Rating: Summary: Not up to Clancy's Standard Review: Having been a great fan of Tom Clancy's book series, I found this latest offering extremely disappointing. Indeed, I had problems keeping interested to the end. A real lightweight, obviously rushed together yarn, apparently done in an attempt to cash in on the current real concerns about islamic terrorists. The characters are not well-developed and somewhat unbelievable, and the ending leaves you hanging - obviously set up for a sequel, which I for one will not be anxiously awaiting. This is certainly not up to Tom Clancy's past standards - are they a thing of the past?
Rating: Summary: Pitiful Review: Boring, boring, boring. The plot is thin and predictable. The characterizations are so shallow it's pitiful, and my 22 year old son could write better dialog. I'm not sure what the point of the book was. It feels like Clancy wrote this book in a week. I have loved his Jack Ryan series, but you can't compare this poor book to anything he's written before. I won't be buying hardbacks anymore, and maybe not even paperbacks. This is truly an awful book.
Rating: Summary: It was OK. ... Review: If this was a stand alone book it would have been ok. As part of the Jack Ryan Series, it missed the mark. I actually liked Red Rabbit better. Red Rabbit was not a great story, but at least you got some history of the characters you've been reading about in other stories. In this book, NOTHING. ...
Rating: Summary: Half length, half story, half quality -- full price Review: You're gonna want to avoid this one. I won't belabor the point, but here are a couple things you should know: First of all, at 431 pages, it's the shortest Clancy ever, and less than half as long as some of the good ones. Second, it's HALF A STORY. Without spoiling things, there is no resolution at the end of the book. It ends mid-story, speculating on things that are going to happen next. I'd call it a cliffhanger, but it's not exciting enough to justify use of the term. Third, it's not that good. It's hard to believe the same person wrote this as wrote earlier books. The reviewer who complained about too many astonishing coicidences is exactly right. The writing is clunky, and "Clancy" uses the same metaphors and imagery over, and over, and over again. I think Clancy fans ought to be content with the Jack Ryan (Sr.) and John Clark series. They were great. This new stuff is terrible.
Rating: Summary: Pretty disappointing Review: Can Tom Clancy please ditch the moralising and political statements- all I ask from him is an exciing read! Things have gone downhill steadily since Executive Orders.
Rating: Summary: BA HUMBUG Review: I found this latest in the Ryan series to be totally out of character and off in left field from the Ryan's in previous book. Picturing Jack Ryan authorizing and supporting a venture such as is put forth in the book is so far out of character as to be laughable. This book has put Tom Clancy on my scan before buy list, no more mail orders, have to check before buying. This is from a previously die hard fan, first edition hard bounds of everything in fiction starting with Hunt for Red October.
Rating: Summary: This is bad! Review: If you were expecting anything like his past novels, don't buy this. If you wanted anything like Rainbow Six or anything else with Clark, then DON'T buy this. I'm sorry but this was so bad and predictable I only finished it out of sheer determination and curiosity. Plus I had nothing better to do. So to sum it up I was disipointed and sorry that I got it. If you want good action then read anything from Debt of Horor or before.
Rating: Summary: Tom drops the ball Review: I've been a big fan of Mister Clancy's work ever since I had six hours to kill on a long haul flight to Singapore. He writes a ripping yarn in bite-sized chunks and manipulates his structure so that you can't pre-guess him. You've got to just sit back and give him the reigns. Add to that his ability to write a nail biting action sequence and you've got the perfect low attention span, put down/pick up novel. Sure he can get a bit right wing at times but you forgive him his politics for the sake of his story-telling abilities. But he's getting a bit lazy. "The Bear and The Dragon" was a little bit fluffy and "The Teeth of the Tiger" is worse. Clancy once again shows his genius with an action scene, his depth of research (he might be making it up, but who'd know?) and his great affection for his good-guy characters but this book is probably one draft short of Clancy's usually high standards. "The Teeth of the Tiger" follows Jack Ryan's twenty-something son, Jack Jr. through what feels like act one of a "let's get these terrorist bastards" adventure. In typical Clancy form, the book collects and discards other protagonists along the way, but "The Teeth of the Tiger" is Clancy breathing new life into the Jack Ryan franchise by handing the mantle over to Jack's son. It reads as Clancy's intial response to 9/11 and the book's blue cover, red lining and white pages leave you in no doubt about where Clancy stands on the matter. It's a bit disturbing that this response includes a beyond-the-reach-of-the-law covert assassination unit made up of the offspring of the U.S. aristocracy that the elected representatives of the American people have no idea about which is supported by the upper echelons of the FBI and armed forces. But that's Tom Clancy for you. If this was his creative writing report, I'd put "can do better" with the following notes: 1. Characters are revealed to be truly bad guys by giving them questionable sexual tastes or making them minor hypocrites. Too easy, Tom. You're a better writer than that. 2. It's really odd that the son of an ex-president of the U.S. can invisibly cross continents to help out an assassination attempt. There's a way around this one, Tom. Find it. 3. The amount of overt product placement starts to stick in the craw after a while. We paid good money for the book, Tom, we don't need the ads. 4. There's quite a few internal monologue repetitions. One is great for revelatory effect, but when we read "how's dad going to react to this" for the fifth time it's time to let the sub-editor do their job. 5. Read Janet Turner Hospital's response to 9/11, "Due Preparations for the Plague". It still has the muslim bad guys. It still has the covert government group. It still has the strong writing behind it. But she's done the work, Tom. I assume there's a part two and part three of this adventure coming out because none of the big issues brought up in the book were resolved. So do that extra draft Mister Clancy, or I won't read the book until my library buys it. Or at least until the soft back comes out.
Rating: Summary: Lighter on high-tech, but still a satisfying read Review: I've read other reviews on Amazon for this book, a number of which are basically, "How the mighty have fallen!". I think that's a bit unfair. Sure, there're a couple of issues I take: Tom, "Been there, done that, bought the t-shirt" and "Hang a big roger on that, bro" - LOSE those phrases! (Jeez, parTICularly the latter! Frankly, it's just plain cheesy!) You've been there, done that . . . well, you know. Further, it's a bit of a stretch to believe that guys in their mid-20's are going to compare driving sports cars against sleeping with Grace Kelly & Maureen O'Hara - Julia Roberts & Kate Hudson, maybe. And to have Brian hold the John Wayne flick "Hondo" as his all-time favorite? Time to update the wardrobe, Tom . . . Having said all that, I found it a very satisfying read. In fairness to Clancy, he IS trying to introduce a new set of characters. He's also (apparently) trying to trim down the global-reaching, high-tech toys he's used for years. Certainly, I've always enjoyed those novels, but I think he's trying to head in a different direction here. In fairness, the days of the "big Red menace" of Russia, with it's conventional forces, are over; now we have terrorists playing in the shadows, clandestinely killing innocent women & children & thinking themselves heroes because of it. To use a well-worn phrase, the rules of the game have changed, so I think Clancy is trying to stay up with the times. I knocked this book out in about 2 days. I'd recommend it as a really good read, with an interesting start on some new characters. Hey, when "Hunt for Red October" came out, who the hell was this Jack Ryan guy, anyway? And did anybody think he'd be fleshed out in future books? Stay tuned . . .
Rating: Summary: The tiger takes a bite. Review: Well, Tom hits another home run. After the weak Red Rabbit, Teeth of the Tiger is a welcomed relief. Many of my friends and fellow Jack Ryan fans were perplexed when Clancy made Jack senior the President. As we all know, acting and former Presidents don't go around stealing Russian submarines, fighting wacko IRA guys, or dealing with Colombian drug lords. His initial answer was to turn the clock back, and that's were Red Rabbit came from. But, as we all know, too much water had been under the bridge. We knew too many facts about Jack. Adding new adventures to the stack just wasn't going to work. His answer....bring on a new generation. So....Jack Ryan Jr. makes his appearance, and not just Jack. No, no. Two other family members...cousins join the fray this time. In Teeth of the Tiger, the Hendley Associates is a front, a privately funded group of vigilantes, that takes out threats to America before those threats can come to the front. They act when others can't or won't. And they're recruiting new talent. The new threat in Teeth of the Tiger involves a union of Islamic extremists and South American drug lords. Their mutual hatred of the United States makes them strange bed fellows indeed. Nuff said here. Suffice it to say that Teeth of the Tiger is a suitable attempt from Clancy after the bomb of Red Rabbit. The book is well paced, the characters believable, the plot well thought out and developed. If you're an old Clancy fan then you'll recognize the territory. If you're new to this genre or author then you're in for a treat...and you'll want to catch up by reading the earlier novels.
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