Rainbow Six

Tommy Clancy is an impressive story-teller and I really like his work....BUT he’s also a major word glutton and very promiscuous with regards to the sheer volume of prose he pours into each tale. The man loves, loves, looooooooves him some letters and it seems he will do nothing in 5 pages of text if he can possibly coax 10 or 15 out of it. A bit more brevity if you please, sir.

That said, Clancy is a grandmaster of the big, global threatening, spy-guy thriller and he packs plenty of worthy into the narrative despite the occasional bout of overabundance. Just make sure when you pick up one of his tomes that you’re prepared for a massive, sprawling epic that spends considerable time just enjoying the surroundings before marching into the promised land.

It’s a good trip, but it travels the scenic route to get there.

n  PLOT SUMMARYn

John Clark (aka Super Spook Extraordinaire) has been tapped by his buddy, President Jack Ryan, to head up a new top secret, multi-national, counter-terrorist group called Rainbow to deal with post cold war threats to the good people of Earth. Headquartered in the U.K. and comprised of the crème-de la crème of elite, mega badasses from the U.S. and Europe, Rainbow is the ultimate squad of no-nonsense, life takers out to bring the pain to those that would dare cause trouble for the freedom loving world.

On the other side of Rainbow is an ex-KGB heavy working for an extreme group of gaia-loving, radical Eco-terrorists looking to perpetrate some real nasty on the Planet’s most environmentally offensive species (...and no, we aren’t talking farting cows here). I don’t want to spoil the central goal of the bad guys are but it is well-planned, well-funded and seriously scary. It is also complex and includes as part of the overall scheme some “old guard” terrorist operations that spotlight the new Rainbow group, some secret medical experiments on the homeless people and security at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games.

n  MY THOUGHTSn

After reading a bunch of Clancy around the time the movie version of The Hunt for Red October was released, this was my first novel of his in over 10 years. I liked it. I wasn’t quite as blown away by this one as I have been in the past and I think that is less a reflection of the story (which was among his best) and more an indication that my reading tastes have evolved and that the thriller genre has caught up to Clancy who at one point was miles ahead of the crowd.

My only real gripe goes back to my introductory reference to Clancy’s word whoring and page count promiscuity. The book was just toooooooooooo loooooooooong for me given the events of the novel. Tommy could’ve written a 500 page book (rather than almost 1000) and lost none of the plot or narrative detail. It never got so bad that I was actually frustrated, but it got close a few times.

That page bloat cost the book a star from me.

However, despite the plot plod, the story is still wonderfully done and Clancy has a real gift for complex, well-thought out scenarios and both the good and bad guys do some very interesting things. His attention to detail is also as sharp as ever. My favorite this about Clancy’s stories are his characters which stand out among others in the genre for their perfect balance between true blue patriotism, inner decency and the willingness to take the gloves off and put a fatal hurting on the baddies. Nobody does this kind of character better and both Jack Ryan and John Clark are among my favorite literary leading men of all time.

Overall, a good solid thriller that could have been made more enjoyable with a reduced thickness. Thus 3.0 stars for what in many respects was a 4 star story.

Still, recommended for fans of the genre.

What a trip! Tom Clancy, arguably (along with Larry Bond) the biggest game-changer in the history of the technothriller, proves that he can deliver comedy gold with this droll self-parody. Ex-Navy SEAL and super-duper CIA legend John Clark, still hurting under his warrior's iron-hard facade from the brutal and plot-driving death of every woman he has ever known in his entire life, is put in charge of a top-secret NATO counter-terrorist team. Clark, his demeanor increasingly reminiscent of Uncle Duke from Doonesbury, assembles a crew of multinational stereotypes so flat they could fit into business envelopes. Clark starts with his son-in-law "Ding" Chavez, a veteran of other Clancy novels who used to be interesting but seems to have gotten over it.

Clancy cranks up the hilarity by allowing this team to launch cross-border operations with the eager blessing of every government involved... just like real life! Additional comedy comes from the notion that the Rainbow project is "blacker than black" on the U.S. side of the pond, a secret known only to gods and Ubermensch, and yet can be called in by the governments of Switzerland, Spain, and Austria at the drop of a hat. Oh, the trenchant sarcasm of Clancy's portrayal of these helpless Euro-wuss bureaucrats, pathetically eager to let a team led and dominated by American personnel run around shooting things up on their own turf! The way the terrorist scenarios play out in a ludicrously linear fashion, ramping up in challenges and complexity like video game levels, is also a deft parodic touch.

All in all, this book is so thunderously dull, its moral questions so elementary, its politics so spavined, its protagonists such jut-jawed spelunkers up their own buttholes, I have to applaud the author's divine sense of irony and... wait, what?

This book wasn't meant to be satire?

This is my favourite of the Clancy books that feature the recurring characters, in this case it's John Clark and Ding!!! And with the subject of Counter-Terrorism. It was also my first Clancy book, and after reading this was hooked! I started reading the Tom Clancy series in order, and every book so far has been excellent.



I coudn't put this book down - one of the tensest Clancy books I've read. The buildups to the meticulously planned counter-terrorist action scenes were some of the best I've read. Clancy runs a number of seemingly unrelated stories in this book, which come together throughout the book.



Full of everything that makes a Clancy book genius, action, character development, military knowledge, tactics, politics, world takeovers, being on the brink of World War Three and chilling plots - the situations in his books do tend to occur at some point not long after his book comes out!

Another serving of jinjoism and macho pablum from Tom Clancy. This book is essentially a sequeal to Without Remorse, and very similar thematically to that book. It features the same main character, John Clark and includes a bunch of revenge killing by a group of amoral special forces soldiers. This doesn't so much illustrate the ambiguity of military violence though, since all the characters seem to be unable to reflect on their actions and instead mouth idiot platitudes about serving God and country.

The plot, if you care, revolves around a bunch of eco-terrorists that plan to wipe out the world with the ebola virus, to return to a state of nature. Lame. This is the second novel in a row by Clancy where characters try to spread the ebola virus to an unsuspecting population. Clancy's characters are impossible to tell apart and no "good guy" is ever killed or injured except for a couple of minor characters.

Nonetheless, this book is better than Executive Orders. For one thing, it's shorter (though still over 900 pages). It's also got the ideological nonsense toned down somewhat, though it's still present way too much. I guess the reason it gets two stars instead of one is that the hostage situations that occur in the first half of the book do generate some tension. But it's really useless to review Clancy at this point; you know if you like to read this stuff and know more or less what you're getting yourself into. As far as Clancy books go, this one seems to fall right about in the middle of the pack.

Can’t wait to see what Clancy does with Rainbow 7!

This book is butt.

Clancy initially got into the techno-thriller genre with the Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger...books that largely focused on the espionage and tactical aspects of the Cold War world. After setting Jack Ryan up as President and probably due to his fame, Clancy's editors all but disappeared just as the novels got longer and longer, less accessible, and begin to read as neo-con diatribes praising the military-industrial complex. Where the series was once fun, or at least fun-adjacent, it's now fully a Reagan-era conservative wet dream. Chock full of extra-judicial military killings, military arrest of civilians (?????), complete and utter disregard for international law or state sovereignty, and tired stereotypes, and that's Clancy's GOOD GUYS.

Of course, Clancy also takes the opportunity to take aim at the LGBT community, decries countries that don't have an American 2nd Amendment equivalent, and praises and propagates grossly outdated toxic masculinity ideals of "big strong man protect family from cold dark world." The irony is that Clancy's worlds are entirely black and white; there's no nuance. A few times, I came close to identifying with the terrorist organizations, as their ideas are largely based in logic and then twisted, not unlike actual terrorists. But Clancy can't resist turning them into caricatures and the plot goes reeling off the page yet again.

This is to say nothing of every character getting a pages-long soliloquy waxing poetic about how the world has changed, or what does this all mean. Where I normally wouldn't mind if a character takes time to think on something, there are several passages where a character can't figure out what's happening despite trying to logic it out. This is incredibly tiring and frustrating because we, as readers, DO know what's happening. It's not interesting or helpful to have the characters go "gee, I wonder what this all means" when the audience ALREADY KNOWS.

And then of course the ending. Arrest the entire Rainbow organization. Christ, what absolute nonsense.

What can I say? Wow! Right from the start, that most excellent of storytellers, Tom Clancy, throws us into action with a detailed yet gripping account of a hijacking. In some of his previous books (most notably Patriot Games, Executive Orders and The Sum of All Fears) the story dies for a hundred pages or more as Clancy explains the story (and regrettably, this has resulted in many readers stopping reading mid-way through a book...
But no more. Rainbow Six keeps up the heart pumping action right the way through as though there is no tomorrow - and there may well not be! Long as it is, Clancy has once again kept my full attention resulting in late nights, staying up far too late turning page by page to find out WHAT HAPPENS!

I was worried that Clancy was beginning to dull in his stories, having read Executive Orders which was explosively exciting in the last pages but, I felt, took too long to get there. And having read the co-authored Op-Centers, I was very worried as they all lacked the quick pace and exciting realism common to many Clancy books.

However, I felt that singling out environmentalists as the bad guys was not a good marketing move (if not resulting in an excellent book!) and that their methods and ideals were not credible enough to bring a true sense of realism. I did enjoy the fantastic end to the story and hope that, true to Clancy style, Dmitry Popov will appear in another book in the near furture!

And for the second time, Clancy has focused the book on John Kelly (otherwise known as Clark). Clark has definitely changed since the torture days portrayed in Without Remorse, become more mature, even mellowed in age. I missed good old Jack Ryan however although Clancy referred to Clark's good relationship with "The President". I felt that Jack deserved more place although, I think Clancy may have brought an end to Jack Ryan as a major role in Executive Orders. Keen followers of Clancy will note how Jack gradually rose through the ranks - ordinary history teacher and a lucky stock investor, then working at CIA, eventually becoming, DDO, DDI and eventually head of the CIA (which I believe is DCI, right?). Then going on to National Security Advisor, Vice-President (albeit for a short time) and finally President. I can think of no higher occupation for Ryan and this leads me to believe Clancy has decided to leave him out of future novels. I hope I am wrong...

Is Clancy, in his usual portrayal of realistic events (as opposed to fantasy ones) going to let John Clark and Jack Ryan simply die of old age? Whilst this would be true to form, they would be sorely missed, and only Ding seems to be able to replace either of them. Are future books to hold only Domingo Chavez and not the beloved Clark-Chavez team? Will Jack retire?

We can't tell. Clancy has shrouded us in a black cloak of curiosity until he chooses to reveal antoher piece of the unending story he weaves. And even then, we surely will not get the last piece of the puzzle. We will be left again to wait until it is time...

One of the best plots