Rating: 
Summary: Early Clany writing is apparent
Review: This book takes places as a young Jack Ryan and really explains more on Jack Ryan's wife Cathy. I really liked how clancy put the suspense in this book, but certain parts of this book was a little slow at times, but the ending is great. You will be shocked at the ending of this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Some Good, More Bad and Ugly - Wait for the Movie
Review: This review is written by a huge fan of Tom Clancy. By far the worst Jack Ryan book.**Summary**
The Good - The Idea
The Bad -Tom Clancy's execution of his idea
The Ugly -618 pages for a 350 page idea **Details**
THE GOOD - The plot is simple and an interesting idea. Jack Ryan early in his career as a CIA analyst is posted to London and brought into a situation involving the attempted assasination of Pope John Paul II. It has cold war intrigue, spycraft and gives us the opportunity to see Ed and Mary Pat Foley at work early in their careers, as well as Admiral Greer and DDO Bob Ritter. At the same time Tom Clancy gets to write some historical fiction and speculate on the details behind the event including the roles of Brehznev, Andropov and Suslov. THE BAD - Of course, the villians are the KGB, communists and the assassin that a defector (the Rabbit) identifies. Also, as an aside, according to Dr. Cathy Ryan (who joins a hospital staff there) socialized medicine in the UK is so pathethic that one hopes never to need surgery while there. (This is the illustrative of the level of mind numbing detail in the book.) Of course, we are reminded at length how bad the communist economies were and how delusional were their leaders and while such reminders are probably worthwhile and do explain the thesis of the book, they continually interrupt the flow of the story. THE UGLY - The details of the torture methods used by Stalin and the KGB. The lack of fact checking and several editing mistakes, especially since Clancy's strength is his attention to detail. E.G. the assasin is twice misidentified as one of his previous victims with a similar name and even more incredibly the attempt on the Pope's life in actuality was made in 1981, yet in the book it occurs the year that the Orioles won the world series (1983) and when Cal Ripken was supposedly a rookie (1982). If you are going to write historical fiction rather than about events in some parallel universe, get your facts right. Jack Ryan fans will probably want to read this book despite its serious shortcomings, all others should wait for the movie which can keep the plot and action while getting rid of the extraneous material. Let's hope the apparent sequel, The Mask of The Red Death if the hints throughout this book mean anything, is better.
Rating: 
Summary: This book is horrible and I'll tell you why
Review: Tom Clancy is a pretty good writer. He is excellent at plotting but only average at characterization. Clancy's best books have been ones that covered worldwide plots and many angles of deception and violence. Red Rabbit is similar to some of John Grisham's latest works. The author hasn't changed, but the subject matter is extremely boring or simple. The jacket to Red Rabbit makes it sound like the defection of a KGB officer leads to a world-wide conflict. In reality, Red Rabbit is only about getting an defector out of the USSR. Then, the last 50 or so pages, some action is thrown in and the US and British try to stop an assasination attempt on the pope. In usual Clancy fashion, he skips around from story line to story line. But in this book, very few of the story lines are interesting. Clancy repeats himself in several cases by offering repetitive views of the homelife of the Ryans (ride to work, nanny, baby sleeping, Sally watching TV, British food, Cathy and the British medical industry) and the Foleys (kid watches Transformers, Mary Pat is pretending to be a dumb blonde, etc.) Half of this stuff doesn't matter one bit. But Clancy seems intent on not leaving out even one minute detail of the lives of these characters. Also, many references are repeated such as Jack being a knight, and agents being called spooks. With a good author, you wouldn't notice these things or wouldn't be annoyed by them. To put it simply, this book has about enough drama, action and suspense to be a 200 page story. Instead it goes on for 600 pages. That right there tells you that 400 pages are filled with meaningless drivel. Clancy hits at the end that there will be a sequal based on the fall of the USSR. Hopefully it will be full of more action, and less stereotypical characterization.
Rating: 
Summary: Red Rabbit not too bad!
Review: Tom Clancy's Red Rabbit is quite an interesting read. It tell's a bit more about Ryan's early years as a spook with the CIA, though he's not the only star of this book.
The plot is simple; A KGB communications agent gets a conscience when he learns about Russia's plan to kill the pope, so he decides to defect and spill the beans before it's too late.
It's not as action packed as say 'The Sum Of All Fears' or 'Rainbow Six'. A good portion of the story deals with the CIA and it's British counterpart SIS in getting the Rabbit and his family out and it does tend to drag a bit.
But, for all that, you do get an interesting history lesson about Russia and it's neighbors and why they're so different from the West.
Clancy also deftly describes (Acronym's abounding) all the behind the scenes play of counter intelligence and espionage and every other spy scenario you could imagine.
It's been suggested over the years that Russia did in fact arrange for the attempt on the pope's life, and Clancy explains clearly why Russia was so afraid of him, and the story is quite plausible.
I recommend this book simply because it is extremely well written. Whether the subject matter appeals to you or not is irrelevant. I get the impression that this is the story that Clancy's wanted to write for years and it shows in his superior handling of the task.
Mission Accomplished!!
Rating:
Summary: "More amusing than his cabbage soup, certainly..."
Review: What an awful piece of crap!! Some of the dialogue was just atrocious. I mean, really, have you ever heard anyone actually talk like the character's in this novel? When disussing Cathy's profession with his English colleague, Simon, (Chap. 8), Jack gives a description of a procedure Cathy does. Simon supposedly shudders at the description, and responds, "I suppose it's better than being blind." To this Jack responds, "Yeah, I know what you mean. Like when Sally was in shock-trauma. The idea of somebody carving up my little girl didn't exactly thrill me." Whaaaaaaaa??? Okay, beyond the absolute shallowness of the dialogue, how does Clancy expect us to believe that two guys who evidently cannot stomach the thought of routine medical procedures are going to save the free world from the threat of global communism with their brilliant and objective analytical skills? And the absolute idiocy of the sterotypical English conversation. Do these people really go around saying "quite" and "bloody good" all the time? Quite the sterotypical view of the English, wouldn't you say old boy??
And when his characters engage in self-reflection. C'mon, a cypher clerk, who according to the storyline, had never given much thought to the messages he encrypted suddenly develops an instant conscience, and decides that the assassination plot on the pope is just too much. And the number given to the message sent to the Rezident in Bulgaria, 666? I mean puleeeeze. And in chapter 3, when Zaitzev is having dinner with his family and reflecting on his place within the hierarchy of the KGB, he thinks to himself that it is rather amusing that a lowly fuctionary like himself is entrusted with such great secrets. Here is the actual line from the novel. Are you ready for this??? Okay, here it is:
"More amusing than his cabbage soup, certainly, nutritious though it might be."
Once you stop laughing, you have got to ask yourself this question...is that the worst line ever written in a novel?? What the hell does that mean?? More amusing than his cabbage soup??? Anyhow you get my point. Bottom line, this is a really bad book!
Rating:
Summary: Clancy keeps getting worse
Review: When I heard that Clancy wrote a book that was set back in the 80's Cold War era again I was more than a little hopeful that he could regain some of his earlier writing success. Not that I was hopeful for his well-being, but more that he would start writing books that were as enjoyable as the ones he wrote early in his career (Red Storm Rising, Patriot Games, Hunt for Red October, etc.). If Red Rabbit was an attempt at reliving the early years then he failed miserably. Red Rabbit focuses on the spy game that was apparently so prevalent during the Cold War 80's between the Soviets and the British and Americans. Attempting to relieve political pressure from the Pope and remind Poland who's boss, the Soviets decide to assassinate the Pope. Having read previous Clancy books I assumed that this was the catalyst and that the plot would promptly fill in around it. That was my first mistake (and possibly Clancy's too). Instead of moving on with the details of the assassination and the West's attempt to prevent it, the story completely switches gears, now attempting to highlight an unremarkable character in KGB agent Oleg Zaitzev that has an attack of conscience and decides to defect with his family and some very sensitive information. My second mistake was assuming that the story would right itself and get back on track with what seemed to be more interesting, the prevention of the assassination. Instead the pace of the books slows considerably while the focus has shifted to the defector. Plans are made by the CIA and SIS to help him defect and then the plan is executed. What's the problem, you ask? We appear to be missing an antagonist, it seems. At one point the defecting family is attending a classical concert in Budapest which had been hyped up earlier in the book as though it was going to be a focal point of the story, perhaps even the setting for the climax. Wrong again. The reader gets the impression that a climax is near when the story starts jumping around frequently from Ryan to Zaitzev to the CIA in Washington, etc. Unfortunately, nothing ever comes of this, namely because the KGB isn't chasing Zaitzev, and it makes you wonder why Clancy just wasted 50 pages on this concert. This story suffered from an extremely feeble plot with little or no climax in the end. Aside from a weak plot, the book has some other major flaws, one of which is new to Clancy, some of which are not. The new one (of which I don't recall this in his earlier novels) is his remarkable redundancies. From vocabulary to concepts, and character quirks to character titles, Clancy seems to forget that he's already used a particular word (i.e. capacious or ignominy) where even the most common word would have worked in its stead (i.e. spacious or disgrace). Then you have his seemingly unending references to Jack Ryan as a former Marine. Ryan reflects on it often himself, but it became just plain overkill when every time the scene shifted to the boys back at the CIA (they were naturally talking about Jack Ryan every time as though the CIA didn't have any more pressing issues) they'd have to justify his position in the CIA by referring to his stint in the Marine Corps (apparently all Marines are fit for the CIA). Okay, we know he was a Marine, now let's try focusing on a plot. Then you've got "Sir John" and "Lady Ryan". The couple, knighted in the novel "Patriot Games", are routinely referred to by these titles even though they constantly claim to some sort of aversion to them. And how many times does he need to reassure us that Cathy Ryan won't have a glass of wine the night before she's due in surgery or that Jack Ryan doesn't like to fly? By far the largest fault of this book and the reason it will never measure up to his earlier work, is his nonstop bragging about his characters. Where character or plot development could be taking place, Clancy chooses to continue with lengthy descriptions of his characters personal lives and undying love for their spouses, etc. And when I say character development, I don't mean further developing the same old tired characters that he should have retired 15 years ago, I mean he should be introducing new characters. Clancy boasts about his characters throughout the novel as though they were his own children and he's constantly touting their resume as though someone might question the reputations of these fictionally flawless people. His overuse of Jack Ryan has reached a new high in this novel. Throughout the book, the scene was continually switching between the Foleys in Moscow, the CIA in Washington, and the Ryan family in London. After about 350 pages I started to notice that Jack Ryan served no purpose whatsoever, yet Clancy kept including him and his wife as though their input was relevant to something. Well, at the sacrifice of the flow of the book, you start to realize that Ryan is going to be included, even though it feels like it is being completely forced in poor literary fashion, just to keep Jack included in the novel. But if his relevance doesn't begin until page 400, then it makes you wonder why Clancy wasted so much text early on. Parental pride? It gives the story a ham-handed predictability that segregates this book from his earlier, successful novels. I used to enjoy Clancy novels and I had high hopes that Red Rabbit might take on the appearance of his previous spy thrillers, but it is merely a 600+ page attempt at conveying a lackluster story that could have been told in 250 pages and even then would have been mediocre.
Rating:
Summary: Good premise, weak book
Review: With "Red rabbit", Tom Clancy goes back to his most succesfull character, the young Jack Ryan. Set back in early 1982, this book is an attempt by the author to make ammends to his readers. Nobody wants to know about endless reunions in the Oval Office, or Jack complaining all the time about a job he didn't even want in the first place, or how he has to trust his secretary to smoke covertly. No, now Jack is back in his thirties, a promising analyst for CIA involved in a russian plot to murder the Pope, and the defection of a KGB agent.
The premise of the book is good. Although we know what happens to the Pope in the end, Clancy usually knows how to describe intrigue, and this time the political part plays an important role in the story. The problem is, "Red rabbit" is 300 pages too long. The good political plot and the defection part should be really interesting, but the endless dialogue, the repeated and sometimes amusingly idiotic opinions of the characters (stereothypes, most of them, like the "bloody" thing with the british), and the fact that NOTHING happens during most of the chapters made this book become a tiresome reading. It just dragged on. Take, for example, Forsyth's "The day of the Jackal". We also know what will happen at the end of the book, but Forsyth took the time to develop a great plot and two unforgettable characters, and constructed his excellent book around them. "Red rabbit" is nothing of the sort, although it has its moments (few of them). I only imagine what this book could have been if handed to a writer more concerned about his readers than about sales.
But, looking back, "Red rabbit" is not as disastrous as people say. It is certainly better than "The bear and the dragon" - and this is not praise, just a fact. This book should have deserved a 3-star rating, but there's one thing that bothered me during the reading, and left me scratching my head in amazement: at the beginning of one chapter, one of the characters is in Budapest, Hungary, and wakes up at dawn, thinking that in Moscow, his native city, he would still be asleep, because due to time-zone differences it would still be dark at the russian capital. I read the paragraph at least a dozen times, trying to see if I had understood it right. Something clearly was amiss. I looked in the maps, just to be sure, just to see if I was not crazy, and there it was: Moscow is WAY east of Budapest; the sun in fact rises first in Moscow than in the hungarian capital. I mean, if a mistake like that can pass edition, what further wrong information is given in the story? I know this is a work of fiction, but this kind of basic errors are simply unforgivable. That lack of respect to the reader is unforgivable.
Clancy's future books, only if I find them in used-books stores.
Grade 4.5/10
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