries...
Rating: really liked it
Let's be clear; this is no Tom Clancy Red Storm Rising level of work.
The writing and plot itself are fairly interesting and a different take on 3rd World War books. The characters, though, are pretty one-dimensional. There are no actual battle scenes either until the very end, which is a real shame. The premise of a battle gets set up, and then we change perspective, and once we are back to where the battle happened, it has already gone down. Only having one battle scene puts a lot of weight on that scene's shoulders. Sadly, the writing isn't there to make that scene this gut-wrenching ride to the climax it should have been.
And that, for me personally, is what drove this into 2-star territory. I wouldn't have minded the lack of depth on the characters if it had the chops to make up for this lack of development with heart-pounding battle scenes. Instead, we're treated as if the battle scenes are taboo on a prime time made for television movie and just left with the unfulfilling fade to black just as the action heats up.
Rating: really liked it
Growing up in a time where the threat of nuclear war between the US and Russia was a daily worry, I was well prepared for the story Mr Ackerman was going to tell. He and his co-writer, Admiral James Stavridis were certainly two men who were more than capable of looking into and describing how this third world war could start and end.
As always, there are no real winners in war just piles of bodies and people bereft because of loss and fear. As this war begins, it is the US and China where it starts and as tensions escalate we see the emergence of the reality of what happens when a country relies too much on technology, a technology, as we have seen, which can be constantly attacked and hacked. Shut down a country's technological capabilities and you literally shut down their ability to defend themselves. Clearly in this story there is a warning that as progressed as we seem to think technology has carried us, it can also be the cause of our downfall.
Also vividly pointed out is the human error factor. One small misstep can lead to many others that lead to what these authors have written of. This is a cautionary tale, one that the reader can clearly see happening if we don't find ways to curtail our all encompassing reliance on technology. This is certainly one of those stories that could sadly come true in the future.
Rating: really liked it
Just know that when the smoke clears, one nation gets reduced to a middle to low income country, another rises as an economic, political and military super power and millions upon millions of people around the globe are left dead, displaced or deathly ill.
Four stars rather than five because the ending is rushed and full of holes, not something you want in a novel whose expressed purpose is to warn readers of the potential profound and far-reaching consequences of leaving geopolitical conflicts, dangers and vulnerabilities unaddressed.
More specifically, I needed to know how the consequences of the conflict played out on the ground for everyday folks, and the one to two paragraph info-dump at the end just didn't cut it.
While it was essential that the story be told from the perspectives of those at the top and/or in the thick of things, the complete silence on the experiences of those forced to navigate everyday life in the midst of a third world war is a serious flaw.
Bottom line, I wanted to see more of what was happening on the ground.
How, for example, were parents and teachers helping children to cope with the fear of and uncertainty surrounding wartime?
What did the economic fallout look like for civilian employees and employers?
Other than voting smart (hahahahaha!) and elevating country above party (sigh), what can or should average citizens do to prepare for the eventuality of such a conflict.
There were also questions about the major players that went unanswered; at the risk of spoiling things , I'll just disclose that the book is completely mum on the ultimate fait of one of the cheif players in the chest-thumping /dick-waving contest that began and kept things going.
Still, 2034 was a great and thought provoking read , one that will keep me up nights for years to come.
Rating: really liked it
A frightening concept when your enemies have cyber capabilities to take down all your communications, and hack your fighter jets. 2034, had my full attention for over half of the book then it fizzles.
Rating: really liked it
just ridiculous, I don't know why Wired did that to me. I'm not subscribing it to be getting some mediocre political fiction, one more story about whole world against America... ah apart from India, New Delhi 13 years from now will be modern metropolis with clean streets, how? because they defeated Pakistan in 10 days, that solved all India's problems...
Rating: really liked it
About a quarter of the way through I actively hated this book. Having finished it though, I very much respect the effort, and I am impressed by the two men who chose to write it.
I think the problem is one of marketing, or perhaps just my misunderstanding of the marketing. What I really wanted to read was a semi-serious analysis of what a third world war might plausibly look like. Something along the lines of early Tom Clancy or 2015's far, far superior Ghost Fleet by P.W. Singer and August Cole. Admiral James Stavridis, one of the book's co-authors, is a highly decorated veteran of the US Navy, whose career included a stint heading up NATO. Stavridis has had access to the best thinking about the next great power war. Or at least one would hope he has. I was hoping for something that would add to my sense of what's possible a little bit, or at least suggest scenarios that might aid thinking. The fact that there was a special issue of Wired Magazine dedicated to this book led me to believe that it was going to provide a meaningful glimpse of the future.
It does not. At least not from a technical standpoint. The battle scenes are frankly laughable. Any layman with a cursory sense of how weapons technology has developed over the past half century will be deeply disappointed by this book. The action in one early scene launches when the commodore of a group of US Navy ships sees a potential threat... with her eyes?!? These things are packed with billions of dollars worth of sensing equipment, the idea that a group of US naval ships on a "Freedom of Navigation" cruise in the South China Sea would be surprised by a ship, or even a buoy, within the horizon line, is absurd. I'm not sure there were any serious naval engagements that involved ships seeing each other in World War II, let alone the 21st century.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS FROM HERE
The world of 2034 is one where aerial dogfights between manned fighter jets are still possible. It's one where drones and missiles don't seem to exist, and aircraft carriers are somehow still useful. The area access denial weapons that will be the key to any fight for Taiwan or off the coast of China are never mentioned. Cyberwar, a very real and serious threat, that 2015's Ghost Fleet deals with much more convincingly, is a key aspect of the book. But there is zero reckoning with what it might actually entail. "Cyber" is a magical fantasy weapon, with no consistent rules, that can do whatever the plot needs it to do. Possibly the most frustrating plot point of the book is one where the US military realizes that every aspect of its civilian and military communications hardware is compromised... and then sends a couple carrier groups out to get slaughtered anyway.
Upon reflection, I can see why this book was as disappointing as it is from a technical standpoint. As a US Navy admiral, Stavridis almost certainly does have a highly developed sense what the combat mechanics of the first few days of the next great power conflict will be. The problem of course, is that that information, the true possibilities of cyber war, and the real capabilities of our ships against cyber, drones and missiles are some of the most closely guarded secrets in the world. I read this book very quickly, but I think it's quite likely that the Russian and Chinese militaries have teams of analysts who have already dissected every sentence. I would bet they are even more disappointed than I am. Stavridis is too knowledgeable to risk trying to write a real techno-thriller. The battle scenes are warmed over World War II tropes, with cyber-fantasy, because that's probably all they could get through the US intelligence censors who must have reviewed the book.
If you want a good, thought provoking techno-thriller about war between the US and China, go read Ghost Fleet.
The book's ideas around geopolitics are pretty childish as well. You can tell that it was written by at least one guy who has sat at the center of the military industrial complex for far too long. In a book involving the titanic conflict of the US, India and China, Iran somehow gets crow-barred in as a major player. The Strait of Hormuz gets major play at the beginning and the end of the book, and one of our five viewpoint characters is an Iranian general. His presence becomes inadvertently hilarious, because the writers don't have much of an idea what to do with him either. He floats around as a liaison to militaries with real roles to play, and as a pawn in intelligence games. Even the most blob-ridden, Raytheon brain-poisoned, deep state take on a world war III scenario can't imagine a context where Iran presents any real threat to the United States.
One of the most fun aspects of near-future books like this is the throw-away details. How much or how little can things change over the course of a decade and a half? Unfortunately, given the message I think these guys are trying to portray, these fun details are all deeply silly. Like Foundation for Defense of Democracies level dumb. Our Iranian general is presented as the hero of Iran's victorious battle for the Golan heights. As if the United States would nuke China over Taiwan, but sit idly by as Israel was seriously threatened. The book is filled with infuriating little details like this. The authors seem to think that the US is more vulnerable to cyber-attack because its internet architecture is too decentralized, which seems to me to be pretty counter to the way that anything really works. All our potential enemies are stereotype ridden caricatures. The Chinese are sort of noble enemies, but there are passages here that get dangerously close to asserting that the Russians and Iranians are just devious and dastardly by nature. Also in tune with somewhat delusional US national security strategies, India ten years after Modi is portrayed as much more competent and better run than I think it has any hope of being.
The way that foreign policy establishment orthodoxy sometimes shines through is a shame, because at the end of the day I think that this is a deeply subversive book. Subversive in the best way as well. The writing is never dazzling, but in the character arcs of the Indian-American national security advisor, and the 4th generation fighter pilot who knows he's an anachronism, we get some real meditation on what the United States is, and what it should be.
When I thought this book, with all its glaring failures, was heading to a place of come from behind US victory in World War III, I was incensed. I was ready to write a scathing review and troll anybody on twitter who had anything nice to say about it. But the book ends up in a much more interesting place. Perhaps even a profound one. Stavridis and Ackerman can't provide the promised techno-thriller. Because of their background, and where their paychecks used to come from, their view of the world and our adversaries is severely limited. But what these guys do know is combat and its costs, and the deep limitations of the faltering US national security state.
I'm sure that the authors would favor different solutions to our current predicament than I would. But they have a surprisingly keen sense of which country presents the greatest threat to the world. This is a book where the United States both unnecessarily starts World War III and then loses it. This is not a techno-thriller. It's a surprisingly profound, and profoundly subversive meditation on the sorry state of the US military industrial complex. It doesn't live up to its marketing, but it's a fascinating artifact of our time. Not a waste of time.
Rating: really liked it
Not what I expectedGiven the credentials of the authors, I was quite disappointed by this piece.
I read a lot in this genre and was amazed by the lack of any attempt at technical explanation behind the major events in the story.
EG: three American ships are destroyed without firing a shot after being rendered totally dead by a magic cyber weapon that China employs. All comms, all sensors, all weapon systems everything gone in a flash. So what does the US Navy do? You won’t believe it either.
After the resulting slaughter of dozens of US ships of all types, no details of the engagements are forthcoming. Just the assumption of a similar fate as the first three.
So what does the US President do? You won’t believe it either. How about a tactical nuke strike on a Mainland China city.
What could go wrong? BTW, with the Chinese super cyber crippling any and all American systems, how did they manage that? Yup, no detail. It just happens
Well, that’s enough. You should save your money. There’s a lot better out there
Rating: really liked it
As the subtitle declares,
2034 is a novel about "the Next World War." Following an incident in the South China Sea between the Chinese and American navies, events begin to cascade into...something much worse. With two military veterans (one of whom has received numerous literary accolades) serving as co-authors, I was more than excited to dig into this speculative fiction read.
Unfortunately, authors Elliot Ackerman and James Stavridis seem hellbent on violating the "Show, Don't Tell" cardinal rule of storytelling. While the bones of the story in
2034 are inherently compelling, the most exciting and consequential sequences of the novel occur exclusively "off-camera." Multiple times through the narrative, the action cuts away from a character about to experience a Big Moment, only for another character (and the reader) to learn about the moment and its aftermath on the news or radio.
I understand this was probably an intentional stylistic choice, but what's the point of having multiple POV characters if you're not going to let us experience the most dramatic moments of the story through their eyes? And this trend extends to other aspects of the book, as well. A disproportionate amount of time is spent on character backstories, while the more fascinating national defense tidbits are glossed over. For example, instead of reading three pages on one character's unhappy marriage, I'd rather spend more time on the one-sentence aside about how America's commitment to deregulated industry leaves its infrastructure vulnerable to debilitating cyber attacks.
Also, for those looking for a "techno-thriller" or an exploration of near-future military tactics, you may want to look elsewhere. In
2034, cyber warfare is akin to magic, and the few tactics you're privy to are nothing more than basic game theory ("If we bomb one city, they'll bomb two cities"). Additionally, no mention is made of the dire economic and trade ramifications a war between the U.S. and China would inevitably trigger. I mean, each country heavily relies on the other for supply chain purposes, and we never learn how a megawar would affect both nations' economies.
2034 isn't a complete disappointment. Ackerman and Stavridis do a good job of ratcheting up the dread and tension (though when the build-up to that tension is delivered via background "Breaking News" alerts, it loses its effect as the story reaches its (mostly off-screen) climax and resolution). And there are some pretty profound observations about how the "America we believe in" is a mere shadow of what we assume and more of a result of post-WWII overconfidence.
Unfortunately, it's not enough to salvage the reading experience - the fascinating bits appear intentionally few and far between. Reading
2034 is like watching a TV show with a budget that can't match its ambition - which doesn't make sense for a book. if you're curious about picking up
2034, I recommend dusting off a copy of Tom Clancy's
Red Storm Rising or Eric Harry's
Arc Light instead.
Rating: really liked it
This novel is going to be a landmark in the history of political and war fiction. I think it can only be compared to 1984 in its vision and ability to predict future. Written in a fashion that resembles a 1990 American action movie, it tells a series of events that may firm the timeline if the next world war. However, there is much more to this novel than the adventurous side of it. Specifically 2 aspects are touched me deeply. These are the human aspect and the geopolitical aspect.
On the human side, it tells the stories of central characters that are very rich in their emotions and personalities. One thing can be found in common between most characters. That is their families military background. In my opinion each one of these characters reflects their respective countries point of view and ultimately their roles in the chain of events to the global conflict.
Geopolitical, the novel sheds a new light on the unthinkable role played by nations in the near future. On the other hand it shows the steady regression of American dominence on the world stage. It alsounravels the possible causes of this American regression as opposed with the other nations ' success. That is what's unique about this novel, it's predictions and interpretation to the current geopolitical context.
Moreover, the novel brings us back to grim atmosphere of the cold war years. It is both a reminder of how horrifying the past was and warning how bleak the future could be if no action is taken now.
Rating: really liked it
Three and a half stars
Good ideas and a development that manages to surprise the reader. The novel does well what it wants to explain: necessarily in a simplified way, by means of a few characters, a conflict between the USA and China and its repercussions worldwide.
Rating: really liked it
The principle subject of this month’s Wired magazine issue—seems fascinating.
Rating: really liked it
I wanted a war book like Red Storm Rising. I read the Wired excerpt by mistake. I thought it would be articles about a real-life possible war with China which is why I bought it. After finding out it was an excerpt, I still read it and was hooked. I eagerly waited for the book to come out so I could read it. That is when the disappointment set in.
For a war between China and the United States this book was woefully short on the war part. The book itself is also too short. The excerpt in Wired is a massive chunk of the book. It is also unfortunately the best part of the book.
It has also got all the progressive eye-rolling nonsense that we seem to have to live with these days in everything in life. Right down to the Michelle Obama attack submarine. I thought that part was hilarious but then realized that it is possible for today’s White House to name a submarine after her. It is all part of being woke.
Then there is the technological angle. I can believe the Chinese can mess with America's power structure aka turn off our lights. I can even believe that the Chinese could temporarily blind our ships with some new technological breakthrough. I cannot believe that America has no way of dealing with this. That we are literally crushed. The American's also lose an F-35 to this new technology and all because they foolishly decided to fly the F-35 with a new stealth package over Iran. What? Who would make such a stupid decision to test a new system by flying over Iran?
Also, it appears the Indian military has made a significant leap in technology that not even China or America sees coming at the end of the book. It is literally a Deus Ex Machina. The Indian military can make major moves that no one on the planet sees happening until it is too late. It is also implied but never stated out right the Indian military has the same tech China does to shut off an enemy’s systems. Oh, and somehow the Indians have a diesel submarine with new technology that gives it unlimited range as if it was a nuclear submarine. It is said right there in the book. I could not believe it.
There were no battles of significance in the book. In Red Storm Rising you had several battles. Some may think it is unfair to compare this book to Red Storm Rising but again I wanted a war book on the level of Red Storm Rising.
Russia decides to seize the moment and invade Poland to take back some land so it can connect Kaliningrad to Russia. A single Polish plane survives long enough to attack the Russian invasion fleet and that is it. The rest of the battle is not described and frankly is forgotten about in the rest of the book. We never learn if Poland gets the land back or for that matter what is NATO doing since Poland is a member of NATO. (member since 1999)
China wipes out 37 American ships including two Aircraft Carriers yet again the battle is talked about after it has happened. We do not actually see the battle on paper. A massive disaster for the United States Navy and given the number of ships sunk you easily have over 10,000 dead sailors. But it is not in the book. It is just described afterwards in a few tidbits here and there. That is not enough.
China invades Taiwan. We never see this battle. We hear only its outcome which of course is a Chinese win. After that we hear nothing else about Taiwan. Looks like China got to keep it after the war.
Russia decides instead of helping the Chinese like agreed to by cutting a couple internet wires on the bottom of the ocean so America's internet is only slowed down the Russians stab China in the back and just blow up all the wires and almost take out America's entire internet. The Russians apparently want total war between the United States and China.
At this point, America believing that China took out the internet, hits a Chinese port with a tactical nuclear weapon. Only one problem; this nuke is a 150-kiloton nuclear weapon. That is not a tactical nuclear weapon. That is a strategic level nuke. At least it would be in the eyes of the Chinese government. Also, this weapon kills millions. Nuclear weapons are nasty, and I hope they are never used but a single nuclear weapon, even a 150 kiloton one, is not going to kill millions of people in a city. I know China has a lot of people packed into cities, but it is still not going to happen. The target was the port. Not downtown.
China of course retaliates and nukes two US cities also causing millions of deaths. Again, not going to happen. Yes thousands, hundreds of thousands, could die in such an attack but the nukes just are not big enough to do it. You would need to use multiple nukes on each city to make sure you covered every square foot of the city in a nuclear fireball to get a kill number into the millions. But since the book makes no mention of how many nukes China used on each city; we have no idea. As far as we know only a single nuke was used on each city.
And just three nukes are enough to interfere with weather patterns around the whole world. So much so that Iran defeats a Russian surprise invasion (the Russians are just bastards in this book LOL) by sheer luck. The Russian troops parachute into the water by accident and that is the end of that invasion. Since Iran and Russia are friendly towards each other no one knows how to handle this invasion of Iranian territory.
America of course decides to retaliate with more nukes and instead of using ICBM or SLBM missiles they use F-18 aircraft that have been stripped of all the electronics to the point the pilots have to fly using maps, watches, and pencil to navigate. The Indians meanwhile have sunk the Chinese aircraft carrier. The Indians then magically chase down the American F-18 aircraft and shoot them all down except for one. That one manages to make it to Shanghai and detonate its nuke and kill 30 million people. 30 MILLION. Chinese response? Nothing. The war essentially stops because of India. I'd think that in real life if we hit a Chinese city and killed 30 million people the Chinese would tell India where it could go, and China would nuke America and we'd have an all-out nuclear war.
But the book essentially just stops. World economy is wrecked. America is wrecked economically. The current administration does not survive a scandal where someone in it did not listen to India which could have prevented Shanghai's destruction. The state of China’s government and economy is not mentioned but both are assumed to have survived. India is now the world’s top dog apparently as both China and America are kowtowed. We get some character closures and that is it. It is all over.
We get no real battles on the page. We also get no explanation for how the Chinese technological perfidy works. We also get no explanation as to why American submarines are not out there hunting down Chinese ships. It is as if the submarine fleet, including the USS Michelle Obama, took the war off. They will show up in the next war.
And how did this war start?
China decided that it wanted the South China Sea to itself, so it lured America into a trap. Sunk three American destroyers killing hundreds of American sailors and stole an F-35 (that landed in Iran thanks to the unexplained Chinese technology). It expected that America would back down in such a situation and let China take the area. Then when America does not back down the Chinese sink a further 37 American ships, two of which are aircraft carriers, and still expects America to back down.
Japan in real-life believed that it could hit Pearl Harbor, a bunch of other American bases across the Pacific and we would back down and let them run the western Pacific. That did not work for Japan. Why would China think a similar scenario, attacking and killing Americans, would work for them?
Let us hope the real-life Chinese are not that stupid. America would not back down in such a situation. No administration could afford to, and the nation would not allow it.
And I seriously doubt that China would accept India sinking it's aircraft carrier with no response.
This book was a disappointment. :(
Rating: really liked it
3.5 stars. If you would like to see a version of how war could be escalated in the future, this is a really good book, as it is well-researched and executed. The anxieties of peace-time military leaders can really be felt. It really makes you wonder what goes on in their heads.
Rating: really liked it
2034: A NOVEL OF THE NEXT WORLD WAR
I had to start this two different times to get into it. The first, I guess I just wasn't ready to read it and the second time, it took. I was clearly afraid I was going to DNF it, just because I couldn't get my interest up.
The story is set in the future, and so there is always the chance that something similar to it might occur. Clearly, America is dependent on the grid and Internet and if that were to fail, then we might be in a pickle much like the author imagines. After all, we are looking at cars that can drive themselves and airplanes that are auto-piloted by computers so how far-fetched is it to believe the computer might be cracked or a virus? So, the premise is interesting, to say the least.
The story is about a female Naval Commodore (Sarah Hunt) and a US Marine aviator (Major Chris "Wedge" Mitchell). These two military professionals encounter major issues on the same day, one losing a guided-missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones to the bottom of the China Sea and the other an F35E Lightning aircraft to the Iranians. Clearly, China and Iran have partnered up to defeat the US, or at least bring them down a few rungs on the ladder. America seems to have fallen from the super world power.... but the fight isn't over.
I have to say that the book, because of my location made me stop and think about smart bombs and tactical nukes. Living in the Houston/Galveston area makes you stop and think... the economic security the area offers vs the targetability of the area.
I found the book interesting and plausible, if we learned anything from 9/11 is to never discount imagination. So if someone can imagine it, then it can happen. I enjoyed the superficial political maneuvering in the book, but it seemed very lightly touched. There were no epic battles, although I guess when you use nukes you don't need hand-to-hand combat so one plane chasing the other is probably what you get. The battles were cleanly handled in other words, discussed from the after-the-fact position.
The characters were hand-designed for their purpose and were not very deep... sort of the Tom Cruise fighter pilot thing without the flybys. I ended up without a favorite character, there were many, Commodore Hunt and Wedge were the main ones, but again sort of deep as paper.
I am going to call the book OK, I did enjoy it, but I am not bouncing around going yeah!!! or OMG, no tears running down my face. The book, once I got into it was very readable, straightforward, what is it they say, 'short, sweet and to the point'. It struck me like a Clancy novel, but where Clancy burdens his reader with details and descriptions, Ackerman does not, so they seem evenly matched to me.
3 stars
Happy Reading!
