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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Net-Net, You Can Skip This One, May 23, 2000
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.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Harrassment Moves Plot From Espionage To Mediocrity, May 6, 2000
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.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Disappointment, September 8, 2004
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.
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