2034 - Elliot Ackerman & Admiral James Stavridis, USN

2034

By Elliot Ackerman & Admiral James Stavridis, USN

  • Release Date: 2021-03-09
  • Genre: Fiction & Literature
4 Score: 4 (From 861 Ratings)

Description

An instant New York Times Bestseller!

“Consider this another vaccine against disaster. Fortunately, this dose won't cause a temporary fever—and it happens to be a rippingly good read.” —Wired

“This crisply written and well-paced book reads like an all-caps warning for a world shackled to the machines we carry in our pockets and place on our laps . . ." —The Washington Post

From two former military officers and award-winning authors, a chillingly authentic geopolitical thriller that imagines a naval clash between the US and China in the South China Sea in 2034and the path from there to a nightmarish global conflagration.


On March 12, 2034, US Navy Commodore Sarah Hunt is on the bridge of her flagship, the guided missile destroyer USS John Paul Jones, conducting a routine freedom of navigation patrol in the South China Sea when her ship detects an unflagged trawler in clear distress, smoke billowing from its bridge. On that same day, US Marine aviator Major Chris "Wedge" Mitchell is flying an F35E Lightning over the Strait of Hormuz, testing a new stealth technology as he flirts with Iranian airspace. By the end of that day, Wedge will be an Iranian prisoner, and Sarah Hunt's destroyer will lie at the bottom of the sea, sunk by the Chinese Navy. Iran and China have clearly coordinated their moves, which involve the use of powerful new forms of cyber weaponry that render US ships and planes defenseless. In a single day, America's faith in its military's strategic pre-eminence is in tatters. A new, terrifying era is at hand.

So begins a disturbingly plausible work of speculative fiction, co-authored by an award-winning novelist and decorated Marine veteran and the former commander of NATO, a legendary admiral who has spent much of his career strategically outmaneuvering America's most tenacious adversaries. Written with a powerful blend of geopolitical sophistication and human empathy, 2034 takes us inside the minds of a global cast of characters--Americans, Chinese, Iranians, Russians, Indians--as a series of arrogant miscalculations on all sides leads the world into an intensifying international storm. In the end, China and the United States will have paid a staggering cost, one that forever alters the global balance of power.

Everything in 2034 is an imaginative extrapolation from present-day facts on the ground combined with the authors' years working at the highest and most classified levels of national security. Sometimes it takes a brilliant work of fiction to illuminate the most dire of warnings: 2034 is all too close at hand, and this cautionary tale presents the reader a dark yet possible future that we must do all we can to avoid.

Reviews

  • Don’t Waste Your Time

    1
    By aehammill
    Unrealistic with little detail. Forgettable characters with little to no development. This book takes extreme liberties while completely disregarding entire sections of National Security and policy. It basically plays on this idea that one computer program could simultaneously hack every network, to include independently operated networks that don’t overlap or “talk” to each other, and bring the world to a halt. A student of even the most rudimentary computer networking class or security certificate would be able to understand how this isn’t realistic in the slightest. It would’ve been more realistic to have the PRC utilize a spectrum of cyber warfare in a specific capacity such as a singular attack on the stock market, the power grid, NATO communications or even the military’s LINK 16 network. This book also completely ignores NATO and U.S. allies, satellites, space warfare, and the basic logistics of war. Don’t waste your time.
  • Easy to put down

    2
    By slow programs
    Most the action was skipped in the book. Made the rest of the book very dry with nothing to grab you to keep reading. The book was very easy to put down.
  • Terrible

    1
    By tommysappexperience
    If you like wokeness and extremely unrealistic writing, this is a book worth reading.
  • Lacking

    2
    By Jaredhc
    The bones of the story never get fleshed out. Sorely lacking on detail, character development. It is a halfhearted try
  • Disappointing. Great start but…..

    1
    By :/(((((((((((((
    Great first chapter but then goes off the track. Too short on character development and keeps rotating the few he has through too many positions and events. Had hoped for better.
  • Illumination of peril we face today

    4
    By purringrumba
    The book raises awareness of a real peril we face today, sounds an alarm. All Americans should be aware of the situations and possibilities portrayed in the book. Having said that. If you are looking for a ‘competence porn’ or a real war game write-up, you’re not going to find it in this book. The book reads like a collection of images/impressions of a possible future. It’s pretty short on not descriptions of mechanics and dynamics of interactions between humans, machines, and environment.
  • 2034

    5
    By UNO VICTOR
    Great insight of the destiny of our country and the world. We are the creators of our suicide. Hubris and ego were the attributes our leaders would adopt. Recommend highly.
  • Good, but missing one key thing.

    3
    By SlothSinBestSin
    Pretty good; I’m no intel analyst but the incremental brinksmanship portrayed in this novel seems realistic, opportunistic mid rank Chinese military officials causing a flare up to advance rank in the party, condescending/racist Washington security staff making dumb decisions like the Russian Tsars did against the Japanese, and a broken US political system definitely all check out as I turn on the news and type this. The major wild card left out of this book is climate change, however. The Pentagon has said the Climate Change represents a huge national security threat and China likewise has much of its population in coastal cities and its inland ones are being inundated with floods in the year 2021, forcing the central government to commit more and more resources toward mitigating its effects. There is little to no mention of such a huge strategic factor in this book.
  • Unbelievably boring and disappointing

    1
    By TTaylor550
    With an Admiral as co-writer, I had hope of a creative and maybe innovative or at least realistic plot. My high school boys could have come up with a more original story line with the same level of military insight. If you are hoping to find the next Clancy, this is not it.
  • Interesting premise But lacking details.

    3
    By danmatras
    Well the premise was good I think too much time was spent on the individual characters and not on the overall premise of the book.

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