Polaris by Todd Tucker

Published by Thomas Dunne Books on June 14, 2016

Of all the tired plot devices that should be retired, the protagonist who wakes up with a crucial memory loss and wonders what side of a conflict he supports is high on my list. It is rarely believable, particularly when the memory loss is used a convenient means of generating suspense that would otherwise be wanting. In the case of Polaris, even that device creates little suspense, despite some fast-moving action scenes.

Polaris is set some decades in the future, after global warming, war, and an epidemic have threatened to decimate the world’s population. For reasons that are eventually explained (cleverly but not credibly), swarms of small drones are overflying the oceans, looking for targets to bomb. A target is basically anything a drone can spot, although they are supposedly programmed to look for targets at sea. No distinction between friend and foe has been programmed into the drones. If it floats, civilian or military, the drones bomb it. That’s such a remarkably useless weapon that it’s almost credible, given the history of military spending. Almost, but not quite. The poor premise undercut my interest in the story.

Pete Hamlin wakes up with a head injury and a shaky memory. He has apparently killed a friend, thus averting a mutiny, but he doesn’t recall the killing, the mutiny, or, for that matter, much of anything. Hamlin knows he is on a submarine called the Polaris and is told that they are being followed by a Typhon submarine, but the word Typhon means nothing to him.

Hamlin eventually recalls that the Alliance (which operates in cooperation with but independently of the U.S. military) is at war with Typhon, but he doesn’t know (and so the reader doesn’t know) whether he is with the military, the Alliance, or Typhon. Is he a mutineer or did he stop the mutiny? Everyone seems to think Hamlin is on their side but Hamlin can’t figure out where his loyalties lie. We are eventually given an explanation for that but the convenient selectivity of Hamlin’s memory loss struck me as an obvious plot device rather than a credible event.

Toward the novel’s middle we get an expository information dump that explains what’s up with Hamlin’s past. It includes a remarkable coincidence that’s just too coincidental to be credible. Later in the novel, we get an extended flashback as Hamlin regains his memory.

By the time it circles back to beginning, the story has become so predictable that the events triggering Hamlin’s memory loss are unsurprising -- which defeats the purpose of relying on the memory loss gimmick to carry the story. The ending is a standard action scene, mildly entertaining but far from memorable.

Some of Polaris is fun. I enjoy submarine novels and if Polaris focused on submarine warfare more than the strained development of plot contrivances, I would have liked it more. Characters are typical action figures without much depth. Diehard fans of submarine fiction might want to try Polaris, but the credibility stretches were too much for me.

RECOMMENDED WITH RESERVATIONS