State of Emergency

Rating:
Summary: Pieczenik does what he does best...
Review: To set something straight... Steve is NOT a Tom Clancy whang-bang-action-military-spy-Jack-Ryan writer. If you only like the simple and blant entertainment that offers a Clancy/Pieczenik novel such as the utherly boring OP-Center series, then he is not for you. However, if you are the rare version of a reader who seeks smart, funny and highly inteligent readings, Steve is your buddy for live. His novel traverses in areas most people don't even concider, and subjects joe-six-pack thinks as strange. Drawing heavily on his past, Steve gives us one of his best performances since Pax Pacifica. He writes a lot about politics, gives us his opinions concerning democracy. In many ways SOE is not an adventure novel. It is a sociological and psycological study of what America really is, its values and downsides. Many people get a hard time, foremost the Mormons. But anyone who has a foothold in that area knows how very true his words are. I can only applaud his curage to name these subjects. However, on the downside I want to say that he sometimes submerges himself in long narrations of philosophy and the meaning of democracy at points when another subject is crucial. Example: his heroine floats towards a possible death and starts pondering about what faith really is and what all of his favourite Greek thinkers came up with along the years. I believe Steve's own esprit de finesse should have warned him of such faults. However, in face of such an excellent and well researched book I can only hope that his dreamed-up plot may never come true ... because it just might. And that is his magic. And no, Steve, you have not become a modern-day Cassandra, but rather a modern-day Greek philosopher, Homer or other, and I hope Birdie is well. But would you please replace the picture of you on the last page? It kills your image. {;-)

Rating:
Summary: Unbelievable
Review: To start with I have read many books on many subjects. I have an open mind too. This book is good for the "dime" novel rack, maybe. Bad research, confused heros, unrealistic militarily, and just poor writing and the only surprises tend to let you down. The best part of the book is the introduction. And what a stick in the eye for the Mormons of whom I do not belong. Of my 33 years, this is the second worst book I am ashamed to admit I paid for. CR in Sacramento