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bobbyd329's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
midc0ast's review against another edition
5.0
Clancy at his best. I much prefer this style to many of his Ryan books. The global reach and variety of characters is superb
lmmountford's review against another edition
2.0
To say i was disappointed would be an understatement. Now I'm going to try and be fair, this was written in 86 after all and the cold war still had some chill in it, so if i was 50-70 this would probably be a cracking read, or if i was an American i'd love it. This is really just a slightly reimagined world war 2 that basically features NATO being 90% American and the Russians (sometimes they are refered to as soviets but all the reds are Russian) taking the role as Germany.
Now to start off with the positive, there was plenty of action war scenes. That's about it.
There is no real central characters, just names with little back story who'll you'll forget with a turn of the page. As i said the story is mostly just key events of ww2 rewritten. And, of course, as this is Tom Clancy, the story features prominently American characters to such an extent i wonder why he even bothered to call the forces NATO.
Now to start off with the positive, there was plenty of action war scenes. That's about it.
There is no real central characters, just names with little back story who'll you'll forget with a turn of the page. As i said the story is mostly just key events of ww2 rewritten. And, of course, as this is Tom Clancy, the story features prominently American characters to such an extent i wonder why he even bothered to call the forces NATO.
jmoses's review against another edition
4.0
I like clancy, and this was a good read. Detailed, multiple story lines and sides, lots of different perspectives and battles.
manwe's review against another edition
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.25
Content Warnings
Graphic: War and Violence
Moderate: Rape and Sexual assault
Minor: Child death
zare_i's review against another edition
4.0
First Clancy novel I read. Very interesting story - and if I may say so, very believable because universal society rule says -> if you are in social trouble go to war, because in that case you have 50:50 chances (or better if your military might is [vastly] superior to your opponent ) to calm down your folk and proceed on (I think recent events are more then proof for this).[return][return]Only thing that annoys me is that we-win-no-matter-what-they-do. Although I can understand this I think this scenario is least likely than all. More realistic scenario can be found in "Third World War" by Humphrey Hawksley - when major powers collide population survivability is extremely low for all sides in conflict (and those caught in the middle).[return][return]Beside that good novel with lots of interesting military hardware info (Clancy's trademark :) )
stevem0214's review against another edition
5.0
I haven't read this book for years. Such a good book and it seems we are living part os it now with Russia and Ukraine fighting in eastern Europe right now. Great writing that made Tom Clancy's career.
rc90041's review against another edition
5.0
A thoroughly satisfying throwback that is once again relevant, as it is about, in part, a conventional ground war in Central Europe where both sides are attempting to avoid escalation to nuclear exchanges.
This is a peak-Cold-War book about WWIII. Yes, as in other Clancy books, the characters are subsidiary to the lovingly-detailed, highly-technical descriptions of military equipment in the air, sea, and on the ground. There are long, tense passages of surface ships and helicopters playing cat-and-mouse with submarines. Thousands of unnamed people die in various military conflicts. The pages fly by as Clancy moves expertly from various battles in the air, at sea, and in Europe. The close of the book comes faster than you expect--even at 724 pages (in this edition).
Sometimes lost in hang-ups about "good" literature is the truth that sometimes some of the world's most popular books are popular for a reason. Clancy is generally deemed low-brow, Fox News Dad fare. And that's certainly not wrong, in terms of the general audience. But Clancy didn't become so popular simply because of a loyal, politically-like-minded audience. Like Stephen King, Clancy had a special skill: He's able to grab a reader's attention and hold it. The ability to create and sustain real tension is a special skill, no less valuable or important than the ability of any given graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop to describe a quietly crumbling marriage in a college town in Connecticut.
Clancy is also able to effectively describe complicated scenarios and battlefields in a comprehensible way, so that potentially abstruse or obscure military strategy becomes clear to the reader. His ability to translate relatively insidery lingo and details is not too different than John Le Carre's, though they're obviously very different authors.
The sympathetic take on the POV of many of the Russian characters may surprise those who come in expecting a strictly black-and-white, good-versus-evil Cold War tale. It is that, sure, in many ways, but the book also works hard to explain the motivations of the Soviets, the war from their perspective, etc.
This is the best and most thoughtfully-visualized depiction of a conventional-war WWIII that I've come across, and it's my opinion that almost anyone would profit from giving it a read.
This is a peak-Cold-War book about WWIII. Yes, as in other Clancy books, the characters are subsidiary to the lovingly-detailed, highly-technical descriptions of military equipment in the air, sea, and on the ground. There are long, tense passages of surface ships and helicopters playing cat-and-mouse with submarines. Thousands of unnamed people die in various military conflicts. The pages fly by as Clancy moves expertly from various battles in the air, at sea, and in Europe. The close of the book comes faster than you expect--even at 724 pages (in this edition).
Sometimes lost in hang-ups about "good" literature is the truth that sometimes some of the world's most popular books are popular for a reason. Clancy is generally deemed low-brow, Fox News Dad fare. And that's certainly not wrong, in terms of the general audience. But Clancy didn't become so popular simply because of a loyal, politically-like-minded audience. Like Stephen King, Clancy had a special skill: He's able to grab a reader's attention and hold it. The ability to create and sustain real tension is a special skill, no less valuable or important than the ability of any given graduate of the Iowa Writer's Workshop to describe a quietly crumbling marriage in a college town in Connecticut.
Clancy is also able to effectively describe complicated scenarios and battlefields in a comprehensible way, so that potentially abstruse or obscure military strategy becomes clear to the reader. His ability to translate relatively insidery lingo and details is not too different than John Le Carre's, though they're obviously very different authors.
The sympathetic take on the POV of many of the Russian characters may surprise those who come in expecting a strictly black-and-white, good-versus-evil Cold War tale. It is that, sure, in many ways, but the book also works hard to explain the motivations of the Soviets, the war from their perspective, etc.
This is the best and most thoughtfully-visualized depiction of a conventional-war WWIII that I've come across, and it's my opinion that almost anyone would profit from giving it a read.
crumb92's review against another edition
adventurous
informative
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.5
mnyberg's review against another edition
5.0
In my opinion, the best book written by the late, great Mr. Clancy.