Power Plays: Politika [Mass Market Paperback]

I'm a great admirer of Clancy's work but this is one of the rare occassions that he has not lived upto my expectations. It is also my first book in the "Power-Plays" series. I liked the way he prepared the plot upto the explosion but the story seem to lack "punch" after that. Still it is not that bad.

//From an unacknowleged letter to the publisher about the paperback edition// Page Erratum Comment 18 Bashkir...Far Eastern I think you mean "Siberian"; the Bashkirs are not in the Far East. If "Bashkir" is not an ethnic Bashkir, why does he have this name? (There is a famous pianist with the name Bashkirov) 30 Romual Perhaps you mean the Polish first name Romual'd (the apostrophe indicating the Russian soft sign, that being how the name is spelled in Russian) 43 Bishir yetso Neither I nor another experienced Russian linguist have any idea what this means. 62 vor v. zakone The period is not necessary (it's not a middle name!); rather than "godfather", such a person is more like the Mafia "made man" or, simply, "professional (as opposed to petty) thief", who subscribes to a code. See "Soviet Prison Camp Speech", by Meyer Galler, based largely on Solzhenitsyn's early works, for an excellent reference on this subject 110 Republican convention ?the previous summer"; in 1998? 181 Gorbachev He wasn't president in 1992 235 MIDI MIDI is a digital protocol governing the transmission of musical data between sound modules/synthesizers and computers or other sound modules/ synthesizers 261 Zgranitsa etc. Za granitsa (SIC) is a prepositional expression; no native Russian speaker would use it as the subject of a sentence like an English speaker might. 337 Mercedes Wold a rabid Russian nationalist/ Communist be seen in one of these? Bad image. . 343 Komerade ??? You mean "tovarishch"? "Komerad" is what German soldiers traditionally say when about to surrender 364 IL-76 This is a cargo plane, not a passenger plane. Although it is used to carry paratroopers, they don't sit in "passenger seats" any more than US airborne units do.

It's not absolutely bad (I put 2 stars!), but boring enough. Advice: if you are writing a book about something (for example, Russia), it's good idea to get acquainted with your subject a little.