THIS BOOK WAS HORRIBLE!!!!!! EVERYTHING EXCPECT BATTLE MAGIC FOR MORONS ISN'T WORTH THE PAPER IT'S PRINTED ON!!

Very disapointing..... all except "girl slayer" was terrible, and even girl slayer was weak compared to other books of this genre i have read. But i suppose it is pretty hard to develop a strong fantasy story with only 20 pages to work with...

Battle Magic is a superbly produced audiobook anthology of outstanding fantasy with each short story taking up the concept of magic as a weapon of combat between individuals, between armies, and between kingdoms. Each story, drawn from some of the best and most innovative writers in fantasy today, are aptly read by their individual narrators and conjure up worlds of dark enchantments, single champions against overwhelming odds, and powerful wizards locked in deadly conflict. The stories in this superbly produced, highly recommended, nine hour, unabridged, six cassette collection include Warlord; Hell's Bane; The Miracle of Salamis; The Jewel and the Demon; Alaric's Gift; The Fatal Wager; Ten for the Devil; Battle Magic For Morons; A Matter of Honor; Principles of Warfare; and The Strangeness of the Day.

some of the stories here are not in any way connected to Lovecraft. Wolfe's story here is interesting, but doesn't really get to be horrible. a story about out-of-the-body experiences is pretty good, but something seems amiss in the ending. a story about a stuffed animal amused me. also included are some mediocre stories, and also some really dull stories. the collection is perhaps not the worst in history, but you can easily do better.

Lovecraft "tribute" volumes appear to be developing into a sub-genre all of their own and this book is...definitely one of them. I leave it to the English major to define the difference between pastiche and plagiarism, to distinguish between stories influenced by, written in homage to, or containing ideas directly stolen from Lovecraft. All these are represented in this volume, as well as a couple of tales that seem to have no connection to Lovecraft's work at all.

Of the thirteen stories collected within, four or five are memorable. Three of the stories--arguably the three best--Gene Wolfe's genuinely chilling "Lord of the Land", Gahan Wilson's whimsical fantasy "H.P.L.", and F. Paul Wilson's "The Barrens"--have also more recently appeared in the Arkham House collection "Cthulu 2000." Also worthy of mention is Brian McNaughton's darkly humorous "Meryphillia", possibly more reminiscent of Clarke Ashton Smith's oeuvre than of Lovecraft's, and Mort Castle's Poe-esque "A Secret of the Heart."

There is a touchingly affectionate introduction by Robert Bloch and a short afterword by each author, sharing a little of what Lovecraft meant to him (unsurprisingly, all the authors are "hims").

If you have already read the three volumes of Lovecraft's work in print, the collection of his revisions "The Horror In The Museum And Other Tales," the two Arkham House tribute volumes "Tales Of The Cthulu Mythos" and "Cthulu 2000," and you still want more, perhaps this book will fit the bill.

Like all short story collections, this one has varying levels of quality. The average is so high, however, that it's well worth picking up if you're a fan of horror, mystical SF, or especially a Lovecraft fan. The stories show the influence of the Great Old Ones in Elizabethan England, the space program, the pine barrens of New Jersey and astral space in dreams. And, in the standout story of the book (H.P.L. by Gahan Wilson), Lovecraft appears as a character, as do Clark Ashton Smith and many, many, many bad things from his works. Of special interest to fans of Edgar Allan Poe is the first story in the collection, which ties the cosmology of Poe's stories together with Lovecraft's, repaying the obvious debt to Poe all writers of the macabre incurred since the 1800s. Buy this book.

Some good premisses but too many left undeveloped, flat, or seemingly unfinished. I may have been expecting soemthing more classically horrific. I did however, like The Colonization of edwin Beal and Cage 37. Their ideas seem better thought out, told, and made into a story.

It sounds like a really interesting book. I have never read these stories before. Seems similar to Greatest Horror Stories of the 20th Century by Robert Bloch. Sounds very exciting. Can't wait to read it. These stories are truly original. I really like Robert Bloch

Decades ago sci-fi grandmaster Isaac Asimov noted the similarity between detective stories (whodunit?) and science fiction "puzzle" stories (how do you solve the problem?). Avoiding some of the obvious pitfalls, he began to write stories that contain elements of both of these popular genres. But of the various stories in this collection, only Larry Niven's "ARM" really lives up to the title, combining the imagination of science fiction with the action and drama of a detective story. Asimov's "The Singing Bell" comes close, and shows off the master's skill with "puzzle" stories, but the armchair detective doesn't really lend itself to exciting reading and would be a serious disappointment to fans who expect some action. As for the rest, only Poul Anderson's "The Martian Crown Jewels" and "Time Exposures" by Wilson Tucker are bona fide sci-fi detective stories, and both are eminently forgettable. Donald Westlake's "The Winner", Robert Silverberg's "Getting Across", and Philip K. Dick's "War Games" are all very good science fiction stories, indeed are the highlights of the collection, but there are no detectives in them. Perhaps the most memorable sci-fi detective is Philip Jose Farmer's Herr Ralph Von Wau Wau, the intelligent canine of "A Scarletin Study", a humorous send up of the whole cross-genre concept. In sum, while perhaps the blame lies more with the form than with the editing, this book fails to deliver what it promises; the overall collection isn't that strong as "just" science fiction, and the advertised combination of sci-fi and private detective fiction never really coalesces. Readers interested in this idea would do better to pick up one of Asimov's many fine collections.

I thought the book was very good describing the plot, storyline, and characters. However, the book was pretty easy to predict. It's whole storyline was old and boring. The absence of twists and any new developments killed any suspense. Overall the story gets a 3 out of 5.

I've continued to read the Power Plays series only because, well, honestly I don't know why, the Clancy name on it I guess. I know he's never written them but I read them non-the-less because they usually sound like a promising topic. I've never read a book that missed so many "to's, as's, and it's". Maybe during dialogue that's how they'd talk, but in non-dialogue paragraphs? Ridiculous, I think even the editor's realize no one will really read this. I really liked the concept of Africa becoming a turf war, but it never really amounted to that-it came down to a vendetta and the whole UpLink African venture fell in the background. I was severly dissapointed and am writing this in the hopes that they get a new author for these books. Hell, I'll give it a shot if you give me a start-up price!

And as to John who believes I'm a toddler who's never gone to school, I've read ever Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton novel and excelled in my english classes at school. If you've got a problem with me, you do it outside of Amazon. I'm telling people what I thought, and I'm sure they don't give if you or anyone else spells perfectly on here-I wasn't aware this was graded. Grow up-I have.

This book has 421 pages and could be resumed in less than 150:
First 25 pages, then "girl loves dogs, daddy loves daughter, Gabon has some corruption, but it's ok, UpLink is a wonderful company but has some politics and some people don't like each other, the bad guy hates his father (and everyone else)" and finally, the final 100 pages.

I love when Tom Clancy writes and I am getting less and less excited when he just lends his name to someone else.

I thought this novel was the best. Period. And as to Adam from Wasau, Wisconsin, a previous reviewer -- before you take a shot at ANY writing job, or a stab at another of these reviews, or even a crack at making out a check or addressing an envelope, try to get your spelling right . . . or find some very, very patient editors (not "editor's", as you wrote) to assist you, since I think you'll need an army of them due to your severely (is that what you mean by "severly", whicn isn't an English word?) atrocious grammar. Nonetheless -- "non-the-less" isn't a word in my dictionary, either -- it's too bad you were dissapointed with the book (uh, ummm, now you've got me messing up. The correct spelling is "disappointed", but I'd better cut out of here before the misspelling bee that obviously stung you multiple times buzzes my way).

A parting word of advice before I go: Given your problems with the language, maybe you ought to take another look at the novel and read over the sentences that are supposedly missing all those "to", "it", and "as" words. Read slowly, take your time, there's no rush. Maybe ask someone with, ah, more refined reading and writing skills than your own for help, it's no shame. Nor would it be too difficult -- pick somebody off the street at random, and he or she will probably be a few ticks up on you in that department. Betcha you'll find those words aren't SUPPOSED to be there . . . and also learn something in the process!

The plot was lost in the excessive descriptive narratives. It was not up to the standard of Clancy's books nor even the standard of the others in the Power Plays series. However, the description of activities in Antarctica was interesting in that it was reminiscent of the time I spent there in the late 80s. The chronicles of Uplink International have been interesting up to now. Better luck with the next book in the series....I hope.

Tom Clancy, a world class adventure and military writer really vrought home how dangerous military operations are in extremely cold places, especially Antarctica. It is a medium sized book, but it sadly lacks the common twists and turns that become of a world class thriller such as this one. In a nutshell, the US military are experimenting with engineering and technologies so that if they want to, one day, they could work on Planet Mars. But, leading entreupeneurs want it a different way, and boy are they anarchists? A man who is dealing black market artworks is making money: a lot of money: and is funding the people who want to isolate the military into not going anywhere near Antarctica. With the unearned money, they buy nuclear waste from Britain, planting it around the site so that the personnel get dosed up with clinically high amounts of radiation. But all is not as it seems, and Tom Clancy, why does he have to always end without twists in the tale? Besides from that, it's a 'not bad' sort of book, but the story could easily be improved with a little more art and affection: more twists and more turns. I'll award two, perhaps three stars.

A 3-star rating for most writers is an accomplishment. Anything with Clancy's name on it implies, at least, tacit approval from Clancy. Since this was actually written by someone else (as a number of Clancy created series are), it would appear that Clancy has begun to care more for the money his name makes than the readers who trust his name. I am disappointed with Clancy. In fairness, though, the book does have good technical facts and plenty of action. The characters, however, appear to be good generic cut-outs.

SSN began as an exciting read. Capt. Mack Mackey takes his Los Angeles class nuclear submarine deep into enemy waters to stealthily attack chinese shipping and defend American assets in the area.

The world of a nuclear submarine is an exciting one and Clancy seems to be well versed in the details of that environment. I eagerly devoured the early action in this strange setting. However, once the submarine jargon got old I realized that that's all the book is. It's just a very detailed discription of the operations of a submarine.

There are no characters that we know anything about, and there is not much of a story. If you're looking for a story I can sumarize it for you fairly simply: 1. The Cheyenne nuclear submarine encounters enemy. 2. Cheyenne sinks enemy becuase Cheyenne is quieter, has better sonor equipment and longer range torpedos and missiles. 3. Repeat process untill war is over.

Every mission was essentially the same.

In conclusion, I believe this is a good choice if you are looking for a book about how a modern submarine operates. If you're looking for a story or any interesting characters I believe you should look elsewhere. Two stars for interesting description of submarine operation.

I've not read much of Tom Clancy's work, but based on what little I have read, I held out much hope for this book. It definitely did not deliver.While the action "scenes" were quite fun, they were also rather repetitive. There was very little plot, and no character development. The end result is a story that is about as believable as a Rambo movie. I very seriously doubt that the entire Chinese navy, which was being constantly augmented with Soviet boats and crews, could be eliminated by a single sub. I don't buy it, and neither should you.

While this is not the usual top notch novel by Tom Clancy, it wasn't meant to be a fully fledged novel. It is a companion book to a CD-ROM game published by Simon and Shuster in 1996. If you are a fan of the game, and some people are, then it's a bit of fluff to read while on a long plane flight or bus ride.
If you aren't a fan of books based on games or expect great literature, then this book is not for you.

Ok..to make this short and sweet...this book is so bad that It coulden't hold my attention for the first 50 pages..yeah I gave it some time..it was so confusing and made no sense. I had to do a book report and had to make up or emphasis certain parts that I did read to make it seem like I did. I would have not given a star if there was that choice.

It was kind of like watching a movie that was somewhat entertaining. It was OK nothing more nothing less. The plot skipped around a lot. Had some characters that were developed and used throughout the entire book. The ending was better than I expected. I think it would make a much better movie than a book. Tough to build tension in a business environment with characters that are supposed to be professional and distanced from their emotions. Their motivations were evident just not that believable or compelling.

The Roger Gordian business conglomerate is threatened by impending hostile takeover from the wiles of archrival Caine and his evil underworld conspirators. Intrigue follows intrigue as one plot after another is foiled.

This work, while typical of the style familiar to most Clancy works is atypical in that less than adequate detail is given to technical editing and character development. It seems like the writer was trying to "crank out" a story to go along with the accompanying software. Several words were repeated ("There was WAS even a small...." pg 184, "...UpLink company has been BEEN marginal..." pg 225), and other words used inappropriately for the sentence ("...all of which were controlled by his seemingLESS endless...." pg 183 "...agents pretending to be demonstrators AND dispersed throught the..." pg 184) (Capitalization mine).

All in all, it was a good book. Some of the characters could be developed a bit more, but considering it is an accompanying book to a software program, I feel it met its intended effect.

For readers not familiar with Tom Clancy, I recommend it as a must read. For those familiar with, and avid Clancy fans, it might be somewhat disappointing. For both groups, be sure to read POLITIKA first!

Start reading it only if you get it for free! Read the first 60 pages and ask someone to tell one what else happenes. It will take him around 1.2 seconds to do so. It's not worth 200+ pages.

Shadow Watch (ISBN 0-425-17188-4) by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg is a descent book, but needs more development. This is the only book in the Power Plays series that I have read, but I have read other Tom Clancy books. I found the story hard to start, but once I got past the opening paragraphs the story was okay. The characters, particularly Annie Caulfield, need a little more fleshing out. The overall plot is plausible, but there are some holes that are not typical of Tom Clancy's style. Overall a good book for reading, if there is nothing else available.

Well, this book wasn't terrible, but it could have been much better. Definately doesn't live up to Politika or Ruthless.com, let alone the plethera of other Clancy novels. The biggest problem I had with this book was the fact that the characters never seemed to get their act together. They spent all but the last 60 or so pages of the book doing almost nothing. It seemed like for the first 250-300 pages, maybe two hours had passed in the world. To make matters worse, the ending wasn't even very glorious, for lack of a better word. It was like the good guys foil the plot, and a low monotonous "yay" murmers from the audience. An entire chapter was also spent describing a train wreck that should have been summed up in about 3 paragraphs tops. He basically described a couple hundred innocent people dying, and it had no real impact on the story WHAT-SO-EVER.

I don't really know much about how Clancy is doing buisness, but I see people saying he fathered the series and sold it out to other authors. All I have to say is that it doesn't speak very highly of Clancy as an author to let authors nobody has heard of write books in his name and not even check to see if they're on par with his original works. I found it disappointing overall.

However, if you've never read any Clancy novels, the Powerplay series might be a good one to start out on. You may expierence disappointment from Politika and Ruthless to Shadow Watch and other books in the series, but you definately won't be disappointed when you start reading other Clancy novels like Without Remorse and Clear and Present Danger.

I know that I'm being pretty harsh on this book with a one star rating, but really, that's what it deserves. In total I only finished reading about half the stories; I ended up skipping the rest after a few pages.

The main problem with the stories is that although they are (sometimes) fairly interesting, they all suffer from poor editing and below-average writing quality. The plots, although filled with interesting technological gadgets, are poorly executed and often have nothing to do with military conflict.

For example, the story "Ranger" has a unique premise: a squad of US operatives are using non-lethal weapons to send a message to a third-world despot. However, I got about a third into it, was turned off by the amateurish writing style and skipped to the end.

Honesttly, this book is a complete waste of time and money. I reccomend reading something like "Best Military Scifi of the Twentieth Century" or "Starship Troopers" or "The Forever War".

There where a number of enjoyable stories in this collection, but also a number which I personally didn't carefore.

BiFrost Crossing by Barry B. Longyear: Is a short story about a soldier in the future who has ended up in the psych ward because he is having flashbacks, it is from these flashbacks that we learn what is going on. (A little strange but interesting.)

Faith On Ice by James H. Cobb: Personally Mr. Cobb is one of my favorite authors and he doesn't disappoint in this short story. Set on the Antartic Ice in about 100 years, a skimmer pilot keeps the faith and goes to find two missing fellow soldiers. (A very good little tail, perhaps a glimps of a future series by the author.)

Sparks in a Cold War by Kristine Kathryn Rusch: A story about a hunting expedition to a forbidden planet gone wrong. (Strange but interesting.)

Los Ninos by William H Keith Jr: A tail about humanity attacking a weaker species for political and econmoic reason. And the soldiers reactions to this and in particular one tough female marine when confronted with the truth. (Interesting and thought compelling, a good read.)

An Admiral's Obession by Kathrine M. Massie-Ferch: The story of a woman who is now only a Admiral in the navy, who once was the crowned princess to a now over-turned throne. A woman who will do anything to protect her home. (A great story.)

Ranger by Bill Fawcett: A rather funny little tale once you've read it and thought it over. In the age of non-leathal weapons how you teach someone that they are not beyound the reach of the US Military. (A great story.)

The Vaction by Ron Collins: Two old biddies take a vaction to a world that without Terrian support would have been crushed by the enemy. (A so so story.)

On the Surface by Robert J. Sawyer: If you liked H.J. Well's "The Time Machine" This story is a spring off from that idea. (Didn't care for it)

Air Infantry by R. J. Pineiro: Earth has been invaded, and now the humans have figured out how to finish off the last of the invaders. (A intersting story.)

Toy Soldiers by Robin Wayne Bailey: A great little read about a "Super weapon" gone wrong. (Neat little story.)

Most of the stories in this collection I would call decent to great, but the ones I didn't enjoy I really didn't like at all. Pick it up fore yourself if you enjoy any of these authors. A Decent read all in all.