If you want to get the most Clancy for your dollar then buying two or three titles under the same cover is the way to go. This book pairs Tom Clancy's best (Red Storm Rising) with one of his lesser books (Patriot Games) but any two Clancy novels in the same cover are a bonus.

I need to get Without Remorse by Tom Clancy, spanish version ( Sin Remordimientos )

You would think it would be the simplest thing in the world to figure out what three Tom Clancy novels should be put in a collection entitled "Tom Clancy 1," but apparently it proved a bit too difficult for the publishers of this particular volume. What we have here are three of the first four Clancy novels, including the only one of that number which was not a Jack Ryan novel, "Red Storm Rising." To that we have the first Jack Ryan novel, "The Hunt for Red October," and the third Jack Ryan novel, "The Cardinal of the Kremlin." What was left out was the second Jack Ryan novel, "Patriot Games," which, ironically enough, actually takes place before the events in "The Hunt for Red October." However, once you lay out the volumes this way a common denominator appears, because all of these stories deal with the nation formerly known as the Soviet Union (whereas "Patriot Games" involves a splinter group of the I.R.A.). So there is some logic to the collection and having three novels collected together does make it easier for fans who have come to author's works lately and are trying to go back to the beginning (well, the original beginning, now that Clancy has gone back even earlier in the Jack Ryan story in his latest novel, "Red Rabbit").

Of the three novels "The Cardinal of the Kremlin" is the best of the bunch. "The Hunt for Red October" and "Red Storm Riding" constitute the early Clancy, where there is an over abundance of sub-headings distinguishing where each scene is set. This literary device becomes a bit distracting when the pace of the cutting becomes rather frantic at the climax of "The Hunt for Red October." Those who have read later books in the Jack Ryan series will find "The Cardinal of the Kremlin" to be more like the most recent novels although its chief virtue is that it is the one Clancy novel that most has to do with real spy craft. While Jack Ryan is engaged in the machinations of his master plan for taking down the head of the KGB, there is also the fun of Mary Pat Foley out working the spy network in Moscow.

If you choice is between the most recent Tom Clancy novels, such as the dreadful "The Bear and the Dragon," or these early works, then the choice is clear. Go back to the original beginning and be aware that what you will find in Tom Clancy 2 is going to be far superior to what is in this collection. The public commentary tends to focus on Clancy's use of cutting edge technology (ergo the sobriquet of techno-thrillers) but his chief strength is really in terms of characterization. Even in "Red Storm Rising," a novel based on playing out a NATO-Warsaw Pact game, Clancy creates a couple of memorable characters. Ultimately it is people not machines that matter in these novels.

I was exposed to Horner in Clancy's "Fighter Wing" and thought he sounded like a bureaucrat in that one. Now its clear he's a fool: "All we really had to do was befriend Ho. Seems he wasn't part of a monolithic Communist plot, and hated the Chinese more than anything else." Oh, the total naivete. I bet there are a lot of people who fled Vietnam in 1975 or, even worse, were forced to stay, who might disagree with his assessment. Chuck, why can't you accept Ho Chi Minh was a Stalinist?

Mr. Clancy, once again, authors a "must read" about one of America's greatest military commanders. In this book, Clancy collaborates with retired Air Force General Chuck Horner for an "inside look" at U.S./Allied air operations in the Persian Gulf War. As a result of the Goldwater-Nichols Defense Reorganization Act of 1986, during the Gulf War, General Horner was entrusted with new military authorities. The "Turf Warfare" between the American armed services that took place during the Vietnam War was no longer existant, and given military objectives with strings from the political leaders withdrawn, the General was charged with directing ALL American and Allied air assests during the DESERT SHIELD-turn-DESERT STORM period. This in an up-close look at General Horner, his indoctrination, development, and ultimate leadership in the arena of American Airpower. "Every Man A Tiger" tells the story of General Horner's relationships with the other military and political leaders, and how his heretofore career enabled him to be effective in the Middle East. As a combat fighter pilot, Chuck Horner learned the lessons of Vietnam, and helped re-structure the United States Air Force that was ill-prepared for that conflict because of the preponderance of the Strategic Air Command. For the person seeking to increase their knowledge of American Air Superiority and Aerospace history, Horner's story is "not to be missed." I would highly recommend this book for any individual interested in General History, Military History or Biography, or any other individual interested in this pinnacle point in American history and the United Nations.

General Chuck Horner, with the writing help of Tom Clancy, crafted a wonderful book that tells the story of how to organize, equip, deploy and employ massive yet diverse airpower during the Gulf War in 1990-1991.

There are three parts and fifteen chapters in this book. The first third focuses on the past (1960-1989) for Chuck Horner and America's Air Force before Desert Shield. The focus is on the unique climate amongst pilots, especially fighter pilots (Horner's primary skill set) and the entire aviation community. The emphasis Horner places on teamwork is striking, and shows the importance of every airman who contributes to launching and aircraft and its payload down the runway and into the skies. This part of the book also describes the strategic vision of Air Force leaders in the 1970's as they sought to apply the lessons learned from the Vietnam War, and reemerge from the post war malaise as a coherent fighting organization.

Throughout the first part are snapshots of what Horner was trying to create in the chaos that followed the Presidential decision to reinforce Saudi Arabia to deter further Iraqi aggression and finally expel Iraq from Kuwait. Horner, who became Commander in Chief, Central Command (Forward) CINCCENTFWD noted that everywhere he initially went, the staffs' "efforts lacked order and focus...missing essential details such as basing logistics and sortie rates." Horner's essential task was to understand the intent of General Schwarzkopf and the National Command Authority, and to focus the effort of the CENTCOM team to deploy and employ forces in a logical way that would accomplish the national strategic goals. In short, Horner had to translate strategic guidance into operational constructs that would provide specific guidance for tactical commanders while simultaneously forcing them to address and crack the individual nuts.

The second part of the book focuses on the CENTCOMFWD role in building and fighting the "halt phase" of the Gulf War. Everything from the tyranny of time, to building a coalition with forces of dissimilar training and equipment is covered. Of greatest interest, though, is the building of the plan for executing the war against Iraqi forces. The original genesis of the plan as a result of CENTCOM's Internal Look exercise and Gen Horner's discussion of airpower with Gen Schwarzkopf are covered. How to integrate Marine Corps air assets is covered. The transfer of the CHECKMATE plan to CENTCOM was problematic due to the clash of personalities, but ultimately worked. The influence of Clausewitz is everywhere evident in the planning phase-how to measure the will of the enemy, the simple things are hard, etc. Finally, the translation of all this down to sortie rates and targeting processes is covered in great detail, suggesting that General Horner was one tired man by the end of Desert Storm.

The last part of the book details the actions during the attack phase, "Desert Storm." Every detail from bridge busting, and artillery and tank killing, to SCUD chasing and sustaining sortie rates is covered. The assessment piece of the targeting cycle is criticized, but air based assessment is never as accurate as ground based assessment (but ground assessment is much riskier-everything has its tradeoffs). The integration of tactical air control parties with flanking units is discussed in detail. Lastly psychological operations are discussed, and Gen Horner candidly admits that it is very difficult to measure the effectiveness of operations aimed at psychologically disabling the enemy.

General Horner's bottom line, perhaps, is that "the impact of airpower on the enemy was underestimated, and the ability of airpower to destroy a deployed enemy was overestimated." If you want to understand how a modern air campaign is embedded into an overall campaign plan, Every Man a Tiger is a must read.

A stiff, slow-to-develop installment in an otherwise exciting OP-CENTER series by Tom Clancy, et. al. In the new-world order, the bad buys are no longer the Soviets or rogue nations, instead they are our own government officials.

Op-Center Director Paul Hood gets to the bottom of terrorist activities in the Caspian sea, only to learn that it is somehow connected to the President’s deteriorating mental state. In a suspenseful ending, Hood solves the riddle with help from a Russian spy and the First Lady.

This installment seems mechanical and cookie-cutter with humorless characters. First-time OP-CENTER readers might want to try an earlier novel, while purists will want to stay with the story line and character developments.

I'm beginning to read the Op Center series just to see when Paul finally leaves his family and moves in with Anne. Where's the rest of the support team? No one would be fool enough to take on the Oval Office without bouncing more ideas off your intelligence analysts. Hey, Clancy, et al, it's time to delve into the lives of the supporting players a la Clear and Present Danger.

The absence of the Striker team and the backchannel use of the Russian Op Center lends more and more credibility to the writers for a believable story. Yes, it's possible to have excitement without bullets but the action around the Caspian Sea should keep the blood-n-guts and hard-core spy thriller readers occupied. But the mental breakdown of the President? Interesting plot line but I wasn't convinced this was the way it could be done.

I've read reviews of a number of other reviewers, who commented Divide and Conquer was not as good as the previous Op-Center novels. I don't agree with them. I actually think Divide and Conquer is the best of the series. By plotting a chain of events, which unfold in a very short manner of time, the team behind Divide and Conquer (including Tom Clancy, Steve Pieczenik and Jeff Rovin) creates a very tense-full situation. I think the average reader of Divide and Conquer will have a lot of fun reading this book.

What also struck me as remarkable, was the fact that for the first time in a very long series of Op Center novels, the United States of America seemed vulnerable. Usually the Clancy novels don't mention the weaknesses of this Worldpower. But by creating an "internal" conspiracy - a conspiracy by Americans - against the President of the USA, and by revealing the American "Achilles' tendons" to the public, the team of Op Center writers really surprised me. I'd surely recommend this book to Clancy fans and also to others, since you will spend a great time reading it (regarding the great plotting and excitement that rushes through this novel, that won't be a very long time). The fact that Clancy has finally revealed America's weaknesses, makes this novel even more inspiring!

This book describes General Fred Franks' life and especially his experiences during Desert Storm, the war in the Persian Gulf to kick Iraq out of Kuwait.

To really like this book you need to be a bit of a military fanatic. Fred Franks repeats so many times how wonderful it is to be a soldier, and how great the "warrior ethos" is, that you realize that for him the military is practically a religion.

The thing in this book that I found the most interesting are the descriptions of the magnitude of military might that was fielded during Desert Storm.

The VII Corps (commanded by Gen. Franks) included 146,000 soldiers, 50,000 vehicles (incl. 1,600 tanks) and 800 helicopters. Not only are these numbers huge, but the logistics involved are mind-boggling: the soldiers need food and water, and the vehicles and aircraft burned an incredible 3.2 million gallons of fuel each day. When fighting the VII Corps expended 2,500 tons of ammunition every day.

And VII Corps was only part of the military forces involved. There was another Army corps, there were Marine units, there was the Air Force and the Navy. An amazing marshalling of military forces, and all under the command of General Stormin' Norman Schwarzkopf (more about him later).

I found the book interesting, but it does have a lot of problems. It's way too long, mostly due to repetitiveness. With some editing it could have been cut down by at least 30% with no loss of information.

Another problem is that there are no useful maps. There are a lot of small maps, about 1/3 of a page each, but they simply don't show enough detail. Again and again you find the text referring to some town or road or river and they simply aren't on the maps.

Another major problem is the lack of a glossary with definitions for all the military abbreviations that are used.

And then we have General Schwarzkopf, who is not thanked in the acknowledgements. Gen. Franks is very careful to thank everyone from his parents to his family to all of his subordinates, and then goes on to thank Colin Powell, Sec. of Defense Dick Cheney and President Bush. But not Gen. Schwarzkopf.

It turns out that Gen. Schwarzkopf wrote an autobiography, "It Doesn't Take a Hero", and in that book he criticized Gen. Franks for the way he commanded VII Corps during Desert Storm.

Gen. Franks uses this book to return the favor. I won't go into extensive details (and Gen. Franks keeps his criticism fairly low-key), but Franks basically claims that Schwarzkopf liked having his butt kissed by his subordinates, was prone to throwing temper tantrums, wasn't competent to understand or command armored (tank) operations and made several tactical errors. In particular, not giving VII Corps more operational room to the north, not using the Air Force to prevent the Iraqi Republican Guards from escaping northwards and declaring "victory" a couple of days prematurely were big mistakes. The result was that Washington decreed a ceasefire and a large portion of the Republican Guards avoided destruction.

I actually found this dispute between Franks and Schwarzkopf to be quite interesting, and it's so very human to want to get back at someone who's done you dirt. So whether Franks or Schwarzkopf is right, the dispute does add flavor to Franks' story.

This book is part biography, part history and part modern combat command handbook. General Fred Franks commanded the US VII Corps during Desert Storm and therefore had direct operational responsibility for the success or failure of the ground offensive against Iraq. This book offers what I think is an insightful analysis of modern warfare and the mentality of some of those who wage it.
The book initially charts Franks' career in the army, including his tour in Vietnam where he suffered the loss of a leg. Turning to the Gulf war, we discover Franks' involvement in the planning and organization of the operation. His most difficult task initially involved the movement of VII Corps from Germany to Saudi Arabia and its change in doctrine from a defensive to an offensive role.
Through his own first-person accounts we quickly gain an appreciation of the complexity and difficulty of mounting an operation the scale of Desert Storm in a modern military context. The sheer size of the force involved and the logistics necessary are staggering. The book then presents an hour-by-hour account of the actual battle, which coherently describes Franks' decisions and influence on the outcome. Through all this he comes across as a thoughtful and dedicated professional, as committed to safeguarding the lives of the men under his command as much as achieving his objectives.
Desert Storm was controversial due to the feeling in some quarters that the ground operation was somewhat mishandled, leading to a partial rather than complete destruction of the Iraqi Republican Guard. Since he occupies a key position in this debate, Franks therefore clearly presents his reasons for conducting the offensive the way he did, i.e. to achieve the Coalition's stated aims and objectives without unnecessary casualties to his own forces. Time and again, Franks stresses that although it would have been possible to perhaps to push his command faster and harder, the higher risk of heavier casualties would not have been justified. Victory in a sense was inevitable, therefore in Franks' view it was his responsibility to ensure needless loss of life was averted. In pursuing this argument, Franks is also responding to certain accusations of hesitancy made by General Schwarzkopf in his own autobiography. It is hard to tell if this issue ever had any real substance as, like Schwarzkopf, there is an element of shadow boxing on Franks' part on paper.
As General Franks went on to command the US Army's Training and Doctrine Command after the war, the book therefore could be viewed as a unique insight into the mentality of the modern US Army, as well as a fascinating and enlightening portrait of modern technological warfare. Hence this poses some interesting questions in today's current events context. Has the complexity of modern full scale warfare, and the ethos of minimum casualties as propounded so graphically here, been significantly responsible for the preference for only using small, specialized, mobile forces or air power alone to decide campaigns, as in Kosovo and Afghanistan? What are the implications for a possible US invasion of Iraq? Will the logistics prove to be manageable? Will the casualties be acceptable? Will a reluctance to incur heavier losses inhibit the commanders? Perhaps we should ask General Franks.

With Into The Storm, Tom Clancy brings to the public a very necessary study of the unique qualities of Operation Desert Storm. As the First of an intended five books on the subject, Mr. Clancy decides on a successful format to tell the story of a war that surprised soldier and spectator alike.

By discussing the military career of General Franks, and having the general contribute to the book, Tom Clancy provides an effective picture of how the events of the Gulf War unfolded. Some may criticize the inclusion of General Franks' military career as filler, but I see it as an insightful and key element if we are to fully understand what really happened. What makes the man does contribute to what made this war.

I am a veteran of the Gulf War, and when I heard about this book being written I was truly excited. I saw a very small piece of what happened. I missed television coverage, the parades, and all of the speculation. With this book, I finally saw into the rationale of modern war craft from a commander's perspective. I knew what me and my unit was doing, and why, but not how we fit in to the larger plan. With this book I could see what I was missing at my level of operations.

This book may never be required reading at the Army War College, but who knows, it just might. Tom Clancy has succeeded in providing a practical view of command which anyone can understand. given the unique nature of the Gulf War, this series of books promises to help explain why the war happened the way it did.

In this, the sixth Op-Center book, Jeff Rovin is thanked for his "creative ideas and invaluable contribution to the preparation of the manuscript". This is generally taken to mean that Mr. Rovin is the manuscript author. Unfortunately, Mr. Rovin, though having a couple of other book titles to his credit, most certainly has none of Tom Clancy's ability with words.

The Op-Center series started in 1995 as a sound germ of an idea which owed much of its success to genuine imput from Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik. Now, at book six, and with Clancy and Pieczenik standing quietly in the shadows with their palms outstretched for whatever royalties they can squeeze from this series without having to do any work, the books are reaching new lows.

State of Siege is wooden and difficult to work through. The story might have had real potential in a proper Clancy novel. It could have been a real killer if thought out and written intelligently. Unfortunately, passing it over to a ghost called Rovin was the easiest way to doom the story to failure.

If Tom Clancy insists on putting his name to rubbish like this (albeit if only to rake in some extra lucre) then he MUST take some responsibility for its content. It saddens me to have to remind him, but the money he is putting in his pockets from poorly-conceived "novels" like this is money that honest working folk have stumped out because he has placed his name on the cover of the book.

SHAME ON YOU TC

Finally, Clancy put the politics aside and concentrated on some real action! The emotional crisis that Sharon was going through was a nice sub-plot, and I can't wait for the next Op-Center to see what happens to her and Paul's marriage. I first started reading this on an 8-hour train ride from D.C. to Boston. By the time I was back in Boston, I was half done with the book. I stayed up until nearly eleven finishing it. The action, the intrigue, the emotions, the stupid Secretary-General kept me enthralled from start to finish. Read it!

Clancy has done great in ditching those sometimes boring political plots and went into the action theme. The story is excellent and here is a summary: Paul Hood has retired as the Regional Op-Center director and now wishes to be with his wife and kids more. Sharon was a TV cooking show personality and his daughter Harleigh was an excellent violinist for her teenage age. His son, Alexander Hood (I hope I got the name right) enjoys video games and challenge. When Paul Hood finnaly retires, there is a sub-plot of emotional issues between him and Sharon but when they go to see Harleigh perform at a special diplomatic concert in New York for ambassadors and senators, greedy terrorists with a grandiose plan to get the world's attention and recieve a high ransom invade the United Nations building where the teenagers will perform and take the children and government people hostage. It is a race against time as hostages are killed on an hourly bases and while Secretary-General Chatterjee complains about giving diplomacy when Mike Rodgers wants to send in the Striker team. This has a good plot and lots of adventure that will "dazzle all readers!" (Me!)

I read this book a few years ago when it came out and I thought it was a great read. To be honest, this was the first Tom Clancy novel that I had ever read and I was not disappointed. Because of this, however, I do not have a point of reference to compare to any of his other fiction work.

Clancy is a great story teller and the plot of the book was interesting and creative. For me, it was a difficult book to put down and I found myself constantly wanting to read further (which is unusual for me). :P Highly recommended.

Tom Clancy's novel is everything a military brat could dream of. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the United States and Western European Powers must focus their military expertise for a new kind of warfare: urban, counter-terrorism. With the backing of the CIA and British 22nd SAS Regiment at Hereford, England, ex-Navy SEAL John Clark and Major Domingo "Ding" Chavez lead an elite counter-terrorism force, with members from Delta Force, GSG-9, and SAS. The weapons are fabulous: Heckler and Koch fully suppressed MP5 submachine guns, Remington Magnum sniper rifles, flashbangs, and heartbeat sensors. The main characters are well rendered and the reader is immersed in the action, plot, characterization, and the fears of the unexpected. Also, this book would make a good teamwork building trainer: you must rely and have total faith with each member of your team; otherwise you may fall victum to a tango's bullet. Personally, I hate terrorists. There was an incident over in the middle East at Khobar Towers that I would not like to happen again. Everytime a terrorist dies in this novel, I feel it is a personal victory.

I will admit, I am more of a John Clark fan than a Jack Ryan fan and this accounts for a lot when I picked this book off of the shelf. Now...
To begin, this book has it all: an unbelievable plot, the ultimate bad guys, great action sequences, and Joh Clark and Domingo "Ding" Chavez, as well as a string of new and old characters in the Ryan/Clark universe.
Rather than give a synopsis, I will give the fine points of the book. To begin, it is obvious that Clancy did NOT want to mention Jack Ryan by name, and only refers to him as "The President" (which is a nice homeage to the presidents before Bob Fowler). This is somewhat like Without Remorse, but Clancy could not resist placing his star in that novel. Next, it is nice to see clark giving orders rather than taking them, though he has not severed his CIA ties, as mary Pat and Ed Foley are referred to a few times in the novel. Older characters appear in this book, such as Julio "Oso" Vega and Dan Murray. The plot is modern, and takes away from Clancy's old villians (the Soviets/Russians) and his nw villians (the Chinese). In truth, the villains in the first half of the novel are reminiscant to the IRA fundamentalists in Patriot Games. The star villains of the second half bring to light events like Oklahoma City and the Uni-Bomber by dealing with domestic terrorists, as well as reminding us of executive orders as many are supposed allies of the president.
Low points in the book are few, but as with any novel, there are some. The fight scenes are not that dramatic, though elaborate. At points, the bad guys can do things that make a reader wonder if Clancy has some psychological repressions, but in true Clancy style, the wrong-doers do pay. As with other novels, all of the characters refer to doctors as "doc's." Otherwise, it is difficult to spot lower aspects.
This book is perfect for an action reader, and is designed for a younger generation of Clancy fans. It is a good way to enter the Clancy universe, as, though the past novels are heavily mentioned, you need not have read them to understand them, for Clancy explains the references fairly well.
I hope you found this review useful, and I hope you buy the book. It is an excellent read, so enjoy.

After about 600 pages, I realized that I was not having any fun reading the book, but I was too far along to quit. Clancy's best novels (Red Storm Rising and Clear and Present Danger to name two) were filled with action and suspense, not chapter long diatribes about such issues as abortion, population control and domestic politics. I see that Clancy is trying to move in a different direction with his writing, but it just comes of as contrived and preachy. A Marine buddy of mine has a saying which fits Clancy's writing very nicely, "you are a one trick pony, do the trick!" Until he returns to his former style, I will be passing on all his future books.

As an avid Clancy fan, who's read all of his books and owns most of them in hard cover, I found this book to be a bit of a dissapointment that doesn't even approach Clancy's normal high standards. Its a definite "must read" for Clancy fans, but for everyone else I'd highly recommend skipping this one at least until reading most of Clancy's other books.

The plot of the book, as the title implies, focuses on Russia and China, but mostly the latter. In a nutshell, a diplomatic incident plus some trade negotiations with the U.S. gone badly awry lead China to seek to take advantage of some new found economic luck by their neighbors to the north. There are a lot of parallels between US / Japanese relations leading up to WW2. along the way, there are assasination attempts and spycraft, but at a high level that sums up Clancy's latest effort.

First, the book's bad points:

1. Obviously Clancy now considers himself above editors - cause its obvious this book was not edited at all. There are at least 7 or 8 occasions where characters thoughts are repeated, verbatim, 2 or 3 times over the course of the book (for example, Ryan's belief that 'Daughters are god's punishment to fathers for being men' ... Ryan 'thinks' this about 4 different times during the book) and there are a fair amount of spelling/typo type errors that detract from the enjoyment of the book.

2. The structure of this novel simply isn't as good as Clancy's best efforts - the plot is very straightforward and not at all unpredictable - but more importantly it really is not very intricate - One of Clancy's fortes is to start with seemingly disparate story lines and seemlessly relate them together in the scope of the larger story (the Sum of All Fears is an excellent example of this)- in this novel, however, none of that occurs - the reader can pretty much see, immediately, the signifigance of just about everything that occurs. In the end, Clancy spends (depending on your point of view) 600 to 800 pages of this 1000 page book building toward the climax - which leaves the climax too short and the buildup is just not executed in Clancy's usually superb fashion.

3. The book almost seems unfinished - there are a lot of plot points that are left dangling when it really seemed like Clancy had intended to finish them.

4. Clancy has been developing a penchant recently for repeating the same ideas conveyed in his previous novels. In Rainbow Six, he basically repeated the whole bio-warfare aspect of Executive Orders. In the Bear and the Dragon, at the end of the book he pretty much repeats what was a very large aspect of Debt of Honor.

On the plus side, this is Clancy after all, and it is still a good read. The novel's premise is a good one, and in that sense its a good follow on to some of the plot threads Clancy started four books ago in Debt of Honor.

It's impossible to read all 700+ customer reviews, but I see the point of many of the folks slamming Clancy over this one. My take on this book, is that it is highly entertaining, how Clancy has continued the saga of Jack Ryan & Company through his series of books. There are numerous references to previous Clancy books that are substantial enough to create a parallel Clancyian universe. President Ryan speaks of the Fair Trade Act as history, and it takes some sorting out to remember, "no that's just previous fiction." Ryan semi-mutates into President Bush, with references to the previous corrupt president (Clinton?). Clancy's world is populated by military and ex-military types, so the insensitive acpects of their world-view that was not appreciated by other reviewers comes from that culture (Joe Ch--k, the swearing, the smoking) When facing enemy fire on the battlefield, one certainly does not care about the ill effects of second-hand smoke, or any other issue not related to immediate survival on the field of fire.

It's important to realize that Clancy is fashioning his own version of Planet Earth, which definitely departs from the reality we know. Unlike this book, the Chinese in real life recently demonstrated restraint in the Hunan reconaissance plance incident (as did President Bush). It certainly does not seem today, that the Chinese are headed toward a military confrontation with us or the Russians.

I think the real way to appreciate Clancy is to recognize that his world is a fiction, and then enjoy the ride. The details of the Siberian War, and of the air war, especially relating to the Dark Star technology, were breathtaking. This book accelerates as you read it, from a stroll in Dzherzhinskii Square to the 14,000 fps speed of the ICBM at the book's climax. The war turns what was a page-turner, into a page-riper... Once I got to the war at page 870, I had to continue nonstop until the end (1000+ pages). The book was breath-taking, and way too large-scale for a 2 hour movie to do it justice. Clancy in Bear & Dragon underscores why there is no substitute for reading a great book.

Save your money or read it for its stupidity

Not up to Clancy standards. The main premise is compelling- What might happen if a technological advancement were developed which could quickly break large prime number encryption, upon which the security of the world depends? A real theoretical possibility... This premise kept me reading right to the anti-climactic end. Some of the characters are interesting, like the Russian fellow who had a great subplot going, but even his ending is a letdown. The 2 main love stories are tiresome, detract from the main plot, and take up way too much ink. The virtual reality subplot is a leap of faith.
Not worth reading.
Currently reading Without Remorse, which is much better so far.

Annotation:A super genius computer hacker tries to take over the world by takeing over major computers across the globe. The Net Force opperatives must track him down and stop him before it is to late.

Autor Bio:The book Net Force Night Moves was written by Tom Clancy. Tom Clancy is the number one on New York Times best selling authors. Tom has created many books that envolve a form of law enforcement that has to take down the terriost threat. He is a great author.

Evaluation:The book Net Force Night Moves was an all around good book. It took a little bit of time before the book got started before i got interested in it. Also I would get confused when the charcters would jump in and out of the virtual reality when trying to catch the hacker. The characters in the story were decent, they all worked well with the way the book was put together. I like Tom Clancy and the way his stories are very intersting.I would recommend this book to a person who likes a twisted computer hacker story.