The Friday 56 is hosted by Freda’s Voice.The only rules are to grab a book (any book), turn to page 56 or 56% in your ereader and find any sentence or a few ( no spoilers) that grabs you and post it.

Please join Rose City Reader every Friday to share the first sentence or so of the book you are reading along with you initial thoughts about the sentence, impressions of the book, or anything else the opener inspires.

Please include the title of the book and the author’s name.

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This is the last series of books on the first shelf of my first bookcase.

I have been a fan of Tom Clancy’s for many years. His novels have kept me enthralled through many adventures and many countries. I have read them once, twice, three times. His movies are amazing and I have watched them over and over again.

Tom Clancy was, not only, a prolific writer, but he co-founded Red Storm Entertainment, a video game developer that created games mostly based on the plots of his books, such as “Rainbow Six.”

I began my reading affair with Tom Clancy in The Hunt For Red October. It is still my favorite novel. I either borrowed the book or checked it out from the library, so it is not in my collection.

MY FRIDAY 56

“The Americans are good technicians, Comrade Captain,” Putin said, “but they are not giants.Their technology is not so awesome. Nasha Lutcha, he concluded. Ours is better.

Ramus nodded thoughtfully, thinking to himself that zampoliti really ought to know something about the ships they supervised, as mandated by Party doctrine.

(page 6 in paperback)

MY BOOK BEGINNINGS

Captain First Rank Marcos Ramus of the Soviet Navy was dressed for the Arctic conditions normal to the Northern Fleet submarine base at Polyarnyy. Five layers of wool and oilskin enclosed him. A dirty harbor tug pushed his submarine’s bow around to the north, facing down the channel. The dock that had held his Red October for two interminable months was now a water-filled concrete box, one of the many specially built to shelter strategic missile submarines from the harsh elements. On its edge a collection of sailors and dockyard workers watched his ship sail in stolid Russian fashion, without a wave or a cheer.