Rating: 
Summary: HUGE FAN...WORST CLANCY BOOK EVER
Review: This was ther first Clancy book (written by him) that I can honestly say [was bad]. Usually I end up taking a whole day to finish a book because I become engrossed. This book was laborious and at times I was tempted not to finish it at all. The pseudo-revisionist history should be left to authors like WEB Griffin as Clancy has proven that he can not take a historical precedent and weave them into his tail. The characters were never fully developed yet the ending was pretty much assured from the first time you heard about the pope. DISAPPOINTING with a capital D.
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Summary: What a disappointment!
Review: As a diehard Clancy fan, this was easily the most poorly written of all of his books. I was eagerly looking forward to reading his newest installment, but it did not take long to realize that completing this epic would be challenging, at best. The pages and pages of forced dialogue from the Ryans and the Foleys were excruciating. The conversations between these married couples seemed to have been written by a 13 year old girl. Does anyone really talk like that? And the constant references to Cathy's times at Johns Hopkins and Jack's at Merrill Lynch were not only repetitive, but lame as well. There was little excitement or suspense throughout, and the historical references and timeline seemed to be entirely out of accurate context. Overall, an extremely disappointing read.
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Summary: From an American who lived in Moscow
Review: I heartily disagree with the majority of the reviewers. Tom Clancy's "Red Rabbit" seemed so real to me. It readily brought back to me the time when I attended a semester of college in Moscow. I was one of the relatively few Americans living in the Soviet Union when Brezhnev died. The Russians could not believe that their motherland was being described as 'the evil empire.' Although warm and friendly in their own homes, Russians didn't smile out in public--and I rarely do now. For me "Red Rabbit" was a gripping--and so very believable--tale of intrigue. I thoroughly enjoyed it.
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Summary: Red Rabbit
Review: After reading Red Rabbit I thought about Tom Clancy's first book and why for the past 17 years I have purchased and read his stories. Red Rabbit does not live up to any of the reasons I began reading Clancy novels. The story is long and takes forever to get going and when you finally think something interesting is going to happen it doesn't. His dates are incorrect. (He has the Falklands War happening before the Pope being shot, just one of the many) He reviews old Soviet & Russian history over and over again. Enough! No one cares anymore about the Soviet Union. It's DEAD! Move on, the Russians have Thank God!
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Summary: A Powerful Reminder of History
Review: This is one of Clancy's best novels. I like it for three major reasons:First, it gives us a human scale story of people trying to change history by specific actions. Second, it reminds us that the Pope, President Reagan, and Prime Minister Thatcher showed real courage and real determination in taking on the evil empire of the Soviet Union. Third, it may reach a younger generation who has grown up since the fall of the Soviet Union and for whom this is unknown ground (certainly their news media and their academic experience will have done nothing to teach them about an evil empire, a brave pope, or a heroic President and Prime Minister). The story is straightforward. The Pope, the first Polish Pope in history, sends a letter to the Polish Communist dictatorship warning that if it continues to repress his people, he will step down as Pope and come home to suffer with them as their bishop-this from a man who had suffered under both Nazis and Communists before being elevated to Rome. Anyone who saw the Pope's recent pilgrimage home to Poland will appreciate his love of his home country and his people. Andropov, the last decisive leader of the aging Soviet oligarchy decides that killing the Pope is the best way to deal with the threat. A young Soviet communications clerk cannot stand the crisis of conscience that the idea of killing the Pope creates for him and decides to defect. Then the race is on. The story never slows, the people never cease to interest, and the sense of how history unfolded in this critical moment is powerful. It is worth remembering: no Pope, no President Reagan, no Prime Minister Thatcher, no end to detente, no end to coexistence, no end to the Soviet Empire. This book is a nice reminder of that fact.
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Summary: I will wait for more reviews next time!
Review: This should have been a sub-one star book. With all of the advances Tom Clancy gets for his books, It is obvious he is counting on sales history to get a dud through. With only three shots fired in the whole book, (and none at or by Ryan) I was dissapointed with the action level. This was a sub-parr effort for Mr Clancy. I'm not ready to give up on him, but I won't be so anxious next time. This one was a total waste of time and money!
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Summary: Needed to Fulfill Contract
Review: Tom must have owed the publisher another book by a certain time. I'm a big fan but this was a joke. Read the other reviews. It's not worth it for me to repeat what this book was NOT.
Rating:
Summary: Tedious
Review: My first hopes on reading this book is that Jack Ryan wouldn't be as terrible as he was in _The Bear and the Dragon_. And, in that respect, _Red Rabbit_ is a better book. This book has occasional profanity, but none of the repeated gratuitous gutter profanity and sex of _The Bear and the Dragon_. Nor does this book revel in racial stereotypes and insults. Women have a largely decent role. There's less ranting against immorality -- although there are frequent reminders of how holy and pure the Catholic Church is -- "its policies rarely, if ever, strayed from love and charity" -- which we know isn't true.
There are portents of the future -- this Jack Ryan likes to drink (always 3 drinks) the day before a dangerous action, and when leaving a dangerous action (the exfiltration and the attempt on Pope's life). But this Jack Ryan doesn't get roaring drunk when he's needed, like he'll do later as President.
Clancy hits us over the head with reminders of Jack's bravery in the ULA attack on his home covered in _Patriot Games_ -- there are at least twelve different recaps of that attack in this book! And there are at least seven virtually identical bits of dialogue where we're reminded that Jack was knighted for his actions against the ULA, but doesn't like to be called "Sir John." For some reason Clancy repeatedly clobbers us with the cutesy "pshrink" spelling -- at first I thought it was a term for psychiatrists specially trained to work with spies, but no, it's just a cutesy spelling you might find in a pre-teen's diary.
There are some puzzling inconsistencies for someone who CAN (or could) write a good book, as Clancy. If the Russian, Zaitzev, was so concerned about the Pope, why did he insist on waiting until he was brought to the West to reveal that time-critical information? The "Operation Mincemeat" part of the plot served to hide the fact that Zaitzev had defected, but it greatly increased the risk that his escape would be discovered, and stopped, before Zaitzev was safe in the West. It also seems that the specific identity-hiding pre-burning of the discovered bodies could well be obvious to any doctor who examined the bodies of a "KGB employee" and his family. Zaitzev's presence in the West is a crucial secret to be closely held, but Ryan needlessly mentions it to his fellow operatives in Rome as a bit of casual conversational filler.
Clancy does a good job fitting his story around historical facts. The writing isn't up to par with the earlier books, but it's good. The "techno" part is missing, in favor of supposed political analysis, and a bit of tradecraft and gossip. The main distraction, unfortunately, is that we KNOW this Jack Ryan will eventually become a simple-minded jingoistic irresponsible racist President.
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Summary: If you suffer from insomnia...
Review: I have to say, when I saw the book, my hand went to my wallet. Now I wish I had read some reviews first. Very tedious, Mr. Clancy as usual, spends way to much time on detail after detail,instead of getting to the action. Of course in this book there is no action. Each time I picked it up, I was drifting off to sleep by the fifth page. Hey Tom, stop pontificating on your politics in your character's thoughts. Better yet, get new characters, instead of Mr. Clean Marine, who says "love ya babe" every third page! Gentle reader, do yourself a favor, and skip this one, or if you must, borrow it from the library.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of Paper
Review: As many other Clancy fans said before, I should have read others reviews first. However, being a loyal fan of past books, I unknowingly bought it and wasted a long weekend on it. For a 600 page book, the plot was thin and predictable. Unfortunately, some one in Hollywood will try to make a movie out of it and bore us all over again. Clancy fans, DO NOT BY THIS BOOK! It will tarnish anything that he writes in the future. PS - There should be a "No Star" Choice for this book
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