Tom Clancy's Power Plays : Politika

Rating:
Summary: Solid story line and consistent action!
Review: The book started off rather slow at first, but picked up the pace towards the middle. I especially liked the Time Square part! That was extremely exciting. This is the first book that I have read from Tom Clancy. It seems to be a solid novel. With a very good ending. Although the ending was predictable, it was good. This is definitely something that could happen in the real world. I would recommend this book to others to read. The beginning requires some patience, but it is worth it. I am expecting bigger and better things as I head on to the Jack Ryan books by Clancy!

Rating:
Summary: Mind Candy Reading, to coin a phrase!
Review: Overall, this spin-off has a lot good about it, and I enjoyed reading it. I also own the computer game, which is taking me a while to figure out, but I'll get there! Anyway, the story is a good one. Yeltsin dies, and a massive famine hits Russia. Desperate Russian communist sympathisers bomb Millennium celebrations in NYC(this bit is brilliantly portrayed, hence a 3 star rating) and Roger Gordian, a millionnaire with a crisis-hit marriage(work, work, work) sends his private mercenaries armed with an assortment of high-tech gadgets into Russia to locate the perpetrators. The action scenes are undeniably entertaining, but the narrative is very poor in many places. Did we really need the policeman's graphic self-pity dragging on about his dead wife? That bit was so incredibly cliched and nicked from OP-CENTER(re: Gregory Donald) An unnecessary subplot distracting the readers from the real players(Gordian's private army and the Russians.) For instance, there are way too many references to TV, movies, actors and personalities to suggest a plotline or character study to a reader. As a reader and an aspiring writer myself, I've learned the hard way myself about this folly(thankyou to various critics and agents for pointing me in the right direction, wannabe writers take note!), it does not work. But Clancy can get away with anything, so it seems. Anyway, I'm glad this book came free with the game because I would not waste money on it. Ah well, I'm going to go back to reading Michael diMercurio, Dale Brown, and Stephen Coonts, to name but a few, REAL authors with PROPER storylines! Politika is a good time-filler, if one wishes, but the narrative is MIND CANDY.

Rating:
Summary: Average - for Clancy that is...
Review: I'm a great admirer of Clancy's work but this is one of the rare occassions that he has not lived upto my expectations. It is also my first book in the "Power-Plays" series. I liked the way he prepared the plot upto the explosion but the story seem to lack "punch" after that. Still it is not that bad.

Rating:
Summary: Average - for Clancy that is...
Review: I'm a great admirer of Clancy's work but this is one of the rare occassions that he has not lived upto my expectations. It is also my first book in the "Power-Plays" series. I liked the way he prepared the plot upto the explosion but the story seem to lack "punch" after that. Still it is not that bad.

Rating:
Summary: A good yarn, but too many errors
Review: //From an unacknowleged letter to the publisher about the paperback edition// Page Erratum Comment 18 Bashkir...Far Eastern I think you mean "Siberian"; the Bashkirs are not in the Far East. If "Bashkir" is not an ethnic Bashkir, why does he have this name? (There is a famous pianist with the name Bashkirov) 30 Romual Perhaps you mean the Polish first name Romual'd (the apostrophe indicating the Russian soft sign, that being how the name is spelled in Russian) 43 Bishir yetso Neither I nor another experienced Russian linguist have any idea what this means. 62 vor v. zakone The period is not necessary (it's not a middle name!); rather than "godfather", such a person is more like the Mafia "made man" or, simply, "professional (as opposed to petty) thief", who subscribes to a code. See "Soviet Prison Camp Speech", by Meyer Galler, based largely on Solzhenitsyn's early works, for an excellent reference on this subject 110 Republican convention ?the previous summer"; in 1998? 181 Gorbachev He wasn't president in 1992 235 MIDI MIDI is a digital protocol governing the transmission of musical data between sound modules/synthesizers and computers or other sound modules/ synthesizers 261 Zgranitsa etc. Za granitsa (SIC) is a prepositional expression; no native Russian speaker would use it as the subject of a sentence like an English speaker might. 337 Mercedes Wold a rabid Russian nationalist/ Communist be seen in one of these? Bad image. . 343 Komerade ??? You mean "tovarishch"? "Komerad" is what German soldiers traditionally say when about to surrender 364 IL-76 This is a cargo plane, not a passenger plane. Although it is used to carry paratroopers, they don't sit in "passenger seats" any more than US airborne units do.

Rating:
Summary: Too many mistakes.
Review: It's not absolutely bad (I put 2 stars!), but boring enough. Advice: if you are writing a book about something (for example, Russia), it's good idea to get acquainted with your subject a little.

Rating:
Summary: Clancy's Politika
Review: I would recommend this book to anyone out there who doesn't currently know a great deal about strategic and corporate warfare in the 21st century. The book is a rather grand book for those who haven't read a Tom Clancy book before; I feel it is a great introduction into Tom Clancy's style. The plot of the book is not overly complex while still offering enough complexity for those who have already ventured into the depths of Clancy-ness. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a Tom Clancy book.

Rating:
Summary: Utter dross
Review: This book is a disgrace to the Clancy name and really is throwaway tripe. The wafer-thin plot, which could have been written by any schoolkid in a creative writing lesson, leaves a lot to be desired; and is in no way a geopolitical "powerplay" as the title suggests, and although the concept of a terrorist destabilising governments is not new, a real Clancy book would give it a twist, have detailed brinkmanship, deals, bluff and blackmail; this book misses out huge chunks of the process and is worse as a result. The characters are not developed particularly well, and the main hero is entirely unbelievable, as is his private army and desire to meddle incessantly with world affairs. His crack team's superiority to the whole of the American intelligence aparatus is suspect, but their ability to be able to take out any number of armed bad guys using only stun guns and without harming them at all is totally uncovincing. The various climatic battle scenes take only a few pages, and are very badly written, with very rapid and unconvincing resolutions as soon as the goodies arrive. The book is at least, short; though if the politics, battle and detective story were better written it could expand and be better as a result. The only good bit is the mass destruction of the terrorist attack, but, thinking about it, it is precisely the kind of attack which couldn't realistically happen.
In summary then; this is nothing like a good Clancy book. It is terrible, and as long journey fodder is only marginally preferable to staring at the seat in front. Read any proper Clancy book, or a proper thriller; not this feeble attempt at imitation of the master.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book!!!
Review: I have read this book and have enjoyed it thoroughly. It is a bombing event in Times Square on the millenium new year's eve party. I liked this book because of the vivid thoughts and graphics described in the book. All the people in the book wanted revenge. This was a very interesting and entertaining book!!!

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read!
Review: The sudden death of Russia's president has thrown the Russian federation into chaos. If you've read any other books from the Power Plays series this would be a good one. Besides being a good book, it jumps around a lot from place to place, but it all falls together. My opinion is that Politika is "a must read", and after reading it I would read more from this series of Tom Clancy books.