great book kept interesting the whole way through which is no small achievement for an 800 page book the reasons i liked it were its engaging style, complex plot, in depth characters, strong real life research and brilliant fight scenes. Tom Clancy’s style i found very engaging because of the way that he can add details while not drifting off the story too much and his in depth interesting writing. The plot while not overly fast paced was complex enough to make up for it and kept on twisting until the end of the story. The characters all had an in story background for the reader to read giving more knowledge about the psychology of the characters making the book much deeper. The author obviously either has a background in military or spent a long time gathering information about the weapons and equipment he writes about which also helps the reader get more from the story. The fight scenes are some of the best I’ve read as rather than plain action there is some waiting with characters pointing guns waiting for exactly the right moment tensed fingers holding the triggers and it builds suspense in a way that standard action scenes can't.

Rainbow Six is a hold.
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Overall Thoughtsn
As I say with many of my reviews, where do I even start with a book like this?

I grew up with Tom Clancy, and with Rainbow Six specifically. Before I ever knew it was a book or a series, I knew it as a videogame for the Sega Dreamcast. I remember it being SUPER difficult and liking that there was a character named Chavez.

Now, much older, Tom Clancy is a name everyone knows. "Clear and Present Danger" is one of my favorite CIA / spy thrillers, and Jack Ryan is a new series I like. Because of that, I decided to pick up Rainbow 6 and give it a shot because I've heard great things and wanted to experience something that has been a big part of my life for basically as long as I can remember.

Holy shit, I wish I didn't. Fundamentally, each section of Rainbow Six was great. Clancy can definitely write some great action scenes, and it's obvious he knows about weapons and consults on them -- but I'm saying that as someone that doesn't really know the nuances of weapons or the military.
I would even say that his plot and intrigue is good at the surface level, but the more you find out about characters and their motivations, the worse things get.

This book is, quite simply put, incredibly anti-environmentalist, full of homophobia, misogyny, and succumbs to poorly veiled racism. Let me break down each part here. There'll be some spoilers.

Anti-Environmentalist
The main terrorist faction in this novel are people that want to save the environment. I can understand where they're coming from - we're messing up the planet horribly, and this book does a good job of recognizing that we had a problem even way back in 1998 when it was written. But they go ALL OUT about it, and decide THE ONLY WAY to actually save the world is to kill off like 90% of the population with a virus, but they can save them and their friends in "the new world."
So like... not only do we take wanting to save the planet and make it extreme, but we also make the core beliefs of this group (that natural selection is good, and nature is indiscriminate) but then make them... cherry pick who they want to live? It's ridiculous.
With how much money and the amount of resources this terrorist faction uses, they could have just lobbied. Because if history shows anything, it's that politicians are super corrupt.

Homophobia
The book makes it a point to call out how Popov had no problem shooting someone in the back of the head because they were gay. So he's cool killing gay people, but lets just be ok with the fact that the "Good guys" let him live in the end because mass genocide is seemingly too far for him.
Why make the call out that those characters were gay at all, let alone the fact that Popov enjoyed / didn't have an issue killing them? There's literally no point; it isn't pivotal to his character, and you're not supposed to HATE him anyway. So why? Because homophobia sells to the reader-base, is my guess.

Misogyny
Why are there no women in Rainbow, and if there are, they are... secretaries or wives?
You can look anywhere in the world and see women being bad-ass mother fuckers the same as men. If you believe certain reports, having women to infiltrate where men can't is even MORE important in a shadow organization. But lets make them emotional baggage, or "things to want to go home to." Lets also make sure one of the villains is a women, and call out how men treat her.
I just don't get why Clancy seemed to write characters that could have been awesome, but threw them away. Malloy would have been a super easy way to write a woman into the book, as would have Noonan. But Clancy thinks that only "macho men" who "aren't pussies" can do something like the book describes.
Maybe it's a reflection of his time in the armed forces, maybe it's a reflection of 1998, but it's just stupid and made me roll my eyes at the 99 times he points out how macho everyone is.

Veiled Racism
This is something I'm noticing more and more in my books.
Ok, so we got Chavez, who is Hispanic, and mixed nationalities throughout the Rainbow org. But they base in England, and everyone is basically white outside of Chavez and the clear tokens from each country. Clancy even makes Clark call out how the Brits are running the majority of the show. In an organization where every country should be represented, there was a distinct lack of color here.
Plus, with the majority of the Brits, they simply say, "Quite." whenever Clark or Chavez or anyone else gives exposition. What the actual hell? They say more than 1 or 2 words.

The book isn't all bad. It just isn't very good.
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Prosn
1) The action scenes are wonderful
2) The way you see both the Terrorist POV and Rainbow's POV is pretty cool, but overdone
3) I love that characters from CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER are here, and their story continues. I didn't put the pieces together until this read.
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Consn
1) Everything I referenced above; I won't rehash it
2) The book is 2/3rds too long. The first time you get: a) Macho men, b) evil corporation, c) random terrorist cell attack, d) takedown, e) what could we do better? It's pretty cool... but not 4+ times.
3) Clancy repeats himself over and over. How many times did I need to hear about Noonan's feelings on being a tech nerd and wanting to run with the big boys? Or Clark being unable to keep up with the guys doing PT? Stupid.
4) The ending completely undoes everything the book fought for - law and order. The irony was great, but... wow.
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Closing Thoughtsn
I feel like 24-27yrs old would have been the prime spot to read this. I would have been mature enough to read through it, but immature enough to not see the glaring issues here.

Clancy isn't a bad writer. But why was this book this long? Why did anyone who isn't some hard-ass military buff dude seem bad?
There was just so much that made me go:

that it was distracting from the novel.

If you're a hardcore Clancy fan, read it. If you want some cool scenes, maybe read it? But be ready to want to skip 90% of it.

Oh boy what an excellent standalone story about a counterterrorism group going up against a global bioterrorism conspiracy

I sure hope it doesn't evolve from a enjoyable stealth tactical video game franchise to a siege game that isn't even realistic anymore!

This one was awesome. I really really enjoyed it. The story focuses on 'Team Rainbow' and international anti-terrorism take force based in England (I knew this one was gonna be a banger with that as the premise). Indeed it was, Clancy absolutely killed it with this classic. Team rainbow is badass and they get the job done. Throughout this story Rainbow is deployed around the world to combat different threats in varying locations. All the while a secret organization is pulling the string in the shadows. 99% of this book was killer. My only dislike was the ending, similarly to Chain of Command. But not for the same reasons. The finale isn't rushed in this one, it just left a bad taste in my mouth.

THIS was the longest book I read in 2022?! Yeah, it felt long.

I read this out loud to my husband, on his request. It took forever. It went between being very interesting to "why do I care about this group at all??" and ultimately seemed extremely padded out for the story it was trying to tell.

It was extremely patriotic. I didn't mind the element of environmentalists being the baddies; any passion can become stupidly obsessive. What I minded was how much of my time it took to get to the point, get to the tension, and how very many dull chapters I had to read through to get there. I get it, Rainbow Six Is Cool And Smart And Can Do Nothing Wrong. This story could still have used some severe editing.

My husband tells me the game is much better.

I have been playing the Rainbow Six xbox games regularly since they launched over two decades ago. I realised that, despite this, I had never read the book that inspired them, so I thought it was about time. Things have changed significantly since this book came out, the descriptions of technology being the most obvious. The ability to crack (or not) encryption rates for one, and the inability of the FBI/CIA to trace a simple email. One of the main characters (and an elite super fit soldier) regularly smokes his pipe, which just sounds so weird reading it at this point in time.
I think what hasn’t changed was the most depressing, the references to us as humans destroying the planet, not learning to be greener, not caring about the cutting down of the rainforest. Sadly, all that is depressingly similar to now, where climate change is having such an impact. In the book there is also a worry about Russian interference with other countries' politics and the propaganda and Russian spies. Plot wise, this is an action-packed anti-terrorist force doing its thing, across several different settings. Think guns, flash bangs, helicopters, all exciting action to read through. It does accumulate to a fairly far-fetched but exciting James Bond ending which I found a very enjoyable read. Yes, it is a long book, but I found myself looking forward to catching up with what the team were up to next.

One of the best plots

Reread after abut 20 years.

Clancy writes a very good story however, he writes that story in 900 pages when he could have written 600 pages and not eliminated anything important. Back in the day he must have been paid by the page.

This story would be better with editing. Too many unnecessary written words had me at times falling asleep and dulled some of this novel. 5 of 10 stars

Rainbow Six has a different connotation now. Damn, Clancy wrote thick novels, better watch out Sideshow Bob, haha.

Rainbow Six
Owen Wahl
8-30-18

Rainbow Six by Tom Clancy is a continuation in the John Clark series by Tom Clancy. Tom Clancy is a top secret FBI agent who is offered to become the Top Dog for a brand new operation called Rainbow Six. R6 for short is a multinational anti terrorism group who all have a very particular set of skills. Their mission is to eliminate a new group of terrorists who recently have been on the uprise. Follow John Clark and his best friend Ding Chavez lead their teams through Bank Robberies, Hostage situations, and Bomb defusals in the most intense book i have ever read. I recommend this book to anyone who has played any of the Tom Clancy Video games or is interested into Government special operations or anything along those lines. This book had me jumping out of my seat after very descriptive content of the aftermath of an operation. I found out about this book through my father who has read almost all of the Tom Clancy Books. Can John Clark and his team beat eliminate the terrorist group? Find out by reading R6.

This is probably my second favorite book of all time (after "Gates of Fire"). Clancy tells us what it would be like if the environmentalists went haywire, which is not too far off in my opinion. Rainbow Six is the international anti-terrorist unit that has to stop them. Edge-of-your-seat-excitement from page 1!