In the near future, China leads a sneak attack on the United States from orbit, cyberspace, air, land and sea. Chinese astronauts use lasers to disable American satellites, hackers undermine everything that uses microchips, anti-ship missiles decimate the Pacific Fleet, and conventional forces overrun the Hawaiian Islands, all in one masterful blow. A blinded United States is cowed back to continental borders, unable to retaliate or even sneak submarines into a Chinese-delineated zone of control stretching across the Pacific.
U.S. Navy officer Jamie Simmons narrowly survives the invasion of Oahu, becoming the only captain to escape the "kill box" of Pearl Harbor. Back home in San Francisco, Simmons is given command of the USS Zumwalt, the largest ship in the navy's mothballed Ghost Fleet. Jamie, his estranged sailor father and a Chinese-American scientist prepare the Zumwalt with a novel weapon that, along with other out-of-the-box efforts, might restore American power in the Pacific. Meanwhile, on occupied Oahu, the ironically named North Shore Mujahideen and a femme fatale serial killer make life difficult for the invaders.
Ghost Fleet, the first novel by P.W. Singer (Wired for War; Cybersecurity and Cyberwar) and August Cole (a former defense industry reporter for the Wall Street Journal) is a chillingly plausible vision of future warfare in the thrilling style of Tom Clancy. Ghost Fleet is heavy on science, with more than 370 cited sources, and its few sagging subplots are more than buoyed by an explosive finale. --Tobias Mutter, freelance reviewer