Rating: 
Summary: Corey's "Games of State" review
Review: This is my second book by Tom Clancy and judging between this one and Shadow Watch, it is a much better book. The characters are a little confusing on their backgrounds and where the scene is taking place unless you look at the headings but I thought even without a very strong plot that it was still interesting. I don't normally read many books so it takes a lot for me to stay interested and I just kept reading. One of the bad parts was that a reader can almost guess what is going to happen next.
The book has a small beginning, long middle, and short end. There are groups of neo-Nazi's in Germany that try to take over people throughout the world with video hate games on computers. Paul Hood and his team are in Germany buying things for Op-Center and get mixed up in the mess. That is all I can say. I don't want to spoil the end for anyone, so you will have to read it yourself.
Rating: 
Summary: Tom Clancy's Op-Center: Games of State
Review: The first quarter or so was interesting and plausilbe, and I had high hopes for the rest of the book. But alas, action-based military/intelligence thrillers have become little more than "A-Team" television re-runs, and sadly Games of State fits this scenario to a tee. Summing up: Games of State was predictable, grossly unrealistic, predictable, comic-bookish, predic..., strangely sappy, pred..., lacking in creativity or originality. Oh, did I say it was predictable and unrealistic?
Yes, I finished it. Then I threw it in the trash.
Rating: 
Summary: My favorite of the Series
Review: Disregarding the fact that it was pretty slow moving, it was very good. This story takes place during the chaos days, a time where Neo-Nazis, Skinheads etc. celebrate racism and what they stand for (I hope you know what that is). Anyway, Paul Hood and some of collegues travel to Germany to by weapons and the latest technology. But things go awry when a group of Neo-Nazis raid a movie setting killing almost everyone. Here are my overall thoughts on this novel:PROS:
The novel keeps the novel real and along with this crisis Op-Center is trying to solve, Paul Hood is faced with a lover that abandoned him years before he got married. So along with this exterior conflict, you have a very intimate interior conflict. Along with this there are some very intense action sequences. For example, when Bob Herbert was being chased by Neo-Nazis, I was on the Edge of my seat. CONS:
There is only one main problem I have with this book and it is the fact that it's slow moving and I almost gave up on it. But besides that, I really enjoyed this book. OVERALL:
This is the best book in the Op-Center series, hands down. I highly reccomend this book to anyone who enjoys reading.
Rating:
Summary: An eye opener
Review: Finding out that I had to read a least five hundred pages by the end on the first semester of my senior year did not please my very much. But when I got started in this book and read it for a while I began to enjoy it and find some enjoyment that I had not found in any other previous book. Reading Tom Clancy's Op-center made my want to keep reading until the book was finished.
This book took place in another country in the distant future were every thing has changed from what we know it. After have terrorists destroying part of the city, one man and a organization call Op center must try to stop the terrorists before they take over and turn everything form what was good to what would become bad. I highly recommend this book to any one that likes to read a little action sci-fi books. It is a great eye opener and makes you take a look around to see what could become of you cities.
Rating:
Summary: Bad research?
Review: I started to read Games of State a few days ago and I must say that I am very disappointed. It shows that American writers sometimes feel that thorough research is not really necessary. How can you write about "Chaos Days" in Hanover as a neo-Nazi Event? Even if its a fictitious story, and even if you are American, there is no way that you can mistake a "traditional" left-wing event with a Nazi-event.
There are many details about Europe and Germany in particular in that book that are flatout wrong or badly researched. Stick to the truth.
Making easy money might have been the only idea behind this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good read for "down time"
Review: I'm a philosopher, so I read a lot of heavy books. Once in awhile I have some "down time" books which I like to read just to pass time reading something that I don't need to scrutinize with pencil and paper nearby. This is one of those books, and it really does fulfill that purpose well. This is not the 'Clancy Classic' of "Red Storm Rising" or "Without Remorse," so don't get your hopes set up for that. I enjoyed the different characters and their role in problem solving. The authors do well in showing how people often have self-interest and fair-weathered natures. I also thought that the subplots (e.g. with Hood's son, with the diplomat's wife) were present enough to engage the reader, but not overdone. I felt that it was somewhat difficult to keep track of the various foreign characters because of their names. Instead of picking just their surname or family name, often the characters are referred to in numerous ways - thus, making it tricky to keep up. Also, I feel that perhaps a few pages could have been spent on explaining the Op-Center itself, given that this book is the first in the series..... the reader is left only basic clues about the status and origin of the Op-Center. All in all, an excellent book for waiting rooms, beach days, and/or lazy hours on the porch.....
Rating:
Summary: Nice Techno Thriller
Review: I've typically enjoyed Tom Clancy novels. I like his ability, despite whatever political opinions he might have, to make characters with real personalities and backgrounds and beliefs. It's so easy in this genre to fall back on stereotypes. That said, this is the first time I've listened to an audio book, and it's probably for that reason that Op-Center: Acts of War fell flat. Because of the abridged format, I suspect that any material that might have allowed me to mentally engage the characters was left out. Since none of the old standby characters were present (no Jack Ryan here), I knew nothing about anyone. The story is standard, and even in the lessened format we can hear the standard Clancy attention to military detail. We get to learn a few things about how ballistic missiles and satellite surveillance systems work. It's interesting that back in 1997 Clancy was railing against international terrorism as the greatest threat facing us in the future. No one ever said he doesn't pay attention to current events in the world. But as entertainment, I have to think the print version must be better than this.
Rating: 
Summary: Actual review of the first Op Center book
Review: It seems that all the reviews for every book in the Op Center series get stuck together here. The original one takes place, in large part, in Korea. This book has a reasonably decent story line although not nearly as good as most of the Jack Ryan series of books.
The thing that I found most shocking was the poor research, particularly with regards to the Korean language. Not only did they not have a native speaker look over what they said, it appears that all the Korean in the book was written by someone armed with a poor phrase book. At the time I read the book, I'd been living in Korea for nearly a year and had learned to speak a bit of Korean and even to my relatively inexperienced eyes it was blatantly apparent that nobody had given the first thought to checking whether what they had written was accurate.
In my opinion, Tom Clancy merely lends his name to some of the series like Op Center and Net Force. They're Ok for a cheap thrill but they don't live up to the standards set by his original Jack Ryan series.
Rating:
Summary: solid book but could of been much better
Review: It's been a while from since i last read any of Tom Clancy's novel, so i am used to the Jack ryan series. I believe that cardinal of the kremlin and redstorm rising was Clancy's best work,although i was curious to find out what the op-center series was all about.The very idea of a crisis management team dealing with hostage situations (that are considered domestic problems to USA) taking on a crisis situation in South Korea when we have the Cia and Joints Chiefs of staff is very unbeliavable.However as i read deeper and deeper into the book, the story gather more suspense in my mind.I couldn't put the book down.The reason why i didnt give the book filled with suspense five stars instead of 3 are because of to many flaws in the story such as i stated before about a crisis management team dealing with an iternational crisis is very unlikely. 2)That op-center could handle espionage,conduct military force in the matter, (stryker advanced asault forces) and yet handle the diplomatic front of it, and in all saving thier asses when push comes to shove against the virus in thier computers and the united states of america. 3)Third but not least, Tom Clancy is very good at leaving his readers in suspense i think that he does that way to much in this book, often he would explain the characters and when a situation is about to develop he cuts to another chapter and when Clancy finally get back to where he left that paticular part, my mind has wandered because it freshly remebers the previous chapter I was reading. I gave Op-center a 3 because the is a page turner despite the faults within the book, and i have noticed clancy's style when he writes about spies, and even more excitingly about Military force he used in the book, I think Tom Clancy should focus more on the Militarisitc side than the long an drawn out spy he put in alot of his book,buy dont get me wrong Tom clancy is a fantastic writer it's just that the last set of books, I think becoming more comercial than when he used his conventional writing and plot placing skills that made him famous with Hunt for red October and Clear and present danger.MY last advice for Tom Clancy "do it for me a fan write a real harcore believable story where military force is used at a trouble spot in the world like Bosnia or Iraq not try to make it comercial on deeply getting into the families of the leading characters in the book, or getting into spies and counter spies, make that up reconaissance planes and the NRO(National Reconaissance Office) when spyin on the enemy.
Rating:
Summary: Op-Center Is An Excellent Read
Review: The book Op-Center is a fine story, an excellent yarn in the tradition of Tom Clancy. Paul Hood is the director of Op-Center, a new government organization that must respond to international crises. When someone sets off a bomb in Seoul, South Korea, it is assumed to be North Korean terrorists, but Hood discovers facts that point in another direction: A group of South Korean ultra-patriots that want to start World War III by expunging the American presence from their country and fire North Korean missiles at Japan, so as to create an alliance between them in fighting the North. The book starts slow but is difficult to put down once you hit the really interesting and action-packed parts: several storylines converge into each other, whether in the confines of Op-Center HQ, the streets of Seoul, or North Korea, this book delivers a plausible story and a dynamic plot. I would have rated this book 5 stars if it hadn't had the following flaws: first was the way the North and South worked together to start a war. I understand why they would do this: for power in the new country they created, but I found it difficult to determine how Op-Center knew so-and-so was working for so-and-so, and there were some other small plot holes, but overall, these are small problems that shouldn't ruin the experience. This is an excellent book: fans of Clancy will be pleased.
|
