Xx,328 pages, illustrations, pictorial wrappers, very good. From Kirkus Reviews: "Up periscope! with America's favorite armchair technowarrior, who here, with the cooperation of the Navy, takes readers deeper than they've ever gone inside a nuclear submarine. Clancy's fascination with underseas combat dates back at least as far as his debut novel, the sub-set The Hunt for Red October, and you can sense his pride and excitement as--after a brief but well-informed survey of the history of submarines and of a submariner's training- -he takes us aboard the USS Miami, an Improved Los Angeles-class boat berthed at the US Submarine Base in Groton, Connecticut. Those who share Clancy's almost erotic admiration for technology won't be disappointed by the tour: ``It is easy to tell that the Miami is equipped with the Mk 32 VLS system, since it is sitting level in the water,'' he tells us at once, adding that the ``33-foot- diameter hull is...approximately 3 inches thick and composed of HNY-80 high tensile steel.'' But fans of human-interest also will find that's engaging here, as the author notes, for example, that life aboard the Miami is akin to ``a combination of living in an oversized motor home and summer camp,'' with no privacy but much esprit de corps, where sleep deprivation is a major problem but dining is ``a pleasure,'' except for the preponderance of three- bean salad and the horrid-tasting orange ``bug juice''--which however, makes ``an excellent scouring powder for cleaning floors and heads.'' Clancy follows up his tour of the Miami with a briefer one of a British sub; a rundown of various submarine missions; and glances at other countries' submarines (Sweden, it turns out, has a formidable sub force). All in all: a fast-paced silent running that will please many of the author's fans--enough, perhaps, to allow a surfacing on the bestseller lists."

TOM CLANCY SUBMARINES NUCLEAR WARSHIPS UNITED STATES NAVY NAVAL