Eh... 2.5 Stars. Fine, but lacking in substance

So,I think I might be done with this series. The political scrub detracts from the story and I miss Jack Ryan. The clandestine stuff and anti Muslim innuendo is to heavy and feels like jingoism, not storytelling.

This was my third, and probably last) attempt to read a Clancy novel and again i failed to make it even a quarter of the way through.

Clancy Strikes me as author who never left the cold war behind. His every novel reads like propergander. Giving American characters jumped up characteristics and showing only credit to their allied nations but always empliying USA superiority while ensuring the bad guys are always far below the par. It's comical.

Twice as long as it needed to be, with frequent sidetracks into Clancy's (or his co-author's) political and philosophical views. War, as someone once said, is long periods of boredom punctuated by moments of sheer terror. Dead or Alive was something like that. It's not as tightly or coherently written as his previous books, and felt more like an amateur novel than I have come to expect from Clancy. Too bad.

Typical Clancy. There are some totally unneeded pages and/or chapters. BUT the overall story was well developed. The plot twists were reasonable and believable.

hilariously bad. needed a bridge book over a quick vacation and picked this up at the free bookstore. far cry from clancy's best (Red October, Cardinal in the Kremlin). The writing was clumsy; there were parts that were overtly clumsy and politically preachy. It was entertaining in a way, but it was a 900 page trainwreck.

Well, now I've read something by Tom Clancy.

Tom Clancy has written some very compelling military and/or espionage novels. This is not one of them. The prose is very clumsy and unnecessarily littered with dense military and espionage jargon. The very poor writing, laced with preachy commentary, turns what could be a very solid plot into a boring, plodding book that was just not enjoyable.

fantasy world with good points

Let's be clear here, Clancy's world exists to give us the particular characters he likes. It's a fantasy along the lines of Ayn Rand except Clancy has multiple people where Rand had one. The purpose is to deliver a political philosophy. As far as that goes it's brilliantly done. The nice thing about detailed fantasies is they're perfect for figuring out ideals which can then be applied to the real world to see how they work. Ryan Jr. is his dad redux and the terrorists are intelligent but ultimately flawed. The world exists to be taken care of by those in secrecy and armed forces who can do no wrong so long as they're let go to do what they do best. It's ridiculous but one hell of a good ride.

Audio - took 5 weeks to complete this. Not very imaginative.