Red October (fictional submarine) prevailing opinion in Moscow seems to have been "Well done", though they put the Russian hierarchy in a political bind vis-a-vis cooperation with the United States at a critical point. In the story, "Red October" is the seventh Typhoon class hull built for the Soviet Navy; the real seventh boat, hull number TK-210, was laid down in the late 1980s, but canceled before it could have been commissioned and scrapped in 1990. None of the real Typhoon class submarines had 26 missile tubes or were considerably larger than the other Typhoon class SSBNs in the Russian Navy. Most Typhoon class
The Hunt for Red October novel as "the most satisfactory novel of a sea chase since C.S. Forester perfected the form". Due to an extensive marketing campaign by the Naval Institute Press for their first published work of fiction, which was initially aimed on the military, the book sold 45,000 copies by March 1985. Clancy said in a 1991 interview: “I thought we’d sell maybe five thousand or ten thousand hardcovers and that would be the end of it. I never really thought about making money.” After Reagan's endorsement, "The Hunt for Red October" topped the national bestseller lists, particularly "The New York Times". It