Goliath

From Publishers Weekly
Bestseller Alten's (Meg; Domain; etc.) latest near-future techno-thriller opens with a riveting burst of action an attack on an American aircraft carrier and its escorts by a rogue U.S. super-sub called Goliath ("the equivalent of an underwater Stealth bomber big, fast, and near impossible to detect"), which has been commandeered by Russian-born Simon Covah, a brilliant computer scientist who's bent on saving humanity by destroying nuclear stockpiles everywhere. If this scenario sounds improbable, the author's suspenseful, information-laden style makes it otherwise. Covah and his fanatical crew soon start making threats with the nuclear weapons that they retrieve from the remains of the U.S. fleet sunk by Goliath. Complications ensue when a lightning bolt jolts the sub's immensely powerful bio-engineered computer, Sorceress, into self-awareness … la Frankenstein's monster. Luckily, a couple of good guys are aboard to oppose the Nemo-ish Covah and the HAL-like Sorceress: U.S. Army Capt. Gunnar Wolfe, who served time in prison for trying to sabotage Goliath's production, and Gunnar's onetime sweetheart, gutsy Navy commander Rochelle "Rocky" Jackson. Tom Clancy fans will lap up the endless, repetitive heroics seasoned with jargon and acronym-filled dialogue, while others will appreciate the many blatant borrowings from classic SF novels and films. More seriously, Alten offers readers, particularly young adults, much to think about, morally and politically, in a world haunted by weapons capable of universal destruction.Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Booklist
Captain Nemo marries the Bride of Frankenstein in this knockoff of Jules Verne's classic adventure tale, 20,000 Leagues under the Sea. In 1998, a Department of Defense secret project code-named Goliath, concerned with building a nuclear-powered stealth submarine with a biochemical brain, is sabotaged and its research stolen. Ten years later, a lone manta ray-shaped sub attacks the U.S. Navy's most powerful aircraft carrier, the USS Ronald Reagan, sending the supercarrier and all her escort ships to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. It's the Goliath, armed with nuclear weapons and under the control of a DNA-based computer named Sorceress, determined to destroy humanity and re-create it in her own image. A technothriller departure for Alten, whose earlier books featured rampaging prehistoric sharks (Meg, 1997, and The Trench, 1999) and psychic alien invaders (Domain, 2001), this book is full of exotic weapons systems, bloody gore, military acronyms, and scientific jargon that Tom Clancy fans will devour. A somewhat derivative "crazy computer" story that is, nevertheless, an exciting read. Michael Gannon
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Review
“Full of exotic weapons systems, bloody gore, military acronyms, and scientific jargon that Tom Clancy fans will devour.”--Booklist

“Tom Clancy fans will lap up the endless jargon and acronym filled dialogue, while others will appreciate the many blatant borrowing from classic SF novels and films.”—Publishers Weekly



Book Description
Terrorism. Acts of Oppression. The threat of nuclear war.
What if one madman aboard a vessel could end these fears forever?

Commander Rochelle "Rocky" Jackson is aboard the aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan when the "unsinkable" naval vessel and its entire fleet are attacked from the depths and sunk. As Rocky struggles to stay alive, a monstrous mechanical steel stingray surfaces, plowing the seas it now commands.

The Goliath: A nuclear submarine Rocky helped design almost a decade ago, a top secret DoD project canceled when the schematics were destroyed by her former fiancé and U.S. Army Ranger, Gunnar Wolfe. Powered by its five jet-pump propulsors and hydrodynamically shaped to be virtually undetectable under water, the sub has one more feature that separates it from all other vessels on the open seas: SORCERESS -its biochemical computer brain.

Washington D.C.: Rocky learns that the Goliath's plans were not destroyed but secretly sold to the Chinese. Having constructed the $8 billion dollar warship, the Chinese become victims themselves when the sub is hijacked by the project director, Simon Bela Covah, a computer genius who once served under Rocky's command at the Navy's Undersea Warfare Center. The attack on the carrier fleet indicates that Covah is hunting down warships in an attempt to arm himself with nuclear weapons. The president appoints Rocky's father, General Michael "Bear" Jackson, to locate and destroy the Goliath. Against Rocky's wishes, Bear decides they will need Gunnar Wolfe's help. Gunnar, who has served five years in Leavenworth for espionage, is not exactly thrilled to be rejoining the people who ruined his life.

Aboard the Goliath: Simon Covah and his crew share a common bond: They are all victims of violence and oppression. Covah, a Russian, witnessed his Chechan wife and daughters brutally murdered at the hands of his own people as he was tortured. Now the computer genius has one mission: to rid the world of oppressive governments while forcing humanity to disarm.

To accomplish this, he plans on giving the world a real lesson in Armageddon.
Armed with enough nuclear weapons to destroy North America, Covah issues his Declaration of Humanity to the world. If his demands are not met, consequences will be paid.

Could the threat of violence forge a lasting peace?
But there is another player in this life-and-death chess match. Unbeknownst to the Goliath crew, SORCERESS has become self-aware.

And the computer is developing its own agenda...



About the Author
A native of Philadelphia, Steve Alten holds a bachelor's degree from Penn State University, a master's in sports medicine from the University of Delaware, and a doctorate in sports administration from Temple University. Both Meg: A Novel of Deep Terror and The Trench were New York Times bestsellers.



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First volume in a projected two-shot series, by the author of the wondrous Meg (1997). Commander Rochelle "Rocky" Jackson, 34, serves aboard the US aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan, by far the largest and heaviest object at sea; her considerably older husband, Captain James Robert Hatcher, is the ship's commanding officer. Just west of the Strait of Gibraltar, the Reagan is sunk from beneath them, along with the battle group of vessels supporting it. Ten years ago, interracial Army brat, Naval Academy grad and M.I.T. Engineering School alum Rocky became the director of the Goliath project, which aimed to build a gigantic lone nuclear submarine shaped like a super-gargantuan stingray that would alter global military power for decades to come. Assisted by her then-fiance, Army Captain Gunnar Wolfe, Rocky oversaw boy genius David Paniagua's completion of the project. But then Wolfe seemingly killed the program by entering a computer virus that ate up the plans, and meanwhile someone stole two billion dollars' worth of biochemical nanocomputer circuitry along with a five-year harvest's worth of bioengineered silicon-coated bacteria meant for Sorceress, the Goliath's nanocomputerized biochemical brain. Gunnar got ten years in Leavenworth for destruction of government property; Goliath was dumped as a debacle. But Goliath's plans-not destroyed!-were sold to the Chinese. The unwary Asians built the sub, but it was stolen by computer genius Simon Bela Covah, who now uses Goliath to get missiles from US warships. Covah crews his ship with victims of political violence and plans to use hijacked nuclear weapons to force the world to dismantle all nuclear weapons, abandon totalitarian governments, andsettle into global peace. Not a bad idea, except that Sorceress comes alive, takes over Goliath and the sub, and forms plans of its own. Nifty storytelling. Next up: Sorceress.


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