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Title: Over the top or over the hill?
Review: I received this tome for Christmas, and read it over two very rainy days. Clancy hasn't lost his ability to design a compelling plot, however the book leaves much to be desired.Like many authors who write formulaic bestsellers, over time Clancy has gotten caught up in his own grandiosity and therefore won't let the publisher edit his books. This one REALLY needed a strong editor. At 1100 pages, it was too long, with too many subplots, too many long soliloquies of Clancy's John Birchish political philosophy, and too many repetitious banal catch phrases uttered by characters.Clancy has been headed down this road for some time--really since putting Jack Ryan in the White House--and I had vowed to stop buying his egotrips, and getting this one as a gift has only reinforced this stance.This piece is hugely disappointing for one who's read Clancy since The Hunt for Red October. Clancy either needs to get back to his roots, or give it up.
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