Customer Reviews

Night Moves

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(6)
1 star:		(11)

 

 

There are two primary reasons for not reading this book. The first is that it is totally missing the primary element of the most successful Tom Clancy novels, the fascinating technical detail of the main story line. All you will get in this book of that sort is more information than you ever wanted to know about sights on hand guns. The second is that the main story line is not developed enough to be interesting. A super hacker is disrupting the world's ability to function. Other than describing some of the consequences of that: Airlines aren't flying, you can't transfer money, etc. that's all you get.

The computer aspects of this book are atrocious. There is supposed to be a quantum computer involved, but you get no decent development of that point. The search for the hacker is conducted primarily in cyber-space through virtual reality metaphors for big game hunting. To me, that takes something interesting (the hunt for the hacker) and makes it ordinary. This was a terrible plot device.

If you are interested in the computer aspects of future crime, this book is a poor representative of what can be done. The book is clearly written for people who have never used a computer. That's a shame.

The primary story lines in this book that are worth reading relate to a master assassin who the Net Force wants to interrogate. Some of the scenes here rival The Day of the Jackal. If this had been the whole novel, Clancy and Pieczenik would have had a winner.

If you want to read every Clancy novel, go ahead and read this one. If you are not so compelled, go ahead and skip it. This book is resistible.

Cardinal of the Kremlin, Hunt For Red October, Patriot Games, et al. this is not. The central plot -- one of cyber espionage, those who conduct it and those who investigate it -- is enticing but somehow runs afoul of meaningless, and in some cases crass side stories. Instead of focusing on catching a computer genius bent on upsetting world order, protagonist Alex Michaels is locked in a seedy triangle: gain custody of his daughter from his former wife following an acrimonious divorce, maintain "relations" with Toni his martial arts lover, and dodge the tempting sexual advances of a British agent. It becomes quickly obvious that Michaels isn't bright enough to solve a computer crime and, indeed, Clancy depends on a cast of others to do the heavy lifting in this dime novel. Col. Howard, an African American leader of the Net Force tactical team is perhaps the best character in the book; certainly the most human. But his son's boomerang fetish and own love interests are hardly relevant except to humanize the Colonel. Between the Zen, Guru, martial arts philosophy and tracking down virtual reality tigers and dinosaurs to counteract the terrorists, I kept hoping for a solid finish. Sadly, the reader is given the standard, brut force SWAT raid on the bad guy's mansion instead of a cleaver computer based bust.

In short, Night Moves moves afield of Clancy's other tight, gripping novels. His Net Force and Ops books clearly take him away from the quality, well reasoned novels of the past and move him into the mass production trash that litters the bookshelves.

This is the very first Clancy novel I've tried and I wasn't much impressed. Basically a Sidney Sheldon melodrama with some science fiction tacked on. Also there were some unnecessary subplots that were weak and irrelevant (the colonel's son, the agent's love triangle, the female monk...). These took the edge away from what I thought was going to be a to-the-point, intense SciFi-thriller. Not a complete waste of time, but not time well spent.

This can't be a Tom Clancy book - it's simply appalling! Frankly I was more than dissappointed - I feel ripped off having wasted my time reading this. Until this book I was a Tom Clancy fan - now I doubt I'll read another of his books (certainly none of the Net Force series).

The plot (if you can call it that) is hopeless, characters are 1 dimensional, and the purile sub-plot about inane high school kids romance is irrelevent.

Don't waste your time.

Reading this book was a complete waste of time. I am a fan of REAL Tom Clancy writings. Unfortunately, his major success and the book company's greed (and perhaps his own) to capitalize on his name every which way possible has yielded "Clancy Seconds" such as this book. If you have ever read real Clancy writings, you will know that he clearly had nothing to do with this book other than lending his name to it. I believe he created the concept for NetForce (which started off very well) but now they farm these books out to ghost writers. This book had poor character development and weak story lines. Stick to reading Clancy's major titles which are written only by him.

I read the first book in the net force series, and I thought that it was ok but that it just wasn't up to par. I haven't bothered to even read the next two in the series, but from what I have heard, they are worse than the first one. I think, just like a lot of other Tom Clancy fans that Mr. Clancy needs to stick to writing his own books rather than stamping his name on someone else's book. My advice is that if it says Created by Tom Clancy and... don't read it-yor are just wasting your time. All of Tom's other books that he didn't co-write, such as Clear and Present Danager, are much much better and I would recommend them any day.

Net Force 3 was the best net force yet. I like the way he makes the characters more real than he does in his other novels. The plot to set the world into conflict was brilliant and also different because istead of the usual Russian, Chinese, or Arab villian you have an Englishman.

I thouroughly enjoyed Net Force: Night Moves other that one thing. The primarial focus on Toni Fiorella and Alex Michaels. Come on. Please. Toni won't let Alex explain? She quits her career? That was the bad highlight of the story, the whole Fiorella/Michaels angle. It took up most of the story and stunk the whole place up. However, the central action was exemplary, and We saw Mikhal Ruzhyo return in this thriller. I enjoyed this book based on action. I also liked the part about Tyrone and Nadine. A little high-school never hurt anyone. I do not like Net Force Explorers, because the constant changing of authors and views just ruin it. So far, it's apparent that Tom Clancy is losing his edge on thrillers. I suggest you try 'Tansfer of Power' by Vince Flynn. He is the next coming of Tom Clancy, and only has the tiniest bit of relationships in, not full-blown.

Have you ever listen to a dishonest politician speak. That's the feeling I got from this audio book. It's like you asked a legitimate question, and he is going round and round with you and giving you stuff that is hardly relevant to the subject matter. If there is a rating for minus stars, I will give it the -5 stars. One audio tape would have been more than enough for it. Tom Clancy is getting greedy.

There was once a time when I was an avid Tom Clancy reader and even put up with the Op Center series which was far below what I saw as the Clancy standard. Net Force is another case entirely. This series, and this book in particular, is terrible. The plots are ridiculous, the characters are shallow and unsympathetic, the writing is formulaic and overall it appears that the authors "phoned it in". No more for me!