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Title: John Clark meets "Op Center", or "Sophomoric Power Politics"
Review: Tom Clancy has built a reputation for impeccable research and gripping plot lines. "Rainbow Six" fails in both regards. While I consider "Hunt for Red October" to be the archetypal "technothriller", "Rainbow Six" reads like one of his mass-produced "Op Center" books with a couple of familiar characters. Mr. Clancy has trouble differentiating between the strategic, operational and the tactical levels of warfare -- and although the basic plot lines of "Rainbow Six" are astute (growing threat of terrorism; danger of biowar; ascension of the multinational corporation as a mechanism of political power), he drops the ball by giving us shallow characters with only a thin veneer of credibility. I think Mr. Clancy does his reputation a grave injustice by pawning this dime store piece of pulp fiction in the guise of his far-better written Jack Ryan sagas.
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