Rating: 
Summary: Red Rabbit
Review: What a disappointment! Tom Clancy must have written this book in his sleep -- and that is where it usually put me.
I had gotten away from his fiction after some of the mid-term efforts seemed to lose their edge. I thought I would give this one a chance hoping for a turnaround in the quality of the writing. Boy, was I wrong.
Please tell me Tom Clancy actually had a ghostwriter for this one. If this is his best effort at fiction, he needs to stick to his non-fiction books.
The dialog was atrocious, especially that between the American characters. As a person who seems fixated on getting the facts correct, Mr. Clancy really dropped the ball. For example, he keeps referring to the Baltimore Orioles World Series, but that was in 1983. Also, where were the editors? The main Soviet character has the rank of Major, but he is referred to as a Colonel and also as a Captain on more than one occasion by other Soviet characters -- they seem unable to recognize their own system of ranks.Give yourself a break and skip this book. We can all hope for a better effort in the future.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring!!!
Review: This was the most boring book written! Tom Clancy, known for his action and excitement, totally missed the mark in this long, dragging, uneventful, and uninspiring effort. A sure cure for insomnea!
Rating: 
Summary: Well, Jack Ryan fans have to read it, newbies won't.
Review: I see the arrival of a new Clancy as a sign to take a holiday. I've read most of the Ryan-Clancy books on vacation, and therefore see all 600 odd pages in a couple of weeks. So to 'Red Rabbit'. Clancy had made Ryan President and the real world of the early 2000's leaves him no room for 'Red October', 'Rainbow Six' or 'The Bear & The Dragon' type blockbusters. So back to the early 1980's - between 'Patriot Games' and 'Red October' on Ryan's timeline. If you are into Jack Ryan you will read it but won't love it. There are many pages that are just repeated 'cut & paste' style a couple of hundred pages later. Deja vu is one thing but it happens too often. Being placed in our history, Ryan is showed to be a genius at predicting the future by investing $100,000 with a coffee startup called Starbucks. The plot - to stop the KGB shooting the Pope has a known end and therefore no surprises. The characters need to be viewed from their position in their evolution. Jack & Cathy are in their early thirties and are
don't read right. It is supposed to be less then a year after 'Patriot Games' and their son is 9 months old but they do not sound like new parents. Cathy doesn't seem like the Mrs Dr Ryan we see in the later books and Jack seems more then a little insipid - occassionally you want to see some backbone and all you have is a wimpy Jack being told by the Brits how courageous he is for saving the Royals last year. Ed and Mary-Pat, newly installed in Moscow, don't seem to be super-spooks of Executive Orders. It is a time period Clancy is more comfortable with - Reagan and Thatcher lead the free world against the Evil Empire of Brezhnev. If you have read the rest of the Ryan story, you will read 'Red Rabbit' regardless of this review. Indeed you have probably already read it. If you are new to the Ryan story, start somewhere else - Patriot Games is probably a good place.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Clancy ever?
Review: This was absolutely horrible. I read it all the way through, hoping it would get better but it never did. Predictable, dull, uninspired -- and I usually like his books. And, come on, did someone at Starbucks pay him for a product placement? Skip this one, there are many better ones out there.
Rating:
Summary: Yawnfest
Review: I'd like to say I enjoyed Clancy's latest prose. As a Clancy fan since Jack Ryan hunted for the Red October, I'm so disappointed by this book I can't bring myself to finish it. It's on my nightstand for those nights when I can't get to sleep any other way.
Rating:
Summary: I doubt if Clancy wrote this book himself.
Review: It seems more likely to me that he outlined the basic plot and then turned it over to someone else to do the grunt work. In particular, the dialogue and characterization of some key players (very notably Ryan's wife -- who is not even remotely recognizable as the woman in the other books) is stilted and crude compared to Clancy's own writing. Clancy uses profanity in dialogue in a way that makes sense and is that is consistent with the character who is speaking. In this book, the use of profanity is stilted and capricious, almost as if the writer was not a native American English speaker. Finally, one of the hallmarks of every one of Clancy's previous book was his careful attention to technical details in a way that added depth to the storytelling. That is not at all evident in Red Rabbit. I am a major fan of Clancy's past books, and I have no problem with him making a few extra bucks by "phoning this one in", but I think he did his readers a disservice. If he did write this himself, it's even more disappointing. Oh, well.
Rating:
Summary: Red Rabbit
Review: Over the years, Tom Clancy's writing style has come to irritate me more and more. I can't put my finger, exactly, on what it is that causes me to roll my eyes once every few pages, but I think it's some combination of his unashamed nationalism and not-so-subtle elitism, both of which have become more evident with each book since "Sum of All Fears." Red Rabbit is a compelling read, and the sections written from the Soviet POV are lean and effective. The plot works, and the story is a winner. The Rabbit, in particular, is a compelling and 3-dimensional character. But the dialogue between Americans is just plain irritating. Everybody's an embodiment of John Wayne. Everybody talks like they're having drinks at the officer's club. The jargon and lexicon drag down the plot. Sorry, Tom, you've written some excellent stuff, but this one's entirely forgettable in it's arrogance and inaccessibility. One other nagging thing: Clancy screws up his history: the assasination attempt on John Paul II took place in 1981, but the World Series Clancy keeps referring to (with the Orioles as winners) took place in 1983. Bothered me the WHOLE book. How did that slip by?
Rating:
Summary: Purely Disappointing
Review: The book rehashes political thoughts and emotions from a decade which is two decades in the past. I thought Rainbow Six was a great step forward in both character and theme development. Certainly believed Clancy would have great material in the new techno-terrorist landscape, I guess not. If Rainbow Six is three steps forward, Red Rabbit is five steps back.
Rating: 
Summary: Better than his recent books
Review: I have read all of Clancy's fiction works and I felt each one was getting less enjoyable than the last. I picked this up not expecting much and maybe for that reason I found that it was fairly enjoyable. Sure, as the reader you know what is going to happen but I think that knowing the outcome and watching it unfold is what makes the book enjoyable. If you liked his earlier work, try this one....even if you wait for it to come out in paperback.
Rating:
Summary: Tom Clancy's Red Rabbit
Review: I love Tom Clancy novels. I have a complete collection of his works in hardbound. When Amazon.com says he is coming out with a new book I always pre-order, howver this time I made a mistake. To say this book is slow moving doesn't even begin to describe the pace this story unfolds. In addition when you finish the book you will feel as if some one told you a joke but left off the punchline. Normally I expect a Clancy novel to take the first 1/3 of the book just introducing the characters and plot, in Red Rabbit I felt he was still introducing those factors on the last chapter. Very disappointing. It won't keep me from buying another novel by him, but unlike his other stories I will never give this a second read.
| 
