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Title: Re-read Hunt for Red October instead of this book
Review: It's too bad that Clancy has become so powerful that he could tell his publisher's editor to f*** off. If there was one thing this overlong book needed was good editing and about five more re-writes. The result is a boring, predictable, cartoonish tech manual. It was as if he wrote his first draft as a story outline and went with it. Character development? Forget it. There are no interesting characters in the book except maybe the ex-KGB agent, who's too dull to figure out the obvious until just in the nick of time. And, by the way, the "nick of time" ending is obvious and unexciting. The heroes are mere vectors of action and have no interest to the reader as human beings. I feel used by Mr. Clancy who must have figured his reputation would sell a lot of books without really working too hard. I doubt I will buy any more of his books if this is where he is headed in his career.
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