Politika (Tom Clancy's Power Plays)

Rating:
Summary: A good yarn, but too many errors
Review: //From an unacknowleged letter to the publisher about the paperback edition// Page Erratum Comment 18 Bashkir...Far Eastern I think you mean "Siberian"; the Bashkirs are not in the Far East. If "Bashkir" is not an ethnic Bashkir, why does he have this name? (There is a famous pianist with the name Bashkirov) 30 Romual Perhaps you mean the Polish first name Romual'd (the apostrophe indicating the Russian soft sign, that being how the name is spelled in Russian) 43 Bishir yetso Neither I nor another experienced Russian linguist have any idea what this means. 62 vor v. zakone The period is not necessary (it's not a middle name!); rather than "godfather", such a person is more like the Mafia "made man" or, simply, "professional (as opposed to petty) thief", who subscribes to a code. See "Soviet Prison Camp Speech", by Meyer Galler, based largely on Solzhenitsyn's early works, for an excellent reference on this subject 110 Republican convention ?the previous summer"; in 1998? 181 Gorbachev He wasn't president in 1992 235 MIDI MIDI is a digital protocol governing the transmission of musical data between sound modules/synthesizers and computers or other sound modules/ synthesizers 261 Zgranitsa etc. Za granitsa (SIC) is a prepositional expression; no native Russian speaker would use it as the subject of a sentence like an English speaker might. 337 Mercedes Wold a rabid Russian nationalist/ Communist be seen in one of these? Bad image. . 343 Komerade ??? You mean "tovarishch"? "Komerad" is what German soldiers traditionally say when about to surrender 364 IL-76 This is a cargo plane, not a passenger plane. Although it is used to carry paratroopers, they don't sit in "passenger seats" any more than US airborne units do.

Rating:
Summary: A good yarn, but too many errors
Review: //From an unacknowleged letter to the publisher about the paperback edition// Page Erratum Comment 18 Bashkir...Far Eastern I think you mean "Siberian"; the Bashkirs are not in the Far East. If "Bashkir" is not an ethnic Bashkir, why does he have this name? (There is a famous pianist with the name Bashkirov) 30 Romual Perhaps you mean the Polish first name Romual'd (the apostrophe indicating the Russian soft sign, that being how the name is spelled in Russian) 43 Bishir yetso Neither I nor another experienced Russian linguist have any idea what this means. 62 vor v. zakone The period is not necessary (it's not a middle name!); rather than "godfather", such a person is more like the Mafia "made man" or, simply, "professional (as opposed to petty) thief", who subscribes to a code. See "Soviet Prison Camp Speech", by Meyer Galler, based largely on Solzhenitsyn's early works, for an excellent reference on this subject 110 Republican convention ?the previous summer"; in 1998? 181 Gorbachev He wasn't president in 1992 235 MIDI MIDI is a digital protocol governing the transmission of musical data between sound modules/synthesizers and computers or other sound modules/ synthesizers 261 Zgranitsa etc. Za granitsa (SIC) is a prepositional expression; no native Russian speaker would use it as the subject of a sentence like an English speaker might. 337 Mercedes Wold a rabid Russian nationalist/ Communist be seen in one of these? Bad image. . 343 Komerade ??? You mean "tovarishch"? "Komerad" is what German soldiers traditionally say when about to surrender 364 IL-76 This is a cargo plane, not a passenger plane. Although it is used to carry paratroopers, they don't sit in "passenger seats" any more than US airborne units do.

Rating:
Summary: Pretty Good-3 1/2 Stars
Review: I was generous and rounded up. This is not the best book by Tom Clancy, not by any means. But it is not as bad as the other reviewers say. It has a lot of good ideas in it and it has a couple of good intertwining subplots and good action scenes. Sure the characters weren't the best, and having more development would have been great, but it is what it is, and I thought it was pretty good overall.

Rating:
Summary: Clancy's Politika
Review: I would recommend this book to anyone out there who doesn't currently know a great deal about strategic and corporate warfare in the 21st century. The book is a rather grand book for those who haven't read a Tom Clancy style book before. I say his style as it's not truly his writing, at least the majority of it. The plot of the book is not overly complex while still offering enough complexity for those who have already ventured into the depths of Clancy-ness. I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a "Tom Clancy style" book.

Rating:
Summary: Average - for Clancy that is...
Review: I'm a great admirer of Clancy's work but this is one of the rare occassions that he has not lived upto my expectations. It is also my first book in the "Power-Plays" series. I liked the way he prepared the plot upto the explosion but the story seem to lack "punch" after that. Still it is not that bad.

Rating:
Summary: Interesting
Review: I'm a great admirer of Clancy's work but this is one of the rare occassions that he has not lived upto my expectations. It is also my first book in the "Power-Plays" series. I liked the way he prepared the plot upto the explosion but the story seem to lack "punch" after that. Still it is not that bad.

Rating:
Summary: Too many mistakes.
Review: It's not absolutely bad (I put 2 stars!), but boring enough. Advice: if you are writing a book about something (for example, Russia), it's good idea to get acquainted with your subject a little.

Rating:
Summary: A Great Book!!!
Review: The sudden death of Russia's president has thrown the Russian federation into chaos. If you've read any other books from the Power Plays series this would be a good one. Besides being a good book, it jumps around a lot from place to place, but it all falls together. My opinion is that Politika is "a must read", and after reading it I would read more from this series of Tom Clancy books.

Rating:
Summary: Utter dross
Review: This book is a disgrace to the Clancy name and really is throwaway tripe. The wafer-thin plot, which could have been written by any schoolkid in a creative writing lesson, leaves a lot to be desired; and is in no way a geopolitical "powerplay" as the title suggests, and although the concept of a terrorist destabilising governments is not new, a real Clancy book would give it a twist, have detailed brinkmanship, deals, bluff and blackmail; this book misses out huge chunks of the process and is worse as a result. The characters are not developed particularly well, and the main hero is entirely unbelievable, as is his private army and desire to meddle incessantly with world affairs. His crack team's superiority to the whole of the American intelligence aparatus is suspect, but their ability to be able to take out any number of armed bad guys using only stun guns and without harming them at all is totally uncovincing. The various climatic battle scenes take only a few pages, and are very badly written, with very rapid and unconvincing resolutions as soon as the goodies arrive. The book is at least, short; though if the politics, battle and detective story were better written it could expand and be better as a result. The only good bit is the mass destruction of the terrorist attack, but, thinking about it, it is precisely the kind of attack which couldn't realistically happen.
In summary then; this is nothing like a good Clancy book. It is terrible, and as long journey fodder is only marginally preferable to staring at the seat in front. Read any proper Clancy book, or a proper thriller; not this feeble attempt at imitation of the master.

Rating:
Summary: Well-Written, but sadly lacking in some respects
Review: This book was definitely not written by Clancy. In his earlier series, Op-Center, he at least followed his own style of writing. Without his name on the cover, I could have never guessed he wrote it. The only way it is remotely like any other Clancy books is that it is a definite rip-off of the first Op-Center book. Read them both and look at the similarities: the man who loses his wife (Gregory Donald in Op-Center, the chief of police in Politika), the bombing (a convention in Seoul, New Year's in Times Square). This was not very good, at least not enough to read more than once. It had good points, but overall, he has written much better.