Tom Clancy Under Fire

It's a new take on the Clancy system which does not get the system by far. Instead it uses the names, addresses etc of the original players without encroaching on the actual formats of what constituted the erstwhile figures. While Jack (Ryan) is used extensively and becomes the star of the show, the Campus is given lip service, in a support-only function. It is a who-done-it book which fails the master by a country mile. Is it worth reading? - only if you've never read any of the actual ofiginals, whuch grip you without resorting to plagiarism.

I got to chapter 10 and skipped to the end. Not because I was dying to know the ending, but because it was such a boring book I just wanted to find out what happened before binning the book.Oh dear. This is what happens when you turn a Tom Clancy novel into a police procedural. It sticks out like a badly-made bed in the canon of Jack Ryan Jr books. It is so different from the rest of the series it must have been an experiment to see how far you can push your readership into accepting something that is off-piste in terms of style and pace.Maybe this is a more realistic take on the cloak-and-dagger world, but I found it unduly complicated and I got lost after the first few chapters. The plot was unconvincing. I never quite understood why Jack Ryan Jr felt so strongly about his friendship with Seth who I wanted to double-tap because he had "trouble maker" written all over him from the start. Ysabel started off as what I thought was the potential love interest and ended up as an operative with good tradecraft.And it was boring. I wish I'd read the reviews before I bought this book and not succumbed to my need to read all the Jack Ryan Jr books because the early ones were so fantastic. My only consolation is that I bought it second-hand and so didn't pay full price.

The first Blackwood novels continued with the great Tom Clancy characters, and the style was very similar to the earlier books in the series. This book has lost the plausibility that was the Clancy trademark, and has some ridiculous sections. Errors have crept in. Grant, FYI an OBE is a minor honour, awarded to successful sportsmen and women, popular entertainers and charity workers. To refer to a fifty pound note and a fifty pound bill is careless. Why invent a country? Weak plot, not worthy of Clancy

I have been a huge fan of Clancy and the Ryan series, read them all and wait patiently for the next release, even after the great man passed the books have still held true with the plot and storyline building up from the first chapterUnfortunately this one didn't and it was a poor effort if I am being honest. Weak storyline, dragged out page after page , it really was quite dreadful

Mark Greaney gets it. Grant Blackwood doesn't.Blackwood doesn't manage to make the characters work in the way their evolution over may years would. Irrational decisions, disjointed logic and bizzare jumps.I just can't imagine how Ryan's character could be extrapolated this far beyond the rational.I made it to the end in a gesture of determination not to miss any part of these characters whom I have loved since I read Red October decades ago. I would seriously consider not buying another Blackwood novel, though, as the book just didn't deliver.