Rating: 
Summary: Clancy should take his name off the book.
Review: I "love" Clancy books. The last one by Tom himself was a bit of a downer but overall they have been good reads. I have even enjoyed these side-line issued books written by others with his name on them. I am drawing the line now on the books with the authors now under the second author under Clancy. I have read the first 100 pages so far and had to put this out there so that others could avoid wasting their money. The book is very revisionist and the authors, whoever they are, are prosyletizing the whole time. Examples of this start with the General getting into a debate with his son on the merits of capitalism. They divert into a multi-page .... of why downloading mp3's is stealing and how it hurts capitalism and intellectual property. Thank you but this is supposed to be a good read not a lesson in ethics. In revisionist fashion, 9/11 is backfilled into the backdrop. It has not been mentioned in previous books which all occur after 9/11 but now conveniently it is dropped in the book in the year 2013. 9/11 was bad enough for all Americans without the opportunist authors changing the sequence. It doesn't add anything to the story. The authors then pretend to be current by sticking in Net Force members arriving on Segway's. Please, just tell a story and develop it without having to draw upon extraneous material. I hesitate to read the rest of the book but so far very disappointing. Tom seems to be okay with sullying his name in order to make more money but if it continues I am sure it will backfire.
Rating:
Summary: Waste of Time
Review: I agree with the other reviewers - this is a pretty weak book. It seems to me that this should an 8-10 page short story. There is too much fluff. Examples of where this book is flawed: 1. Extensive discussion of handguns and target practice that does very little to add to or advance the plot.
2. The attempted seduction of Michaels - weak. And the boss of the seductress who would benefit from this doesn't seem to know what she is doing.
3. Does your teenage babysitter just happen to carry his 22 target pistol with him when he comes to take care of your child?
4. What do the random shootings of several police officiers and a biker bar have to do with anything in the story line?
5. As one reviewer mentioned, the ending just reeks. Why would there not be guards to help protect the location? Why can Net Force just wipe out a person who just happens to be involved in a law suit against Net Force and no one seems to care enough to even investigate? Segways accross the desert? I did like Jay's VR stuff even though it is a bit overblown. All in all, I would not waste money on this book. A lame effort by all involved.
Rating:
Summary: Not Very Good
Review: I agree with the other reviewers - this is a pretty weak book. It seems to me that this should an 8-10 page short story. There is too much fluff. Examples of where this book is flawed: 1. Extensive discussion of handguns and target practice that does very little to add to or advance the plot.
2. The attempted seduction of Michaels - weak. And the boss of the seductress who would benefit from this doesn't seem to know what she is doing.
3. Does your teenage babysitter just happen to carry his 22 target pistol with him when he comes to take care of your child?
4. What do the random shootings of several police officiers and a biker bar have to do with anything in the story line?
5. As one reviewer mentioned, the ending just reeks. Why would there not be guards to help protect the location? Why can Net Force just wipe out a person who just happens to be involved in a law suit against Net Force and no one seems to care enough to even investigate? Segways accross the desert? I did like Jay's VR stuff even though it is a bit overblown. All in all, I would not waste money on this book. A lame effort by all involved.
Rating:
Summary: Can anyone just stop this???
Review: I do have similar view several Net Force books back but this one really wins it - and makes me write this. Could anyone tell the authors not to continue as they seem to forever??? A plot which is less than void of anything of action, predictable heroes with hobbies that the authors never seem to be bothered to recapitulate at least three times within one book, and if, being totally used they disappear simply to be replaced by new ones who happily continue the same path... One really wonders if Mr. Clancy needs to put his name on the cover of these books. Awwwful.
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best, but a fast read
Review: I have to agree that this book does not live up to the expectations of anything associated with Tom Clancy. The book was a fast read for me. I agree a lot of the computer stuff is fantasy at best, with a little too much Virtual Reality [...] involved.The entire book would probably take only 30 minutes in a film. If you like the Net Force series, you will probably like this one too, but if you are a Tom Clancy fan and have never read this series, be warned that it is not written by Clancy, and that is quite eveident.
Rating:
Summary: Categorically the worst novel of the series ...
Review: I picked up STATE OF WAR today and read it in an evening, but that shouldn't be taken as a sign that the book was well-written. The last book, CYBERNATION, was released in November 2001, so the bulk of it was no doubt written before the World Trade Center attacks. That makes this book the first in the 'Net Force' series to be written after the September 11 attacks. Unfortunately, the authors chose to attempt to integrate the events of 2001 into this future they had been portraying, and they did so without even the slightest modicum of skill: the references were incredibly hamhanded and extremely clumsy, and came across with all the subtlety and grace of a sledgehammer hitting a watermelon. This, to me, was the worst of the novel's flaws, but it is hardly its only one. Tyrone's sudden miraculous superhuman sharpshooting ability was comically unbelievable because it had no foundation built for it in any prior novel -- worse, it came across as the cliched 'boy genius saves the day' syndrome made so hated by Wesley Crusher and Macaulay Culkin. None of the main characters (Alex, Toni, Jay, Howard) experience any significant personal growth or character development, and many beloved secondary characters are entirely absent. And many of the novel's substories and plot threads were not only uninteresting, but are left sloppily unresolved. What was the argument Tyrone could not think of? Whatever happened to Joan? I'm fond of the series' characters after having watched them grow and live their lives throughout six other novels, so I may still pick up whatever novel is written next, mostly out of blind hope that future novels won't be as awful as this one was. But it hurt to see the characters be such pale imitations of their former selves. Comparing the 'Net Force' of STATE OF WAR to the 'Net Force' of its predecessors is like comparing a romantic comedy to the kind of movie you'd pick up in the back of your video store -- the ones they keep behind the red curtain. A huge, huge disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Categorically the worst novel of the series ...
Review: I picked up STATE OF WAR today and read it in an evening, but that shouldn't be taken as a sign that the book was well-written. The last book, CYBERNATION, was released in November 2001, so the bulk of it was no doubt written before the World Trade Center attacks. That makes this book the first in the 'Net Force' series to be written after the September 11 attacks. Unfortunately, the authors chose to attempt to integrate the events of 2001 into this future they had been portraying, and they did so without even the slightest modicum of skill: the references were incredibly hamhanded and extremely clumsy, and came across with all the subtlety and grace of a sledgehammer hitting a watermelon. This, to me, was the worst of the novel's flaws, but it is hardly its only one. Tyrone's sudden miraculous superhuman sharpshooting ability was comically unbelievable because it had no foundation built for it in any prior novel -- worse, it came across as the cliched 'boy genius saves the day' syndrome made so hated by Wesley Crusher and Macaulay Culkin. None of the main characters (Alex, Toni, Jay, Howard) experience any significant personal growth or character development, and many beloved secondary characters are entirely absent. And many of the novel's substories and plot threads were not only uninteresting, but are left sloppily unresolved. What was the argument Tyrone could not think of? Whatever happened to Joan? I'm fond of the series' characters after having watched them grow and live their lives throughout six other novels, so I may still pick up whatever novel is written next, mostly out of blind hope that future novels won't be as awful as this one was. But it hurt to see the characters be such pale imitations of their former selves. Comparing the 'Net Force' of STATE OF WAR to the 'Net Force' of its predecessors is like comparing a romantic comedy to the kind of movie you'd pick up in the back of your video store -- the ones they keep behind the red curtain. A huge, huge disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: Mediocre, Not as Good as the Other Net Force Books
Review: Like most of the other Net Force junkies, I've been waiting for quite a while for the next installment. Sadly, I was dissappointed. The authors seem to have phoned it in, the characters and plot are very cookie-cutterish and predictable. It seemed shorter than the other books, and ended precipitously. The "big ending shootout" was a bit odd, they never came up for a justification for doing it, and yet we're to believe they could mount a multi-million dollar manhunt on no one's authority, just 'cause they think he's a bad guy. And speaking of bad guys, the villains in this book are oh so lame and unbelievable. So they do this impossible mission, nobody gets questioned or punished, and then everybody retires. End of story. Definitely dissappointing. We don't even get to see Toni kick anybody's backside this time. It seems the steady decline in quality of these books may be heralding its end. But if they're all as half-baked as this last one, that's ok with me.
Rating: 
Summary: The first Tom Clancy I read was not a good one!
Review: My wife picked this up for me - she thought I might enjoy Tom Clancy. In fact I do - but this isn't really Tom Clancy at all and, in fact, I'm embarrassed for him. The good news: It's an easy and almost fun read. The bad news: The writing is absolutely dreadful. I mean really really bad. I will give some other Net Force books a chance some time. The premise is interesting and there are supposed to be some good books in the series out there. This, unfortunately, is not one of them!
Rating:
Summary: Waste of Time
Review: Net Force - State of War is a total waste of the reader's time. Mr. Clancy should be embarrassed to have his name associated with it. The writers try to spin a high tech thriller, but have no mastery of either their subject or the techno thriller style. --- A total waste of paper and money.
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