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Shadow Watch

Shadow Watch

List Price: $23.50
Your Price: $23.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Another Clancy Rip-off
Review: I bought the Abridged CD version. There were no tracks on the CD. Therefore, if you stopped listening, you would have to search the entire CD to determine where you left off. A 70 minute disk needs several breaks.

The story was abridged. Whoever did the production should look for another job. The first third of the novel was almost impossible to comprehend. I read/listen to approximately 5 books per week. This one was one of the worst editing jobs I have come across.

The story itself was a major reach. There was little or no character development.

I will not waste my time on any more series inspired books by Clancy.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Another Clancy Rip-off
Review: I bought the Abridged CD version. There were no tracks on the CD. Therefore, if you stopped listening, you would have to search the entire CD to determine where you left off. A 70 minute disk needs several breaks.

The story was abridged. Whoever did the production should look for another job. The first third of the novel was almost impossible to comprehend. I read/listen to approximately 5 books per week. This one was one of the worst editing jobs I have come across.

The story itself was a major reach. There was little or no character development.

I will not waste my time on any more series inspired books by Clancy.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Worst Clancy book I have ever read!
Review: I have read all of Tom Clancy's books including his Op-Center, Net Force and now Power Plays series and this is the worst that Tom has ever put his name on. It was boring, full of filler, such as the dream sequences and the useless information about the people on the train wreck, drawn out to no avail, because they all died a few pages later anyway. I always felt that the Power Plays series was the weakest of the group and this book proves it. I will not read another!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Read it!
Review: I have to wonder if some of the other customer reviewers read the same book I did. For example, Chase Cole from Melbourne, Fla, states that we never really learn how or why the shuttle explosion in Chapter 1 occurs. Yet both questions are answered quite explicitly in the story, and more than once at that. He nitpicks about a single engine Beech Bonanza being unable to transport a significant amount of illicit narcotics, presumably unaware that the Beech can ordinarily carry close to one thousand pounds of cargo and be optimized for even greater loads. He also complains that the dream sequences serve no purpose and suggests they ought to be skipped. Well, by my reading they a)provide defining insights into the psychological motivations of Annie Caulfield, a major character who is clearly to become a member of the regular series "cast", b) reveal crucial information about her history and the internal and external obstacles she must overcome over the course of the novel, and most importantly c) develop the plot by setting up the very climactic scenes in which we, through Annie, discover "how and why" the shuttle exploded. But hold on, the page-skipping Mr. Cole isn't yet finished! He also complains about the villains "walking", seemingly being too obtuse (or pretending to be anyway) to grasp what should be obvious to anyone. Namely: we're being set up for a sequel, folks! This is a smart, crackling thriller. Don't let the nasties and kvetches steer you wrong.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Lousy, Beyond a shadow of a doubt
Review: I was extremely disappointed with this poorly-written Tom Clancy 'collaboration' novel. I've read 3 superb novels by Tom Clancy, and Shadow Watch differed so greatly from them in terms of content and readability that I have to wonder whether Tom actually contributed to this novel at all!

Structurally, the writing was clumsy and obtuse, the plot was stale, and character development virtually non-existent or cliched. I had to force myself to read the novel past the second chapter.

My advise: Don't waste your time reading this book.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Nada to write home about
Review: Pretty weak effort here, as Clancy puts his imprimatur on another "Clancy-less" novel. A few techno insights, as always, but the tepid plot and exceedingly weak ending preclude any real enjoyment. Moreover, the MSRP of $7.99 is massively chutzpah-laden!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: come back Jack...
Review: Remember Tom Clancy, the author of pretty good thrillers like The Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games? They were exciting reads, were made into good movies and starred Jack Ryan, a rock-jawed and resourceful defender of truth, justice and the American Way. Come back Jack - and come back Clancy. This book is like a lot of other recent Clancy output: bland technobabble and military nonsense that reads as though it has been chucked in a writing blender and reheated in a literary microwave, and not a patch on, say, Clear and Present Danger. The plot: it's 2001, and a Bond-style villain is set on messing up an international space station and wreaking havoc on the US. The characters mouth acronyms as locations shift from the US to Asia to South America, but you'd read more convincing action in a car-repair manual. Clancy is now a franchise, really: the cover of Shadow Watch says it was 'created' by him and another author - and it's based on a computer game. Clancy is spread too thin these days to be able to write effectively.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Interesting, but needs work
Review: Shadow Watch (ISBN 0-425-17188-4) by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg is a descent book, but needs more development. This is the only book in the Power Plays series that I have read, but I have read other Tom Clancy books. I found the story hard to start, but once I got past the opening paragraphs the story was okay. The characters, particularly Annie Caulfield, need a little more fleshing out. The overall plot is plausible, but there are some holes that are not typical of Tom Clancy's style. Overall a good book for reading, if there is nothing else available.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The poorest collaboration yet
Review: Shadow Watch is poorly written, pointlessly rambles, inaccurate, fails to resolve the situations opened by the author(s).

I find it hard to believe that Tom Clancy read, much less collaborated on this work. I have read and enjoyed all of his fiction and most of the collaborations and, in my opinion, this is the worst.

A shuttle explodes on the launch pad. We never really know why or how. There are several dream sequences in the book which have no point I could find. Fortunately, these are italicized and are easy to skip. The cocaine carried on three flatbed trucks is loaded into a Beechcraft Bonanza, a single engine light plane. At the end, the villain, thwarted, simply walks away. He may be seen in a later book but I will never know.

The last line of the acknowledgments reads "But most important, it is for you, my readers, to determine how successful our collective endeavour has been." For this reader, the endeavour was not successful at all.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: It got 2 stars for 1/5 of it's pages.
Review: Start reading it only if you get it for free! Read the first 60 pages and ask someone to tell one what else happenes. It will take him around 1.2 seconds to do so. It's not worth 200+ pages.


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