Rating:  Summary: Red Rabbit - a trip back in time Review: With Red Rabbit, Clancy takes characters that his readers have come to know well over the course of his books and puts them back far earlier in their careers. Jack Ryan is just recently with the CIA and has been posted in London (where he is known as Sir John following the events chronicled in Patriot Games). Ed and Mary Pat Foley have just been posted to Moscow where Ed Foley is the station chief for the CIA station in Moscow. Ronald Reagan, although not mentioned by name, is President and the US is deep in the Cold War with the Soviet Union. With that as the backdrop, Clancy spins an interesting tale of intrique, spycraft, human emotion and motivation, and ideological differences. Although a bit predictable and too often repetitive, the story itself still moves along nicely -- following the characters as they settle into their new environments and are thrust into a major geo-political, time-dependent situation that must be dealt with sooner than expected. All in all, while clearly not Clancy's best, Red Rabbit is good enough to warrant your time.
Rating:  Summary: Good Read , At Least On Par with Other Clancy. Review: This book was at least on par with the rest of the clancy series if not better. The look into Soviet life and the feelings of the defector is really interesting. As well as the portrayal of the attempt on the Pope. Good book , i deffinetly recommend it. As good as Cardinal and in a similar style.
Rating:  Summary: "Red Rabbit" is a waste of money! Review: Unfortunately, Mr. Clancy has been regressing for some books now. He should have continued to write techno-thrillers. Once he started to believe he knew enough about politics to write a political thriller he was sunk. Submarines are one thing, running governments are another. One is cut and dried and the other is nuanced, complex and multifaceted and Mr. Clancy hasn't figured out which is which. Red Rabbit is ponderous at best, being full of paragraph after paragraph of the author's rigid and uninformed political views. He also doesn't seem to have spent much time talking to enough real field level spies to understand the very basics of field craft. Why would a CIA Station Chief take the word of his "red rabbit" without at least getting some sample of what the guy was selling before getting him out of the country? Any Le Carre or Deighton fan would know that would never be done. And the debriefing sequences were laughable. You would think that British Intelligence had never debriefed a defector before this event. If they really had such an ad hoc process they would have been out of the business long ago.The dialogue is turgid and sophmoric at best. It appears that Mr. Clancy whipped this little offering out in short order. One wonders where his editor was. This is about the worst thing I've read in a long time. I was willing to give Mr. Clancy one more chance but this is it. He hasn't had it for a long time now, and Red Rabbit proves it. A waste of money!
Rating:  Summary: Far From Clancy's Best Review: As someone who has read all of Clancy's novels to date, this was the poorest by far. It was carelessly edited so there are many typos and some scenes where military personnel are called by several different ranks with a few paragraphs. The plot is listless and unsurprising. Most distressing by far are the bizarre antics of Jack Ryan in this book. This is not the Jack Ryan of old - this one uses harsh and vulgar language freely - even with his daughter! He comes across as a very unlikable character. I was really looking forward to this book so I'm very disappointed. Mr. Clancy has shown he can do much, much better!
Rating:  Summary: Book by Committee Review: This is about as far as Clancy can take us from his early works filled with well-researched technicalities of military hardware and action filled pages. This is a major disappointment. It seems pretty clear that he has used a staff of writers and simply lent his name to the collective product. Way too much sophomoric philosophy and far too little of the old Clancy. Next time I'll wait for the paperback. Hardcover prices are too high for this effort.
Rating:  Summary: Red Rabbit Review: Red Rabbit written by Tom Clancy is a book about an assination attempt on the Pope and is set in "Clancyland" circa 1980's as the hero Jack Ryan is younger in this book. Set in reference as after "Patriot Games" and before "The Hunt for Red October" we see a more crisp Jack Ryan. Nevertheless, reading this book you get a sever case of what Yogi Berra said, "deja vu all over again." I know, you need reference points to make the book work, but Clancy's word processor must be stuck in repeat mode as you read over and over again the same thing. I thought that maybe, just maybe, I was suffering from paramnesia, but I'm not alone in feeling this way, as others have expressed the same feeling. Oh, the book is a fast read as you can skip nearly a third of the reading and still feel you know the story. I really expected more than what I got... no wonder it sold for fifty percent off the list price. This is not a techno-thriller with wham-bam technology gadgets. The action is not as apparent in this book, but Clancy's jingoistic style comes through as thick and heavy as syrup. This is a very predictable action-lacking Clancy novel. If you collect Clancy novels or are a diehard Clancy fan you would like this book, others, get it at a yard sale or library. And, yes you'll find that it takes a while to digest this book as it is a "tweener." A few authors can pull it off, but Clancy has fallen short with "Red Rabbit." I must give this four stars as the story was good and above average, but is it just me or is Clancy getting a little trite.
Rating:  Summary: Poor Rabbit Review: The first thing I did when I saw the book was turn to the end to see how many pages there were. After suffering through "The Bear and the Dragon", I did not to read a lot of nonsense fluff. 600 odd pages seemed to be in order for a decent read but was that ever disappointing. 5 pages into the story, I placed the book aside for several hours before resuming. I could barely manage to read for 2 to 3 hours at a time because of boring mundane trite. I bought the book on the 8th and did not finish until the 14th. Normally a good book is an all night read and is an only put down to feed the animals. If you want to read a good Clancy book, read "Without Remorse"! If you want to read a really bad Clancy book, then read "Red Storm Rising" or "The Bear and the Dragon". "Red Rabbit" comes some where in the line with these last two. If you are a die-hard Clancy fan and want to read the book, go to the library and don't waste your money buying it!
Rating:  Summary: Continuing Clancy's trend of phoned-in efforts Review: I have read all of Clancy's books, and I generally like the political minutiae and encyclopedic set-ups. What I liked the most about Clancy's work was that the characters seemed to have real challenges to overcome, and not everything when the good guys' way. This gut-wrenching tension has been missing in every novel since Rainbow Six. Everything in the book gets off without a hitch. The characters never seem to be in danger at any time, and that seriously limits the enjoyment of the story. Many of the passages seem to repeat themselves over and over again. There seems to be almost 150 pages of Ryan and his new cohorts telling each other that the Russians are predictable and that they can't surmise what's going on. There are another 75 pages of meeting between Ritter, Greer, and Judge Moore saying mostly the same things. Seems to be mostly a half-cocked effort on Clancy's part. Maybe the creativity is gone.
Rating:  Summary: New editor needed... Review: This book was disappointing, at best. Clancy needs new editors or he needs to listen to them better. How many times do we need to be subjected to the same lawyer joke, or Stalin's thoughts about the Pope's divisions, or that spycraft is easier than cutting eyeballs, etc.? The repetition became a distraction as I was reading the book - I kept saying to myself "why did he mention this again?". Either the editors don't have the guts to trim Clancy's books, or he feels he too great of an author to need an editor, or listen to one. A weak effort, with little suspense.
Rating:  Summary: Just Going Through the Paces Review: Tom Clancy has apparently spent too much time reading his prior reviews and not enough time developing any new novel over the past several years. This book is anytghing but a page turner. Slow, plodding with minimal excitment. Very little in the way of plot development. No excitment, no surprises. After first hundred pages entire oucome predictable. I actually blame his editors and publishers for allowing such a piece of junk to be published.
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