No es ni de lejos la mejor de Clancy, aunque como todas mantiene la emoción. Rusia y China se enzarzan en un conflicto armado y el recién elegido presidente de los EE.UU., Jack Ryan, tiene que lidiar con ellos. Hay demasiadas subtramas que se dejan sin explicar, el autor, como viene siendo habitual, hace un planteamiento gigantesco y luego resuelve como puede. ( )

This was definitely not Clancy at his best. While it is adequately written, it comes across as cheesy and unrealistic. I was not thrilled by the experience. Overall, a disappointing thriller. ( )

I actually enjoyed this book for the most part, though I did not particularly like reading about the technical aspects of the military machines.

My favorite parts of this novel were getting to see the individual personalities of the characters and how they thought and reacted towards others and the developing hostilities. Some (among the Chinese mainly) were so full of their own self-perceived importance that they could not see anything except visions of them conquering everyone, while others appeared more levelheaded and worked hard to accomplish their missions and reign in their comrades.

My favorite character was Gologo (the old man living in the Russian wilderness with the golden wolf pelts) because he was a tried and true Russian patriot who was not about to let invading foreigners take what was his (I'll admit that I am guilty of the sappy patriot stuff).

Jack Ryan himself was a bit of an annoyance to me and was indeed why I knocked .5-1 star off the rating. While he was by no means a terrible person/bad president, I felt that the writing made me dislike him. He came off as a bit idealistic and arrogant, especially in the end where he got on the Navy ship instead of flying to safety.

Another reason that I knocked the rating down was the amount of "fluff" sections that I felt could have been edited or eliminated entirely. One were the sections about the Russian police tailing the would-be assassin of the Russian president and the other were Ming's sections. She played a vital role on things, though unknowingly, but her sections about her activities were almost entirely unnecessary.

The war itself was very fun to read about and, again with the weakness for sappy patriot stuff, I really enjoyed seeing how the Russians and Americans teamed up to fight the Chinese. Speaking of which, they (the Chinese) were incredibly fucking stupid to start a war over gold and oil resources. Of the Chinese politburo, Fang seemed to be the only one with a strong brain in his skull and I am glad that the ending showed him surviving everything and ending up as the Premier. His anger at Luo's decision to launch the missiles gained him a bit of respect from me. ( )

I actually enjoyed this book for the most part, though I did not particularly like reading about the technical aspects of the military machines.

My favorite parts of this novel were getting to see the individual personalities of the characters and how they thought and reacted towards others and the developing hostilities. Some (among the Chinese mainly) were so full of their own self-perceived importance that they could not see anything except visions of them conquering everyone, while others appeared more levelheaded and worked hard to accomplish their missions and reign in their comrades.

My favorite character was Gologo (the old man living in the Russian wilderness with the golden wolf pelts) because he was a tried and true Russian patriot who was not about to let invading foreigners take what was his (I'll admit that I am guilty of the sappy patriot stuff).

Jack Ryan himself was a bit of an annoyance to me and was indeed why I knocked .5-1 star off the rating. While he was by no means a terrible person/bad president, I felt that the writing made me dislike him. He came off as a bit idealistic and arrogant, especially in the end where he got on the Navy ship instead of flying to safety.

Another reason that I knocked the rating down was the amount of "fluff" sections that I felt could have been edited or eliminated entirely. One were the sections about the Russian police tailing the would-be assassin of the Russian president and the other were Ming's sections. She played a vital role on things, though unknowingly, but her sections about her activities were almost entirely unnecessary.

The war itself was very fun to read about and, again with the weakness for sappy patriot stuff, I really enjoyed seeing how the Russians and Americans teamed up to fight the Chinese. Speaking of which, they (the Chinese) were incredibly fucking stupid to start a war over gold and oil resources. Of the Chinese politburo, Fang seemed to be the only one with a strong brain in his skull and I am glad that the ending showed him surviving everything and ending up as the Premier. His anger at Luo's decision to launch the missiles gained him a bit of respect from me. ( )

As someone who loved Clancy's first novels, I was highly disappointed in this and gave up after about 100 pages or so. All the characters seemed to be the same person, lots of sex, and some of the political statements got in the way of the story. ( )