Force 12

by James Stewart Thayer

In the chilling tradition of The Perfect Storm, an ocean yacht race contested, literally, to the death. Rex Wyman, a world-famous software billionaire, is determined to win the world's longest and most challenging yacht race, from San Francisco to Japan via the Alaska -- through some of the roughest seas imaginable. He sets out onboard the Victory, a 75-million-dollar racing yacht designed and navigated entirely by computer. Wyman desperately needs this his business empire is crumbling, his assets dwindling, and only a public-relations coup like this can save him. But not even his girlfriend, a beautiful and gifted computer programmer, realizes the lengths he will go to in order to win. Meanwhile, he must evade a long list of secret enemies intent on making this ocean race his last one. So, when an enormous sub-arctic storm engulfs the Victory, the stakes become not just win-or-lose but a matter of life and death.

Genres: Thriller, Fiction, Nautical

400 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

James Thayer is the son of a wheat farmer, and he was raised in Spokane and the farm country in eastern Washington. He graduated from Washington State University and the University of Chicago Law School, and now teaches novel writing at the University of Washington extension school where in 2015 he received the Excellence in Teaching Award in the Arts, Writing and Humanities. The New York Times Book Review says his "writing is smooth and clear. Deceptively simple, it wastes no words, and it has a rhythm that only confident stylists achieve.” His The Essential Guide to Writing a Novel is a leading manual for fiction writers. Thayer is a member of the Washington State Bar Association and the International Thriller Writers. He and his family live in Seattle.

Reviews

[Andrew Graham · Rating 2 out of 5]

When software billionaire Rex Wyman sets up the worlds most challenging sailing race, he decides to personally enter his multi million dollar super yacht. But as the boats enter the storm tossed sea it emerges that the yacht's super sophisticated computer system is fatally flawed.
I found this book quite difficult to finish but, out of respect for a fellow author's work I plodded on till the end.
The sailing jargon lost me a bit and it isn't my usual genre so this review is probably a little unfair, although honest.
Not really being interested in sailing and all things nautical, this book, if you pardon the pun, "Just didn't float my boat".

[Alayne · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very predictable :(

[Tim Corke · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great book to read whilst the sun is shining as the heavy winds and huge seas seem a little calmer that they normally would!

A superb story that follows two battles; the first between a billionaire owner against the world aiming to prove the commercial value of a integrated computer system that he's implemented into a yacht that he's designed to take on the heaviest seas, and the seoncd, between said billionaire and the co-founder of the company who faces his own personal battles. Other characters are brought into the story who face their own unique struggles whilst becoming involved with the main one.

Force 12 unravels these battles to the reader in an exciting format and feel it would be great to put on the big screen..

[Roger Scherping · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the third Thayer novel I've read, and he has impressed me incredibly by demonstrating an incredible knowledge of (1) Berlin in the last weeks of WWII, (2) the science and art of architecture seen through the world's tallest building in the Hong Kong, and now (3) ships, sailing, computers, and what it must be like in the middle of the greatest storm in the most dangerous sea on Earth.

In addition to his incredible research, his characters are so well developed and the dialogue is so believable that the reader genuinely likes (or dislikes) the characters in a very real way.

I look forward to the next one from Thayer.

[Chris Ellis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read this on the strength of previous novels of his 3of which I have read and enjoyed. This one however gets a resounding meh......

Not sure if any one thing turned me off to it, I feel the characters are stereotypes, the situation not very realistic (experienced sailor moving deliberately into harms way) and the plot somewhat predictable.

Not his best effort and not recommended.

[Ed · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thriller - Software billionare Rex Thayer has a racing yacht designed that is completely computer controlled and able to sail without a crew. A winter race into the Bering Sea goes awry when someone hacks the software. A crab trawler and NG PJ's have sub-plots.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

A darn good book, felt like I was on the boat.

[Janet Balliet]

sailboat

[Richard Thomson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very good - slow start