Rating: 
Summary: Too long, too sloppy, too boring
Review: The Hunt for Red October was a taut, thin book that crackled with authenticity. Books like this require such perceived authenticity in order for the reader to suspend disbelief. Only when the narration in Red October wandered into areas in which I am technically expert did I find errors.Red Rabbit is a flaccid, long book filled with obvious errors that jar the reader and make it impossible to view it as having any semblance of authenticity. The book revolves around a historical event: the assassination attempt upon the Pope in St. Peter's Square in Rome on May 13, 1981. In the book, the assassination takes place during the World Series. Clancy is specific about the Heathrow terminals used by Jack Ryan, and on many flights he uses Terminal 4, which was actually opened to passengers in 1986. His characters often speak in late-1990s slang. Clancy puts a V8 engine in Ryan's Jaguar; it would have been an in-line six or a V12. Clancy has Jack Ryan investing $100K in Starbucks before the start of the book, but the Starbucks IPO was actually in 1992. There's no point to any of these departures from fact. They don't move the story along, or avoid explanations that would distract the reader. They're just sloppy. When Clancy wrote Red October he was poor and had a day job, and his first work rang true. Now, he's rich and can afford an army of people to run down facts and search for anachronisms, but he doesn't bother. It seems like he's just cranking out the books to get the public's money without putting in the effort to do a credible job. Makes me feel cheated. All this might be forgiven if the story keeps you turning pages into the night, but it's soporific. I might be charitable if the characters seemed palpably real, but they are overdescribed cartoons. It's a shame; Clancy could do better than this if he wanted to.
Rating:
Summary: Least impressive of the series
Review: It is gratifying (and, to me, somewhat surprising) that virtually all the reviewers here have made the same points, because they are very much on target. This is the most disappointing of the Clancy series. I'm not saying "worst" only because Clancy is technically good enough so that anything he writes himself (but not the excreble stuff written by others for which he sells his name) is at least readable. But Red Rabbit will be a major, major let down for Clancy's legions of fans. Whether or not you liked the somewhat racist and hyper-sexual "Bear and Dragon", you'll find that in this book Jack Ryan is quite different than anyone you've seen before. He is whining, foul-mouthed, not particularly security conscious (400 pages are devoted to covering up an ultra-top-secret defection, and then Ryan blithely gossips about it to a bunch of junior CIA guys??), and endlessly repetitive. Because this novel had to fit in between Patriot Games and Red October, and yet hadn't been referenced in any of the other books, the result is a relatively unimportant (in the Clancy universe) episode, which has the effect of marking time in the lives of the usual characters. Much as I love the series (even with Clancy's politics-on-his-sleeve, plug-his-friends, black-and-white jingoism) I'm afraid that something went far astray here. Maybe he has run out of steam with Jack, or he's written himself into a corner, or he just did this for the money. But the result is something that should be avoided by all new readers and most casual readers. The die hard fans will, of course, need to read this one for completeness' sake, but anyone else will unquestionably wonder what all the fuss is about. In the future, I think that most of Clancy's fans would hope that he either comes up with some plausible future stuff after Bear and Dragon, or gives us some more Rainbow adventures, or perhaps gives us some Mr. Clark black operations in the years between Remorse and October. He might even, if necessary, jettison the whole lot and write about something else entirely. But I'm really afraid that one more sleeper like this one has the potential to completely ruin the franchise.
Rating: 
Summary: You can afford an editor, can't you?
Review: There is nothing worse than a six hundred page book that could benefit from not just good, but ANY editing. It is incredibly annoying to have the same trite metaphor, or the same random fact (dropped in to demonstrate that the author is clearly in the know) repeated within two or three pages of each other....multiple times within the book. Sometimes, it appears that Clancy writes each chapter, and other than the basic plot line, completely forgets what he has written, and so uses the same literary devices over and over. Yes, it is an interesting premise, but the writing has devolved so far in the past couple of years as to distract from the story. Please. Please. Hire an editor, and let them edit your books.
Rating:
Summary: Just putting ink on paper
Review: After reading his last three books, I am convinced that Clancy and his publishers are all about just getting ink on paper and money from the masses. Clancy doesn't even proof read his work. He descibes the hills of Pest and the plains of Buda. The last time I was in Hungary Buda had the hill and Pest was farm land. Come on Tom at least visit the city you write about! As for the story, its too historical and predictable. For a major publisher and a centerpiece release there were way too many typos in the copy I received. I felt taken after reading it
Rating:
Summary: Too many pages, too little story
Review: I have been a big fan of Tom Clancy, having read his
novels, the week after they came out. Red Rabbit is a total disappointment. There are
innumerous parts covering irrelevant issues, like
a whole treaty on coffee quality in England.
Actually, you could read one page, then skip the
next 50 pages and follow the story without problems. Tom, please go back to your roots.
Rating:
Summary: "Dead" Rabbit
Review: It's hard to understand what was on Clancy's mind for this book. Very little really works in this turgid piece, including our good friend, Jack Ryan. I guess that Clancy was having a hard time deciding what to do for an encore, after having fought wars with Japan, Iran and China and having killed off the entire US government, with one obvious exception, and then recreating American democracy in Ryan's image. While this certainly might have been an interesting plot, had Clancy been able to summon up some of his usual imagination, there's a whole lot of nothing going on here for hundreds of pages. Jack and friends do very little of interest for much of the book. The Red Rabbit himself jumps into lap of the CIA's station chief, Ed Foley, all on his own. Everything you ever knew about the Foleys and Jack from previous novels is repeated at great length and little if anything new is revealed about anyone. The Soviet characters are less than believable and no one is as interesting as the late great Cardinal of the Kremlin. The dialog of the Soviet leaders is largely diatribe and Clancy doesn't even put together a convincing or at least interesting scene when the Leaders of the Evil Empire decide to put a hit out on the Pope. Just in case you miss how evil this all really is, the Soviet message traffic that deals in the plot against the Pope ends in 666. And just in case you might have missed it the first time, or the first 50 times, it's repeated over and over again, frequently on the same page. Clancy should have had some more of his ... Coffee, this book is entirely lacking in any caffeine rush.
Rating: 
Summary: Great read
Review: I have read all of the Jack Ryan books. I have also read the reviews, and find it difficult to see that I have read the same book as those who rated it so low. I read it all the way through without stopping today, and did not put it down. Several of the early books were too dull and too political. Sure he puts some of his politics here, however he has toned them down so they fit the story.
Great history of the Pope and cold war. I just came back from Russia this week, and fascinating to read what it was, and what it is now. Gread read. Great comments on the cold war, now that we know how the cold war ended and we won. For the basic story you can read the publishers review. For your own enjoyment you should read this one if you like to follow history. Jim Comfort
Rating: 
Summary: Not quite ....
Review: I was eager to dive into another Clancy classic, but as I am only 1/4 into the book, I am tempted to jump ship. The book is set about 20 years ago and is meant to spotlight Jack Ryan's blossoming CIA career. I find the young Jack Ryan very annoying and immature. His manner of speech does not dignify the position of professor/business man/CIA Analyst or the level of intelligence that he posesses. I know that Clancy wants to protray Jack Ryan as a novice, but his use of slang and sloppy speech is over the top. Unfortunately, Clancy injects terms and sayings like "think out of the box" that were not used 20 years ago.
I will finish the book, but not with the eager devotion and page turning excitement of Clany's previous works.
Rating:
Summary: A 100-page story squeezed into 618 pages......
Review: Very disappointing. Writing a book about a popular character in a setting 20-years ago, a writer can make them look omniscient. Examples in this book: Having invested in Starbucks, the Japanese ecomonmy is riding for a fall, the Soviet economy is very shaky (and even the internal reports gloss over the problems) - all these in the very early part of the book. In this book, even Jack's inward thoughts are almost completely error free. This happened in other Jack Ryan books, but not in this concentration. And then, as it becomes clear how little is actually going to happen in this entire 618-page tome, the shock sets in: That's all there is? Few plot threads, mostly uninteresting characters. I hope the next one is better.....
Rating: 
Summary: Red Rabbit runs real to life
Review: This is a very slow paced read. The concept is interesting and plausible. Clancy certainly has the credibility to pull the storytelling off in his usual manner. The characters feel real, especially Zaitev and his Russian counterparts. Ryan, his family, Foley,...all of them feel and act like the real deal, which serves to bring the book to life. The plot is great! The insider stuff is fabulous! The story however, just seemed to drag in too many spots. I think that Clancy gets too bogged down in minutia. I own every book he has written and have enjoyed some more than others. The other Jack Ryan novels are better than this one...by a bunch. The two novels covering Jack Ryan's move into the White House need to be made into movies, and soon. Red Rabbit would not make a good movie. I gave it a four because of Clancy's attention to detail and to history. Suspense...it rates a one. I knew how it would end very early on. His last few chapters were feeble attempts to scramble the obvious outcome, and they failed to do so. Love his work, less tiny little details and more drama please.
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