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Bathtub Admirals | 
 enlarge | Author: Jeff Huber
Publisher: Kunati Inc.
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $15.05
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Avg. Customer Rating:  14 reviews
Sales Rank: 332409
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.3
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 1601640196
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9781601640192
ASIN: 1601640196
Publication Date: April 1, 2008
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Product Description
In the wicked satirical tradition of Joseph Heller and Kurt Vonnegut, the adventures of two naval men follow America’s rise to global dominance as its military burns off excess testosterone, connives to justify its bloated budget, and prepares for the ultimate challenge—the War on Evil. Buddies Jack Hogan and Buzz Rucci joined the U.S. Navy to defend their country, but they soon find themselves serving in a time of "play" war. Jack's rise in the Navy is at first rapid as he dazzles the entire Navy with his brilliant strategy in the Great Big Backfire Raid against the Russians, and single-handedly saves the fleet in the Almost Great Big Train Wreck. But his brilliance and competence foster resentment, and his naval career is soon in the doldrums. Buzz is no match for Jack’s intellect, but he plays the game and knows the folly of embarrassing his superiors. Inevitably Jack alienates one too many of the bathtub admirals, his career takes a dive, and his second marriage goes into a skid. Fed up, he takes early retirement at the rank of commander, and in a final irony, watches newly installed Admiral Rucci sail into the sunset in command of his own fleet. An insider's eye for detail and authenticity delivers a scathingly funny indictment of incompetence at the highest ranks of the armed forces.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 9 more reviews...
Required Reading for future Commanders-in-Chief August 18, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
Bathtub Admirals' humor is rooted in truth. That's what makes it so poignantly hilarious and stinging at the same time. A book like Bathtub Admirals is long overdue; Huber's voice of one who has been there is authentic. Five stars, highly recommended! I can't wait for this one to be made into a movie!
Fun, Fascinating, Frightening July 4, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
It should probably be noted at the outset: I'm a BED-WETTING liberal who has generally found books and films about the military boring by definition, ie., so irrelevant as to be almost devoid of meaning. Yet here I was, raptly turning pages, laughing out loud, actually speaking the words "Oh NO!" and being generally captivated. I felt as if I got some actual understanding of -- and even respect for -- many of those who choose to serve in the military, and I'm as grateful for that as I am for the wonderfully entertaining read. There may be "sour grapes" involved (as one reviewer here suggests) in some of Huber's scathing descriptions of the military institution, its characters, and their machinations. I wouldn't know about that. But I do notice that many of these same descriptions have been corroborated by other writers (including one or two reviewers here), so I personally tend to believe them. Anyway, all in all a compelling, jarring, dancing, soaring, and VERY worthwhile read!
 Interesting But Wildly Uneven First Attempt at Fiction June 20, 2008
2 out of 8 found this review helpful
I approached Jeff Huber's "Bathtub Admirals" with curiosity and caution. My own career in Naval Aviation and the Navy began before and ended after his and as someone who spent time on both coasts as he did, I knew we had frequented many of the same places and most likely knew some of the people. His bitter and frequently vitriolic blog posts led me to wonder if "Admirals" would be more of the same "DailyKos" like rants that he usually produces dressed up as a roman a clef.
I cheerfully admit that "Admirals" is in many parts, especially in the first half, nothing like his blog. At times uproariously hilarious, insightful and rueful, "Admirals" story of one man's career gone painfully awry has moments of verisimilitude that anyone who has spent time at sea in the United States Navy will cheerfully appreciate. But much the same can be said for many Navy-based novels, going back through "Punk's War," "Flight of the Intruder" and stretching back to such classics as "Mister Roberts" and even Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny." What sets "Admirals" apart is it's take on the changes that wracked the Navy's aviation community and leadership in the 1990's. Huber uses the setting and situation of his main character's thinly veiled mirror of his own abruptly terminated career to lament what he sees as the careerism and cronyism of the modern Navy's senior leadership that is in his opinion costing the Navy the heart and soul of its officer corps.
Like many first novelists, Huber's style is uneven at best. Moments of vivid descriptive writing and witty dialog is sometimes interrupted with hazy flashbacks and even what seems to be an attempt to recreate the crackling hallucinogenic prose of the late Hunter Thompson. Thus, the determined reader is presented with a story that is frequently uneven and at times dissatisfying. What may perhaps disconcert a reader with knowledge of how the modern Navy (post-Vietnam and onward) officer career pattern actually goes, is a seemingly angry sub-context. In "Admirals" Huber's protagonist is, ultimately, a victim. Nothing is ever his own fault, his own responsibility. While his character is personally flawed, one feels that Huber's story is more about one of getting even with his own perceived past injustices, slights and career disappointments. In the end, one is left with the feeling that "Bathtub Admirals" is simply one angry retired officer's final shot at those he feels personally derailed what was, in his own mind, a brilliant career.
Dazzling, hilarious, and accessible! June 17, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I have to admit, I still find myself stealing clever lines from Jack and Buzz in banter. This book is an incredible amount of fun, considering the weight and gravity of its topic, and surprisingly accessible for a young reader of an utterly non-military background. I rate it right up there with my favorite Joseph Heller novels and stories. The storytelling techniques are dazzling throughout, and the characters are just as hilariously exasperating as real life.
Bathtub Admirals - The "Dilbert" of the US Navy! June 5, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
One of the things that my friends find paradoxical about me is that I love military history, military fiction, and good war stories, in spite of the fact that I'm a liberal, dKos reading (and worse, participating) DFH. I'm usually good about putting aside the personal politics of authors of military fiction, particularly the more knuckle-dragging types like Tom Clancy.
I'm part of the Diary Rescue team, which is a great way to get exposed to a wider range of Kossack diaries. I pick time slots to read that I wouldn't normally, in the hopes of finding interesting gems. One that I found is Jeff Huber, a retired US Navy Commander, blogger, and I was pleased to discover, author of military fiction.
Wait a minute, a Kossack, a dang liburl who writes military fiction? I immediately shot over to amazon.com and bought his book, Bathtub Admirals. The book jacket says it's satire, but that's like saying that "Catch-22" is just a comedy novel.
Bathtub Admirals traces the career of Jack Hogan, from young LTJG through his retirement as a CDR. Hogan began his career as a "NFO" or Naval Flight Officer, flying in the backseat of E-2C "Hawkeye" planes, the Navy's "mini-AWACS." Knowing that there wasn't much of a future for a back-seat guy in Naval Aviation, Hogan becomes a qualified SWO, or Surface Warfare Officer. That extra studying and the extra ship duty costs him his first marriage, as the pressure to further his career during the Cold War took its toll on home life. The novel follows the now-bachelor Hogan through shore and carrier duty tours both as a SWO and as a part of flight squadrons, through an even more disastrous second marriage, culminating in his retirement as a Commander.
Huber's anecdotes on Navy life are priceless, but the overall theme of ineptitude and incompetence is what makes the novel so enjoyable. His Jack Hogan is, in many ways, the navy equivalent of Dilbert. Where Scott Adams' famous engineer is a cube-dweller in a nameless, faceless, corporate world occupied by various insane archetypes, Hogan encounters those archetypes on ships and shore bases. From "Admiral Fix Felon" (alleged to be part of an actual Mafia family) to "Senator Tailhook" (a woman senator who wanted to bring Naval Aviation down after the 1991 "Tailhook" scandal, to "Senator Ex-Prisoner-of-War" (the most blatant real-life reference, this time to John McCain), the Navy's top management and its political bosses are elegantly and humorously skewered.
Huber doesn't stop with Hogan's superiors, though. The ranks of Jack Hogan's contemporaries and colleagues also filled with characters that are worthy of Adams and Heller. From his "friend," Buzz, who more is more than willing to throw Hogan under the bus to further his own career to USNA grads with the connections and influence that Hogan, an AOCS officer doesn't have, to officers who are just flat-out idiots and/or criminals, Huber's navy is indeed a "Dilbert Zone."
The theme of incompetence, while making for hilarious reading, is one that really should give us all pause. These are the men who fight our wars. We entrust them with countless billions of dollars and some of the deadliest weapons in the history of mankind. Still, many battles are, as Jack Hogan says, lost because "two of their admirals hated each other more than they hated us."
Bathtub Admirals is a must-read for fans of military fiction, and highly recommended for everyone.
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