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3.89 AVERAGE
3.89 AVERAGE
adventurous
informative
adventurous
tense
medium-paced
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
No
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
I'll do the same review for all Clancy's novels because they're all pretty much the same. Very long, very detailed, and after a while, very repetitive. If you stop after just a few of his books you'd probably give them 4 or 5 stars, but beyond that they start to grate. Especially where Jack Ryan is involved. I mean, Clancy spends hundreds of pages getting his details just right, the settings perfect etc., then he has Ryan dodging more bullets than James Bond! I finally threw my hands up and surrendered when Ryan becomes President. I can't remember what piece of crap that was in.
I've given three stars as a compromise between my reactions when reading my first Clancy (brilliant) and last Clancy (doorstop).
I've given three stars as a compromise between my reactions when reading my first Clancy (brilliant) and last Clancy (doorstop).
War is not really my thing, but this was gripping and believable. Long though.
Clancy's hypothetical, yet realistic, account of a battle of the North Atlantic. A key oil installation is blown up in the USSR, leaving a severe fuel shortage. They plan to seize the Persian Gulf, using cunning ruses to fool NATO. This is a long, and somewhat frightening, but satisfying read.
This one's pretty good! It's set in the cold war, so there's less scope for weird Boomer politics. The KGB get the blame again, but this time that seems pretty fair! Lots of interesting technical detail, especially about radar and sonar systems, and how they fit into modern(ish) military doctrine, and I was fascinated by how much automation there already is smart weapons, without the new generation of drones.
That said, one subplot that was just awful...(CW) there's a kind of romance subplot with Vigdis, an Icelander who US troops rescue from soviet forces, who've murdered her family and are sexually abusing her when the troops get there. The narrator immediately goes into how attractive she is, and how he totally wouldn't make a move on her under the circumstances, but also that she is totally sexy and he would otherwise. The whole thing is pretty awful.
The other thing that stood out for me is the respect for the soviet armed forces - one of the key figures is the son of a Russian politician who insists on fighting with the army, and makes his way (absurdly quickly) up the ranks. That whole arc makes it seem like TC is basically down with soviet soldiers, that anyone who actually fights in the war earns his respect. So the two sides are basically morally equivalent, other than a few senior politicians.
That said, one subplot that was just awful...
The other thing that stood out for me is the respect for the soviet armed forces - one of the key figures is the son of a Russian politician who insists on fighting with the army, and makes his way (absurdly quickly) up the ranks. That whole arc makes it seem like TC is basically down with soviet soldiers, that anyone who actually fights in the war earns his respect. So the two sides are basically morally equivalent, other than a few senior politicians.