Post by Tyual on Jun 20, 2006 9:19:30 GMT -5
A novel in the series by Tom Clancey that follows the story of the man called Jack Ryan as he goes through all the political events his job demands as well as trying to keep his family safe and maintaing a good home life.
I read this one earlier in the year. In it, the US and Japan are basically playing ring around the bush to try and avoid a full scale war, the way politics and diplomacy demand. And you get to see a front-row, behind the scenes take at it from the view of Jack Ryan and several other interesting characters.
I found this book to be excellent. It lives up to Clancey's stature for writing. He researches his topics before he writes them, so he's not just making all of the things up off the top of his head, although some of them for security purposes and what not. He uses real, possible scenarios. It makes it interesting because you're like "So what would happen if this really did happen, with the administration we have, and the country we have."
In short, the Japanese crash our stock market and deflate the dollar. They make it worthless. So everyone buys into Yen, which is becoming a very strong currency as the result of their manipulation. (Well I say Japan, but it wasn't the country, just some very prominent businessmen from there.) Anyhow, the source is found, and America and Japan go on this little ring-around-the-bush back and forth thing to try and avoid a full scale war. Japan is trying to stock up nukes. They're trying to take over some of the pacific islands that are under US rule. They are basically trying to screw us over. And America responds in force.
Although it's a very long book filled with words that are a lot bigger than you will ever need to use in your day-to-day life, except maybe to insult someone with a small vocabulary in a way that they don't even realize what's happened, and it has some slow points, because well diplomacy and polotics have slow points, it's worth the read. It has it's share of military action, things going boom, air raids, radar checks, things of that nature. I really enjoyed the book, but things of the nature the book is about are just up my alley of stuff that I like. So I'm a bit of a nerd, sue me.
If you like politics, war, diplomacy, international relations, economy, such and so forth, then you'll probably like the book. If you think all of that is just a bunch of big words that doesn't really mean jack to you, then you probably won't.
I guess this is one of those books that it really depends on what you personally like and what you don't.
I read this one earlier in the year. In it, the US and Japan are basically playing ring around the bush to try and avoid a full scale war, the way politics and diplomacy demand. And you get to see a front-row, behind the scenes take at it from the view of Jack Ryan and several other interesting characters.
I found this book to be excellent. It lives up to Clancey's stature for writing. He researches his topics before he writes them, so he's not just making all of the things up off the top of his head, although some of them for security purposes and what not. He uses real, possible scenarios. It makes it interesting because you're like "So what would happen if this really did happen, with the administration we have, and the country we have."
In short, the Japanese crash our stock market and deflate the dollar. They make it worthless. So everyone buys into Yen, which is becoming a very strong currency as the result of their manipulation. (Well I say Japan, but it wasn't the country, just some very prominent businessmen from there.) Anyhow, the source is found, and America and Japan go on this little ring-around-the-bush back and forth thing to try and avoid a full scale war. Japan is trying to stock up nukes. They're trying to take over some of the pacific islands that are under US rule. They are basically trying to screw us over. And America responds in force.
Although it's a very long book filled with words that are a lot bigger than you will ever need to use in your day-to-day life, except maybe to insult someone with a small vocabulary in a way that they don't even realize what's happened, and it has some slow points, because well diplomacy and polotics have slow points, it's worth the read. It has it's share of military action, things going boom, air raids, radar checks, things of that nature. I really enjoyed the book, but things of the nature the book is about are just up my alley of stuff that I like. So I'm a bit of a nerd, sue me.
If you like politics, war, diplomacy, international relations, economy, such and so forth, then you'll probably like the book. If you think all of that is just a bunch of big words that doesn't really mean jack to you, then you probably won't.
I guess this is one of those books that it really depends on what you personally like and what you don't.