From Amazon.com
Like
Politika, the first installment in the
Tom Clancy's Power Plays series created with Martin Greenberg,
ruthless.com offers the international scope and techno-thrills of the Jack Ryan-John Clark novels--but, importantly, without Jack Ryan and John Clark. For many Clancy fans, that means that
ruthless.com will be a disappointment. The hero is again Roger Gordian, and Gordian's claim to fame is his ownership of UpLink Communications; he was also the man who struggled (with his Sword security team) to avert a global nuclear war in
Politika. This time Gordian's concerns are slightly more modest. As a champion of encryption technology, Gordian has fought the shifting political winds that have tried to deregulate his industry. But now, he faces attacks from within: UpLink is the subject of a hostile takeover bid that threatens to put the highly sensitive codes that secure military communications into the hands of international terrorists. While it is more violent than the usual Jack Ryan fare, and Gordian and others in the cast are left underdeveloped in the complex shifts and turns of the plot,
ruthless.com has many moments that recall the best of Clancy (Gordian, for example, maintains a highly ethical streak despite his corporate panache).
--Patrick O'Kelley
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
Intrigues are afoot to wrest UpLink Communications and its encryption program away from its owner, Roger Gordian. So good-guy Gordian assembles a maelstrom of operatives, congressmen and writers to fight back. According to the publishers, this novel is "created" by Clancy and Greenberg, who press the viewpoint that not all information is useful and that encryption technology in the wrong hands could jeopardize national and world security. The action sequences are strong and well paced; one only wishes the creators had spent some time on the one-dimensional characters. Gordian is as plain as they come, and most of the secondary characters are interchangeable. The book will be of most interest to those who are knowledgeable in encryption-technology issues and who have read the first in the Power Plays series, Politika. It's worth noting that the Power Plays series began with a computer game.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
