Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Mirror Image

Rating:
Summary: I wonder who writes this stuff!!!
Review: Act of War is on a par with the other Op-Center books. It does stretch the laws of time and space making much of it not believable. I looked this book over trying to find out who actually wrote the book. The cover states that Op-Center was created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik but I don't see a claim that it was written by the two. I think this series is cranked out by a group of active or retired military war gamers as ghost writers--I sure don't see the Clancy style of writing

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Summary: Op-Center Series Regains Its Balance
Review: The Op-Center series by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik regains its balance with the new "Acts of War." Paul Hood is again using the Op-Center Crisis Management team to resolve an international crisis, but this time a new mobile op-center becomes an accidential victim of terrorism. The action and characters realistically show how quickly ancient (and not so ancient) regional hatreds in the Middle East can boil out of control. Clancy uses technology and the "true grit" of strong characters to weave an interesting story that has no trouble keeping your attention. "Acts of War" is definately a better effort than the last Op-Center book "Games of State." I highly recommend the other two Op-Center books "Mirror Image" and "Op-Center."

Rating:
Summary: Don't touch this gobbler with a ten foot pole.
Review: I bought this book based on the Tom Clancy name, figuring it to be an gripping technical thriller. But it appears that Clancy had little to do with this - the series is "Tom Clancy's Op Center", "created by Tom Clancy", but nowhere is Tom Clancy actually credited with authorship; the dedication also contains phrases that are suspiciously similar to those used to identify the real author of ghostwritten teenage romances. It goes down hill from there, reading more like a Tom Swift book for 35-year olds than a Tom Clancy novel. Kurdish terrorists capture a ROC or "Remote Op-Center" - basically an RV filled with oodles of gosh-wow gee-whiz improbable technogadgetry. The incidental flooding of thousands of square miles and tens of thousands of deaths resulting are forgotten after the first few pages. Compass points whirl dizzingly, with Greece jumping from the west side of Turkey to the east and back. 500 mile per hour missiles traverse 455 miles in 32 minutes. Gratuitous torture abounds. People with second and third degree burns over much of their body remain remarkably functional. Cardboard characters behave in unreal ways simply to drag out the plot to a predictable conclusion after hundreds of pages of shamefully wasted forest.

Rating:
Summary: Op-Center: Games of State
Review: This is possibly the best series I've read, and definatly the best book in it. Clancy really knows how to build suspence and create a real page-turner. It takes a surface look at Neo-Nazism in the 90's, but doesn't become an essay. Very real descriptions of all the "unimportant" details and makes them important. This is definatly a must-read, especially after reading the first two

Rating:
Summary: Disappointing
Review: Very poor and not like Clancy at all. Not recommended for Clancy fans - it is only an average read in any case

Rating:
Summary: Op-Center? More like Dead-Center.
Review: In reading the Op-Center books out of order, I was glad I was. Op-Center: Mirror Image was good. Not great, not enthralling, just good. Op-Center was weak. In fact, I did not even finish it! Skip this book and go on to Op-Center:Mirror Image.

Rating:
Summary: A pale ghostwritten imitation of Tom Clancy's style
Review: I wouldn't call myself a Clancy expert by any stretch of the imagination. However, I can recognize a book that he did not write pretty easily. Games of State is right up there with some of the worst techno-thrillers I have ever read. Problem: Tom Clancy's books usually demonstrate strong technical knowledge and accuracy. This book was full of a lot of technological handwaving and some just plain ridiculous comments. Problem: Clancy manages to present many characters in such a way as to make them all believable. This book was halfway there -- we had scads of characters, none of them with the slightest amount of personality, and, to make matters worse, they were all seemingly bound together by the most improbable chain of coincidences I've ever seen... some of which didn't even have any bearing on the plot. This book reads like an adaptation of a made-for-TV movie. If I were Tom Clancy, I would be embarassed to have my name associated with this piece of trash.

Rating:
Summary: Fast paced, attention grabbing, understandable hi tech
Review: Thought provoking high tech suspense story. This story provides insight into new tools available to fight terrorism. The story abounds in computer synthesis of all types of data, and how day to day problems and individual ego affect each characters judgement determining the truth from illusion, trusting enemies based on character rather than bigotry or personal animosity. Clancy's fast paced story points out what really wins are principled people that have a high degree of skill in what they do and have pride in getting the right answer no matter what it takes. Clancy left me with an uneasy feeling. This information gathering capability in the wrong hands can be a powerful tool to control our own citizenry. It's J. Edgar Hoover's files magnified thousands of times covering hundreds of thousands of people.

Rating:
Summary: Only For The Die-Hard Clancy Fan
Review: Tom Clancy always seems to come up tops with his techno-thrillers. THis one is no exception.The storyline is complex but readable- for the die-hard clancy fan.Not a good Clancy book to start on.

Rating:
Summary: A typical Clancy book. Lots of names and lots of action.
Review: It always takes me a while to get all the names stright when I read a Clancy book, and this one is no different. I found myself going back and forth a few times trying to figure out who a particular statement referred to. Around a third of the way through the book, I was able to really absorb the story and follow what was happening without distraction about who was who.

The action builds well, and is believable. The characters are well defined, which is absolutely necessary since there are so many of them. I enjoyed the book more and more as I got farther into it. I finished the last third in one sitting.

One thing which disappointed me was the introduction of astoundingly powerful technology which ended up being nothing more than a plot device to get people to be in the right place at the right time.