By Order of the President

Rating:
Summary: BOOTP
Review: Awesome book. Best read in months. Ignored the kids, couldn't put it down!

Rating:
Summary: WOW!
Review: I have been a fan of W.E.B. Griffin for some time and have read all of his books....but never one like this!!

Griffin has done a superb job of plot and character development. He makes the characters literally come to life with his 'not too far fetched' schemes and quick wit.

I found this to be probably his best work to date. It was the only one the I honestly didn't want to finish! I felt like I was a part of things.

Please write more about "Don Juan Castillo" in the future!

Thanks,

Buster Wasden

Rating:
Summary: Another success in reading enjoyment
Review: I've read a number of Griffin's books and this one was absolutely no let down; quite the contrary! Lots of action, intrigue and character development. Anyone who likes his books or his type of book should not be disappointed at all. Great book!

Rating:
Summary: Annoyed
Review: I've read most of Griffin's stuff. I find his books interesting, particularly if I presume he gets the details of cultures, and lands, and so forth right.
I do object to the permanent technique of having one of the main characters be rich as a three-armed King Midas.
Having bags, buckets, and trucks of money usually allows the characters to skip annoying practical issues.
Need a plane? Write a check for one.
Get a room in wartime DC? Hell, your old man owns the best hotel in town. No more hotbunking in a phone booth.
Need a drink? There's a case of Famous Grouse in the corner.
How about a woman? The next one you meet will fall irretrievably in love with you, taking off her panties while giving you her last name.
Nobody lives in a Motel 8, watching basic cable and wondering how he's going to stretch his per diem to the end of the month.
Now, something has to be done to get Our Heroes from one important place to another. In the old romance novels where the hero sees all at Waterloo, he must be a staff officer, required to ride to wherever what's happening is happening. He's never a battery commander who sees only smoke and shapeless forms in the smoke and doesn't know if the battle is lost or won for about two more days.
Griffin has the same problem, but makes far too much use of wealth and friends who can give each other promotions or orders from, say, training new recruits to snooping and pooping in darkest Africa.
Still, if you like whiskey, and sit up late with a Griffin book, you'll have a terrific read.
It's fun, but it's not serious.

Rating:
Summary: Griffin Books keep getting stranger
Review: Let me first say that I love WEB Griffin's Novels. I have read them all, some numerous times. This is the second one that I am unsure of.

The book is a fun, fast read like all of his novels, and has the pace and attention to detail that has endeared him to readers world wide.

My problem with this book and a few oif his other recent efforts is that they seem to be either repetitions or annoyingly non sensical.

The last Badge of Honor novel jumped from the Early 1970's to today, and the characters did not age.

Griffin skipped the end of WWII in the Corps series without resolving half the subplots, and I doubt we will ever hear from the Argentina series again.

This latest book while featuring a "ripped from the headlines" plot seems to simply contain a series of Characters that are simply combinations of previous Griffin efforts. Castillo is just Cletus Frade crossed with a character from the OSS series. The station chief in Africa has a lineage that is suspiciously similar to Phillip Sheridan Parker from the brotherhood of war.

Additionally the editing and fact checking is atrocious a 1981 US Army Commander who fears the advance of T34's across the Fulda gap shure would be surprised to learn that the T34 went out of front line service in the 1950's. It's not major, and it dosent ruin the book, but Griffin knows better.

I don't want to discourage people, especially fans from the purchase of this book, its a fun read, but I just wish that griffin would return to some of the characters and polts that are still unresolved, rather than create new ones that are very similar.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent New Series
Review: Looks like another great new series. Setting this novel in the present day makes for greater imapct. Looks like Castillo could be his best character yet, as he is not a colossal screw-up like Matt Payne, Pick, or Lowell, more like Frade (speaking of which, can we have another Honor Bound book please Mr. Griffin).
Yes, you do have to put reality out of place a little (especially towards the end), but overall a great read, and I can't wait for the next installment.

Rating:
Summary: Good story -- rather politically incorrect
Review: Others have covered the plot, the setting and so forth. What I thought noteworthy was the extent of "political incorrectness." Muslim terrorits are routinely referred to as "ragheads" Black terrorist supporters in Phila are referred to as "AAL" which is short for "Afro American Lunatics" There is one section that expounds on the history of the Koran and makes a case for the Mullahs having set back civilization in the Muslim world by about 500 years. More importantly that the Mullahs don't want to take any responsibilty so they blame the Western World which is at the root of terrorism.

I was surprised to read all this stuff from Griffin. I've read everthing of his and this is the first time I can remember this sort of writing style. Quite refreshing...

Rating:
Summary: Master storyteller!
Review: W.E.B. Griffin is a master storyteller. Whether he is writing about mundane everyday things such as where the protagonist was born and was brought up, or his military experience and action sequences; its all entertaining. One of the few authors that I try to read all the way through in one session. This book brings us into the present day and deals with a plausible method that could be used by a terrorist to again attack with airplanes again. I have only one bone to pick, on page 74 the book, the book says the Army was out of Vietnam in April of 1971. However, I distintcly remember being in Vietnam in February of 1972 with the 101st Airborne (combat engineer) at Phu Bai. Otherwise, worth the price.

Rating:
Summary: Griffin is the tops in military adventures
Review: W.E.B. Griffin is, in my opinion, the finest military adventure writer on the planet. In "By Order of the President," Griffin catapaults himself into the near future with a believeable story of a splinter terrorist group. Like today's Al Queada, this shadowy group has no identifiable state sponsor and aims that reflect the grotesqtuely nightmarish beliefs that we see plastered all too frequently in the mainstream media. ("Vote for democracy and we will kill you.")

Charley Castillo is a new Griffin character. Through family connections (a regular plot device for Griffin) and his own abilities, he has attracted attention as he climbed the military ladder. A Delta Force major, he is chosen by the President to find out why the intelligence agencies seem unable to locate a stolen 727 aircraft. Thus the "By Order of the President."

Like Fleming Pickering, the hero of another Griffin series, Castillo has the authority to go anywhere and do anything in the course of his duty. It's a convenient plot device and one suspects Griffin might be lost without it. And we are all the better for Griffin's use of it. In other hands, it could easily lead (as it so often does) to utterly implausible plots and transparent characters.

But Griffin has a sure hand and Castillo moves from one locale to another as he unravels the mystery, which if unstopped could have deadly consequences to the resdidents of Philadelphia.

Griffin is unsparing in his ridicule of the CIA and FBI. Whether this is justified or not, I don't know. But Griffin has definitely taken aim at both agencies and draws sharp portraits of their leaders as buffoons.

Griffin's plots are always tight and his characters have substantial depth, many of them becoming friends over the course of reading his many series novels.

For Griffin fans, "By Order of the President" will be a delight, though many (like me) wonder why he is branching out into a new set of characters instead of continuing on with the old. Maybe he's just grown bored with them. For those new Griffin, armed with a taste for adventure, Griffin mayt very well keep you awake for a night or two as you find the novel impossible to put down.

Jerry

Rating:
Summary: WEB's an American Icon
Review: WEB has managed to creat another compelling story. Although this is the first time he is writing in the future, he has managed to weave the events of the past with his amazing nack in story telling and character creation. I can only hope that this is just the beginning of another brilliant series.