After 'The Sum of All Fears' hit the Hollywood screen someone must have encouraged Tom Clancy to write another Jack Ryan book preferably one where he's younger so someone like Ben Affleck could play him. Jack Ryan, the book character, is a CIA intelligence analyst who throughout the Cold War and beyond manages to thwart America?s varied and numerous enemies unlike the real CIA who are always accused of being caught napping. In his previous eight outings Ryan worked his way up from history professor through the ranks of the CIA to the presidency of the United States where we left him in the ?Bear and the Dragon?. The problem Clancy has is that Ryan ...  Read the complete review

For those of you not familiar with the name, Tom Clancy is the master of the techno-political thriller. His popularity and appeal extends beyond the written word, four of his novels having been turned into films with big name stars - 'Patriot Games', 'The Hunt for Red October' and 'Clear and Present Danger' are probably familiar and 'The Sum of all Fears' is currently on general release. The high regard in which he is held was clear on September 11th when CNN interviewed him as the towers were still burning. Clancy has arguably suffered somewhat over the years due to the technical detail to which he subjects the reader. As a huge ...  Read the complete review

Plot Summary It is 2010 and the internet has in effect become the worlds central nervous system, (it has not taken over, governments and democratic society still exist). Those who control the computers control the world. If terrorist masterminds are going to subvert this new world order, then this is where they will strike. A new organization is therefore necessary to deter them-Net Force a group of highly trained FBI operatives whose home ground is the virtual reality of the net. Danger strikes, when a top level assassination team kill the commanding officer Steve Day. It may be the first sign that Net Force have met their match. Deputy director Alex Michaels ...  Read the complete review

I’m a big Clancy fan and will read anything with his name on the sleeve. This isn’t quite him somehow and I suspect it was an early project that’s been released by his publisher to make more money. Or it could be from one of his co writers he’s been using in the tedious Netforce series. Who ever it is, they are a yank as this amounts to blatant American propaganda in the story line and result. The disputed Spratly islands in the south China Sea are the nemesis for an escalating East Asia situation as a long serving Chinese Emperor dies leaving the way for a coup de ta. The new Chines rulers are from the old school and ...  Read the complete review

Power is delightful, and absolute power should be absolutely delightful--but not when you're the most powerful man on earth and the place is ticking like a time bomb. Jack Ryan, CIA warrior turned US president, is the man in the hot seat, and in this vast thriller he's up to his nostrils in crazed Asian warlords, Russian thugs, nukes that won't stay put, and authentic, up-to-the-nanosecond technology as complex as the characters' motives are simple. Quick, do you know how to reprogramme the software in an Aegis missile seekerhead? Well, if you're Jack Ryan, you'd better find someone who does, or an incoming ballistic may rain fallout on your ...  Read the complete review