Rating: 
Summary: Created by Clancy, but editor needed!!
Review: 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!
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book
Review: a great book even thought a terribloe ending
gets your blood flowing everywhere. Great book for young adults. Great book for kids like me. Great bookj for you. Great book for your dad. Great book for your mom. Great book for your aunt. Great book for your uncle. Great book for your dog.
Rating:
Summary: A slightly above average Clancy of the month author.
Review: This book had Tom Clancy's name on it. However, it did not have the look or feel of a Clancy novel. The story was marginally developed. The conclusion was not worth reading the book for.
Rating: 
Summary: Horribly Dissapointing
Review: I have read every book Written or inspired by Tom Clancy up to the Power Play's series. I have been horribly dissapointed by this series and specifically with Ruthless.com The plot is underdeveloped and the characters are terribly introduced and explained. It seems as if the authors tried to cram all of the intrigue of a Clancy book into 400 pages, which if you are a true clancy fan you know his usually run into 600-700 pages. If this book were given the attention it needs on the characters and plot then it would be an excelent read. Unfortunately as it stands this book is absolutely pitiful. I had to force myself to finish it by telling myself it would get better in the next chapter. Don't read this.....
Rating:
Summary: Never again will I read a Tom Clancy book.
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: It was OK just OK nothing more
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Lame dot-com thriller
Review: This book centers on a US company's refusal to market its encryption software to the worldwide market. It is written as if the government was OK with that, but these high minded software companies don't want this powerful encryption technology to fall into the hands of EVIL (apparently any non US citizen would be that, but of course there are no bad guys here!). Anyway, this is pretty funny because in reality the government was the one without a clue and was blocking encryption software from being sold outside the US, even though much of it was freely available from many places outside the US already. Another funny bit is the "stock crash" news clipping: the stock fell over $15 down to $45 over a week. Heh, for a tech company that is doing pretty good -- it is still at $45 a share after all :-)
Rating:
Summary: mindless.com
Review: I've liked some of Tom Clancy's previous books such as "The Hunt for Red October", "Patriot Games" and "Clear and Present Danger". For those not familiar with his books, Tom Clancy writes "techno-thrillers", books where a lot of high-tech stuff, mostly military hardware, has a central role. "ruthless.com" is billed as involving computer technology and high drama in the IT business so I was looking forward to enjoying it. Unfortunately, I found it poorly written and totally unrealistic. Furthermore, the leading character comes off as a bit of an idiot and the leading bad guy is very unfairly based on Bill Gates. In other words, I didn't like the book at all. The basic story is about the hero, Roger Gordian and his company, UpLink International, being targeted for a hostile takeover by the nasty Marcus Cain, who runs Monolith Technologies. But big business conflicts aren't exciting enough for a Tom Clancy book (even though Marcus Cain is into all sorts of dirty tricks including murder attempts) so there's a sinister over-plot involving some really nasty Asians who are using Marcus Cain as a pawn in their bid for total world domination. And how do Microsoft-like companies find themselves involved in an international military power struggle? It has something to do with encryption technology... For example, the bad guys break into a privately-run high-security "crypto key repository facility" to steal the encryption keys for a US Navy nuclear submarine's communications links! This is ludicrous, both because modern encryption systems do not use "back-up keys" stored in any kind of "repository" and because the US military would never place such keys, if they did exist, in a privately-run repository. In addition to finding the plot totally unbelievable I also didn't like the two main characters. Roger Gordian is supposed to be the hero but how are you supposed to identify with someone who's so dumb that he thinks that he can keep encryption technology out of the hands of terrorists by refusing to export it from the good ol' USA? The fact that some of the best encryption technology comes from Israel and is based on work done by Russian scientists isn't mentioned in the book. Then there's the plot-line about a hostile takeover attempt to which Gordian has stupidly made his company vulnerable, and his supposedly very clever way of getting out if this problem which basically involves him stopping being quite as stupid as he has previously been. I also found it distasteful that the badies Marcus Cain and his Monolith Technologies are obviously based on Bill Gates and Microsoft. Marcus Cain went to Harvard but dropped out (was expelled), built up a company based on operating systems for computers, stole most of the ideas that his company's software is based on, is into philanthropy (but only as a PR trick), and is willing to do just about anything to crush a competitor. Anyone who knows the Bill Gates and Microsoft story can see the large number of similarities, but with everything distorted and exaggerated. All-in-all a total waste of time. It should have been called "mindless.com".
Rating:
Summary: Fair, Boring at Times, but Interesting
Review: This book is not going to win any awards, but it is interesting to see Gordian and Caine face off and there are a couple of other good things, such as the tense escapist scenes. There were some pretty boring parts, but this book was average.
Rating:
Summary: Cashing In On Clancy's Name!
Review: I bought this book because I thought it was written by Tom Clancy. The people that sold me this book are still laughing at me for buying it. I will be glad when Tom Clancy starts writing his onw books again. Roger Gordian falls termendously short in his role as a hero.The plot for this book is very weak. The evil plot of a corporate takeover nearly takes off but falls short also. This book series has so far been very bad. I wish they(Tom and his ghostwriter) would start writing quality books.I have nearly gotten to the point where I donot buy these books with cowriters. Maybe I will find a book that is really written by Tom Clancy
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