Rating: Summary: Awesome Read Review: This book's awesome, As we have come to expect from Clancy. It showcases the perturbed world in which we live in now. The only reason, i have given 4 stars for this book is because the real action is at the end(When the STRIKER team take on the mission to eliminate General Amadori) but it is well worth the wait.
Rating: Summary: This book put me to sleep!!! Review: This has perhaps been the worst book I have ever read in my life. I truly lost respect for Tom.
Rating: Summary: It is fiction and it is rather silly. Review: This is fiction. I know it quite well, because I am Spanish and live in Spain, a couple of miles away from the Royal Palace where Clancy's wicked General is getting ready to start a civil war. We are very fortunate the Americans will not tolerate it this time (they did when it really happened, 60 years ago, but...). Anyway, okay, this is fiction, this is a novel, no harm intended. But the least you can do when you locate your fiction in a real country, where real people live, is learning a little about it and them. From this point of view, Mr. Clancy's Ghost Writer's book is simply ridiculous. I do not mean a civil war could not happen in Spain. It could happen in the USA, or France, or any other country in the world--especially within a fictitious scenario, where the writer is in control of the necessary catastrophes--. But, frankly, "Balance of Power" depicts a country that does not exist in any of its details. It would have been a much more honest book if the author had set the action in the usual "imaginary country." Now, how do you counterbalance the negative effect on the image of Spain this book --which will sell by the millions in the whole world-- will generate? What when they make the film? Really, I do not want to approach this issue as if it was a serious one. It is not. It is just ludicrous. I just wish Mr. Clancy had never had this ten-minute talk about Spain he most probably had with somebody from Gods knows where who spent his or her Summer holidays in Spain in 1939. Sorry, not a reliable source of information. A very silly book.
Rating: Summary: Disjointed Stinker -- Gets a 9 on the Sominex scale Review: This is my last Op-Center purchase. They have slid downhill since the first, and Balance of Power is by far the worst technothriller I've ever attempted to read. The cast is large and hard to follow since there appear to be numerous political groups at work to bring down the Spanish government. For all of that, there is the infuriating trademark conference between Op-Center regulars that drones on and on trying to set up and explain the plot and the political premise and background. These conference meetings between protagonist Paul Hood and his staff have a very strong preachy tone about them of which (I infer) it seems the authors wish the reader to become aware of these horrible socio-political injustices that make up the plot, as if they exist. I stopped trying to fathom this book on page 269 and literally threw it away.
Rating: Summary: Again, an evidence of american people ignorance Review: This kind of histories into the mind of american peolpe are dangerouses. Only serves to increase lack of culture about other countries and that is very sad. I don't understand you, Mr. Clancy what is your porpouse whith this garbage. Advice: you should travel little more.
Rating: Summary: AWESOME! Review: This was my first Op-Center book to read. It was incredible. I'm going to have to read the previous books in the series. Can't wait for the sixth book.
Rating: Summary: Not To Bad Review: Usual fare for the clancy buff. Too much action concentrated at the end. I wasn't convinced that the USA has that critical of an interest in Spain to send in a "black" op.
Rating: Summary: A confusing scenery, changing the terms of the reality. Review: Very Briefly: As a Spaniard, I think the author has confused the terms of the conflict in Spain. So, the references to Catalans probably must be changed for example to Californians (very rich and self-sufficient), and to Basque people to any other State of the United States. In other words, Mr. Clancy ignores the reality concerning cultures in Spain, and only could be excused so that he introduces this book as a good exercise of fiction and negative sense to the real panorama in the world.Notwithstanding, I am a full supporter of this author, and it means that I estimate no fault in his work so the controversy between Catalans and the rest of Spain is in force now promoted by some politicians in our country.
Rating: Summary: Although quite innacurate, it is also foretelling. Review: When I was reading this book, I was having fun. Despite showing innacurate information about Spain and its people, Clancy succeed in taking the basic roots of the current situation in Spain and modified the facts to imagine what could happen in a near future. Readers shouldn't take into account the classification of people in "ethnic groups" and the existence of "famÃlias" and some other things -- these are unreal. However, this book is fiction, and it has to be taken like this. The Spaniards who are attacking the book and the author seem to forget this fact, and also that all these things could really happen if there is no desire of tolerance between Castilians and Catalans/Basques right now. Here is where the author was wise, and it is owing to this fact that the book seems more realistic to me than to my Spanish fellows. Worth reading.
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