Rating: 
Summary: Ugh! Horrible!
Review: HORRIBLE!Executive Orders was ok (not as great as the previous Ryan books but alright), but this is just horrible. Executive Orders showed us the life of the president without shoving anyones politics (left or right) down our thoughts like this does. Did we really need 400 pages of Ryan whining about how much he hates being president? Whining about how he can't accept his S.S. agent because she is female? (The same one who saved his life) Or thinking (over and over and over) how he can't accept abortion (among other things) "Your just too Catholic Jack." What happened to the Ryan that warned his president NOT to pressure Japan? Now he casually does it to China because he doesn't like Chinese morals? "Let's incite a war over a couple of people who aren't even American citizens". It would have been a better ending for Ryan had Clancy killed him off in Debt of Honor as opposed to turning what had been a pretty good character into a loudspeaker for the far right. Gone are the days when Clancy stayed away from politics apparently. The only interesting part of this entire book was some of the combat towards the end. But that is nothing unique (we have read it dozens of times, both from Clancy and others). If you must read this book get it at the library -- if you pay for it as I did you will be sorry.
Rating:
Summary: pedantic and innacurate!
Review: I have loved the previous works by Clancy featuring Jack Ryan, hence I bought this book in hard cover so that I could enjoy it sooner. What a disappointment! The first 300 pages were incredibly boring. The rest of the book is filled with political opinions that don't seem to fit with the characters as we've grown to know them over the years through Clancy's works. This seem to be Clancy's way of thinly diguising and expressing his own personal political views to the American public by using his characters as spokespeople - and it doesn't work. One of the things I like about Clancy's work is that he deals with subjects, e.g., espionage, war strategy, etc., about which I do not possess a lot of expertise. I have always taken his word to be accurate about the workings of DC and the spook world. However, in this book when Agent Price finds out she is pregnant (at about 8 weeks), she supposedly has an amniocentisis that day and is given the results in an hour. Well, this is a topic I know something about. You cannot perform an amniocentisis before 16 weeks of pregnancy - Agent Price's baby would have been killed by the procedure if it were attempted (which NO obstetrician would) at 8 weeks. Second, it takes a minimum of ONE WEEK to culture the cells so that a genetic analysis can be done. One hour is an impossibility. Third, I challenge Mr. Clancy to find me one real physician at Johns Hopkins who would tell a pregnant woman that it was okay to consume a couple of alcoholic drinks per week during the span of her pregnancy. I actually threw the book across the room at that one. Anyhow, the complete inaccuracy in reporting simple obstetric procedures - he could have found out the facts with very little research - leads me to question the credibility of all of what I have read by him. I also grew nauseous by the number of times Clancy had his characters relate to us that Mao like having sex with 12 year old girls. What in the heck did this have to do with the story? Why did we have to read it numerous times? I think everyone "got it" the first time. However if Clancy was getting paid by the page, he must have gotten at least 1-2 pages worth of salary over this overused "fact." Finally, what is the deal with trying to make smoking seem glamorous? I think that the reading public must have shared several packs worth of smokes with Jack Ryan - how boring to read over and over again about him bumming cigarettes from his secretary. And again, what did this have to do with the story line? The only thing I can imagine is either: 1) Clancy smokes and feels persecuted about it, so he has Jack Ryan smoke, or 2) he is going to have Ryan come down with lung cancer in the next book.... Overall, what a waste of money!
Rating: 
Summary: Like running through deep, wet cement...
Review: I have been a huge fan of Tom Clancy since high school. Red October was the first 'non-required' novel I read. I have come to appreciate the detail he works into his plots, but this was rediculous. The first 500 pages were not only slow, but boring. I got tired of hearing how Jack Ryan hated being President, how much Nomuri enjoyed having sex, and how much money everybody could be making if they did not work for the Government. Slow, redundant, painful. Keep this one in the bathroom and work through it over the next year.
Rating:
Summary: Jack Ryan vs. Josiah Bartlett
Review: What happened to Jack Ryan? That's the first question engendered by listening to this condensation of the massive new Clancy best seller. Maybe he shows more acumen and action in the book, but in this abridged audio treatment, he's barely a supporting character. I found myself wondering what Josiah Bartlett, of The West Wing, would be doing in the midst of a Chinese attack on Russia. Saying more interesting things than "F**k," which seems to be Ryan's (and Clancy's) new favorite word. I deeply miss the Action Ryan of Patriot Games, the Savvy Ryan of Sum of All Fears, and the Early Presidential Ryan of Executive Orders. The thing of it is that no other character rises to take his place center stage. This is a book about battles and hardware, or at least it is on audio. Apart from a little salacious material involng a CIA Agent and Politburo Minister's secretary, there's little character interplay. The novel was in desperate need on condensation, from what I see here on line, but cutting it down to four tapes reducies it to bluerpiunt status. Finally, the antagonists in the Chinese government are portrayed as sucjh attogant idits that there's no ususpense. We know from the start that the US (and Russia, almost an afterthought) will prevail, but there's hardly a sense of danger in any battle. The last part of the book might have been a page-turner, but not much of one. I'm not looking forward to the unabridged version, and am glad I rented this instead of buying it.
Rating: 
Summary: A Clancy fan tride and true
Review: If you have not followed the Ryan saga from square one dont bother reading the book. You just wont understand. Definately not his best book, but it is still better than 99.9% of the other books in this genre. Great plot, amazing accuracy, and a little predictable but still hard to put down.
Rating: 
Summary: Ouch! Try again...
Review: I read Executive Orders just prior to reading Bear and Dragon, and was quite disappointed in the absence of a driving plot that characterized the last Ryan novel. In many more pages, there was less plot advancement but a lot more philosophy and "4-letter words". All the sexual references, a topic which in Clancy's prior works have been dealt with very tastefully, were uncomfortably vulgar. Surely he doesn't feel he needs to include the sexual stuff to sell his books... At times I wondered if the book were actually written by Clancy, it is so different in style. Also, how could he make reference to a black reporter as a "monkey" (albeit through the eyes of the arch enemy Japanese) while at other times championing the virtues of other black characters in the book? I felt very ripped off at the end, when a lot of major plot was flashed before my eyes in an obvious prelude to a future book. Cut out the middle 600 pages, and expand the last 50 pages to the size that the plot deserves, and I would be more encouraged to buy his next book. My advice- skip this one, hoping that the next Ryan novel summarizes prior events as well as Executive Orders did.
Rating:
Summary: Very poor considering past performances...
Review: First off, I'm a huge Clancy and Techno thriller fan. However, I found this book long and very un realistic. Do we need to know how much Ryan hates his job over and over? The US would do nothing after a Nuclear missle attack? Probably not. Fang would go talk to the people at the end of the book? Talk about a change of character from the beginning of the book. Was all the "sausage" talk necessary? Run out of bombs? Why were we not using B-1B's? B-2's All of this equipment could strike at China's forces from the beginning? Ever heard of in flight refueling? We do it all the time? Cruise missles? F-22's? I was totally disappointed with this book. Normally it is much more difficult to find discreptencies from reality in his books? As another review said wait for clearance or get it from the library.
Rating:
Summary: Oh my god, what C$#P!
Review: I read and enjoyed all of Mr. Clancy's novels, that is, until the abomination that was "Rainbow Six". This book, like "Rainbow Six", seems like it was ghostwritten. Simply B-A-D.
Rating:
Summary: I'd rate it zero stars if that were an option
Review: A tedious book to read. Unlike anything else I've seen by Clancy. He takes whole chapters to say what could be said (more entertainingly) in a paragraph. (In this he shares a fault with Stephen King...though King is a much better writer.)
Rating: 
Summary: Not the best of Clancy, but worth the time...
Review: I have been with Clancy since the beginning, and I feel this book is being unduly criticized. While it is not as gripping as Red October was, what author can compete against him/her self and always win? When I compare this book against the others being published at the same time, it stands up well. Now having said that, here is what is good and bad about this story: The good: The book is long. To those of us who savor Clancy reads, this is a good thing. Jack Ryan is president. He doesn't want to be there, and he is painfully naive, but he is doing a good job. Clancy paints Russia as our ally. As it should be. Clancy illuminates many social problems in China, which Americans need to be more aware of. As always, Clancy describes a lot of technogoodies which help us win wars. The bad: This book, more than any of Clancy's others, seems to spin off into TC's pulpit a bit too often. The beliefs held dear by Jack Ryan and his buddies are obviously flowing from the author's personal values. That is fine and good, but he could go a little lighter with the lectures about how rich people did and do have to work for their money, etc..... Although I love the spin-off characters from Rainbow Six, it seemed like Tom was reaching to include them in this story. Not all stories can be all things to all people... This book was long.... it could have been 100 pages shorter. Overall, I still give this book a thumbs up. Clancy on his worst day is still pretty darned good. And this isn't his worst day...
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