Rating: 
Summary: Oh, ye Gads, how far have you sunk!
Review: After the last two books (one a 1,00-plus tome of 900 pages of boredom and the other not really worth mentioning), I was hoping for a massive improvement in the editing, and also in the writing. Not only are the characters almost two-dimensional (how far from Jack Ryan!), the whole story idea is almost totally unbelievable.What irks me is the continued sloppy, almost non-existent editing. To wit: on one page he correctly notes that the Koran has 114 Surahs - but some 100 pages later, it suddenly has only 46. First he "encodes" a Koranic reference as, and I quote, "190:2" which will cause anyone who ever bothered to read any part of the Koran to smile in contempt. Then, to add sillyness to ignorance, he uses this particular Ayat (verse) which has almost nothing to do with the situation causing that particular e-mail. Mr. Clancy has had some very trying times in his personal life - and I hope for his, and for his family's sake that his personal life is better now - but to permit this book (which shows some brilliant descriptions of very possible situations) to be so miserably edited is tempting me to suspect that he is getting dangeroulsly close to a pulp-fiction hack. And that neither he nor us, the paying readers deserve.
Rating:
Summary: A Good Beginning, I Hope
Review: I sensed there was trouble brewing the minute I saw the size of this book, the entire 431 pages it basically an elaborate set-up for a future book. Mr. Clancy spends most of the book introducing new characters that aren't really new at all. I mean, was it really necessary to make all three main characters related to each other. At this point I wish he would just totally get away from the Ryan family. Having said that, this book is a slight improvement over "Red Rabbit", which was a shameless ploy that will allow Ben Affleck to play the young Jack Ryan in at least one more movie. At least this book is moving forward, by examining current events in that regard Mr. Clancy does have some interesting things to say about our readiness to truly flight the war on terrorism. One of the only positive things about the book is that the main characters flight dirty against the terrorists and that is something we need more of in the real world. Still, at the end of the book I was left hoping that the next novel will have much more of the interconnected plotting that Mr. Clancy is so well-known for. If you're interested in reading this book I recommend that you wait until it comes out in paperback, it's not the of the price of a hardcover book.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Bother, Its a sloppy write.
Review: This book is not worth reading. I may stop reading Clancy after this, and I have read most of his books and they have been going downhill quite quickly since Sum of All Fears. He does not even keep the names of his target cities consistant in this one. At one point it is Sacramento- a provincal capital, and on another page it is Provo, Utah. He repeats the same trite phrases as though they were original, and tells us again and again and again ...the very few premises he has on technology and spy craft. It is his weakest book on plot, technology, and editing. The book reads like it was written by a committee from notes he gave them. Try the DiVinci Code instead.
Rating:
Summary: Possibly the worst book in the history of the modern novel
Review: I can't believe I read the whole thing. Very early on, I saw the direction this trite, jingoistic piece of garbage was heading, but I hung on, convincing myself that it couldn't get worse. Was I wrong! This book is a total waste of time. Not only is it a wasted effort, it may actually have killed brain cells. It left an incredibly bad taste in my mouth because I fear that Mr. Clancy's philosophy is reflected in our present government's actions.
Rating:
Summary: Really disappointing, Tom Clancy wrote this?
Review: I've enjoyed Tom Clancy's work. This doesn't even seem like a Tom Clancy Novel. There's not enough action, and considering one of the characters is supposed to be an intelligence analyst I was looking forward to clever deduction and analysis, which for me would count as action. There wasn't enough of it. The characters are too 'chatty'. People just don't talk like that, the only reason for saying things like they do is that there is an invisible observer (the reader) watching at the moment. A lot of material is about updating us to Tom Clancy's alternate history of the United States, but people don't talk about basic details of modern history, they already know it. It was nice of him to try to work the history in but there's too much of it; there should just be a nice history essay explaining it (maybe by character Jack Ryan). Supposed spies do not discuss their mission in unsecured areas, like discussing a 'hit' while walking down the street. And there is an excess of coincidence. You get one per book and that got used up halfway through this book. Beyond that it is hard to sustain belief. Did he really write this?
Rating:
Summary: Less Filling for Me -- Might Taste Great to You
Review: This is clearly not the typical Clancy meganovel. It's better to think of this as Clancy-lite, a less filling approach to story telling. Much less time is spent on character development, plot development, and overall detail. I missed that. I missed following multiple plot threads, trying to anticipate how they'd ultimately be woven together. I missed knowing as much about each character as I had in past books. I can see how others will appreciate how streamlined this story is, but that's not what I look for in a book, and it left me wanting much more. The ending of the book was also very unsatisfying to me. I expected to see a "To Be Continued. . ." at the end of the book. It might has well have been put there for everyone to see, because everyone who reads this book is going to be looking for it.
Rating:
Summary: Boring Boring Boring
Review: This book was another big disappointment. I was hoping that Red Rabbit was a fluke, but it wasn't. At least this one is only 431 pages instead of the usual repetitive 1000+. Clancy really needs to leave Jack Ryan and company behind and come up with some fresh new plots and characters...
Rating:
Summary: How the mighty have fallen
Review: I have long been a fan of Clancy and own all of his Jack Ryan series books. Unfortunately, he has been on a steady slide downward for quite some time (perhaps since Debt of Honor) Each book is progressively more predictable, the characters are less believable and the plot lines more far fetched. Teeth of the Tiger is the worst yet. I got this book from the library, eagerly hoping for a comeback. Instead I found yet another tired mass produced sleeper. You can see the plot and the eventual end early in the book. The villains, Muslim terrorist that I have no love for, are overly dramatic caricatures. I couldn't even make myself revile them when I have a deep seated animosity toward their ilk already. Jack Jr. is a shallow character that I cared nothing about. We are supposed to believe that the recent President's son is working for a top secret organization and no one notices. Chelsea Clinton packs on a couple of pounds and she is all over the tabloids. The brothers, one an FBI agent and one a marine, also were wasting valuable space with their moaning about the great moral dilemma of offing terrorists. Clancy insists on using "hip" lingo that stopped being hip 3 books ago, especially his pet phrase "Been there, done that, got the t-shirt" which NOBODY says anymore. His attempt to insert September 11th into the plot makes no sense given the world he has created where Islamic terrorists already set off a nuclear device in America. In all honesty, I only made it a little more than halfway through the book and it was agony to try to read more. I am hoping that Clancy will drop this whole cast of characters and *GASP!* try something new. This book will sell fairly well and he will get his paycheck, but he risks becoming completely irrelevant by churning out garbage like this. If you insist on reading this, get it from the library before spending your hard earned dollars. Clancy owes his fans better and until he comes up with new material, I won't be spending anymore money on his infinite line of books regaling us with tales of the Ryan family saving the world. Spend more time actually writing and less time doing interviews. We are willing to wait on new books to get something decent, rather a clearly rushed book. Maybe his mortgage payment was due. By the way, for crying out loud, while you are at it buy some new suits, everything he wears on TV is ghastly!
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best of Clancy
Review: This is a decent book but hardly up to the standards of the best of Tom Clancy. Forget those big books filled with high tech gadgets and secret soldiers. This is like comparing a made for cable movie with a blockbuster.
The original idea (s) of using the next generation of Ryan is a nice one. A President (who in this book is now ex-President) can only do so much. A young guy makes for a good hero. Also, the idea of a small scale private agency that can somehow work around problems of the big bureacracies is clever (although been done umpteen times) and done reasonably well. The major problem here, and with the story, is that essentially The Campus seems to know a lot but doesn't really do much about it. They can drain information from all the big guys but don't give anything back.
So Clancy has them hire a couple of "hit men." Of course, they are actually JAck Ryan's nephews (I can't ever recall hearing anything about anyone outside of the immediate family before), one an FBI agent and one a Marine. They are so interchangable that they have to use their own nicknames for each other (Enzo and Aldo) as a way of trying to be cute.
The problem Clancy has (and we have as well) is that there are a few huge holes you could drive a nuclear sub through--even one the size of Red October. The group has an Operations Division head but no mention is made of its ever having to do anything.
Also, finally after a lot of training, a method for doing the kills is worked out that is so simple anyone could do it. Actually, someone totally untrained eventually does do it.
The terrorists and their work actually comes across more interestingly than anything done by anyone from the hero's group. Still and all, it's a good read and mediocre Clancy is generally far better than anyone else's best.
Rating:
Summary: Who Wrote This Book???
Review: Are you kidding me? Did Tom Clancy really write this book? This book has got the thinnest plot I have read in some time. What happened to Clancy? He might have written this book over a weekend because it shows very little effort. There is none of the character development that I have become accustomed to. In terms of plot, it's about as deep as a poorly produced, direct-to-video action flick. If you have never read Clancy, you definitely want to start with one of his first novels. If you're a Clancy fan, you will be sorely disappointed with this lackluster effort.
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