Customer Reviews

The Sum of All Fears

5 star:		(102)
4 star:		(33)
3 star:		(21)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

Tom Clancy does it again. This is an excellent book for those who love detail and interwoven story lines. I recommend this to anyone who loves techno-thrillers. If you didn't understand how or why things happened the way they did in the movie then you definitely have to read the book.

I wish the film had been this good. Clancy hasn't written a book this great for a long, long time. I wish he'd study his work here and duplicate it (not literally!) in his next novel, because evidently the money has gotten to his head and he's lost it. He once told a classroom of students at his old high school that his inspiration to write is the car he drives. He's turned into a hack!

Jack Ryan is on the other side - political forces from the National Security Advisor to the President want him out. Information about his past - such as his connections to the Zimmer family - are hinted at in the press. His wife thinks he's unfaithful, the president thinks he's James Bond, and certain forces are building a hydrogen bomb to provoke a war between the US and the Russians.

From the ashes of his dismay, Jack eventually finds redemption, not in alcohol, but in the form of Mr. Clark, and Domingo Chavez, who give his wife the truth about her husband's gallantry and fidelity. Those forces nudge him back to his job - and his interception in not only preventing a nuclear war, but in his ultimate choice to defy the President in his choices - and willing to sacrifice his job for it.

I liked the film, and it led me to read the book. Boy, was I surprised! I have to wonder what Clancy thought of the screenplay because about the only thing they have in common is the name and a bomb that goes off...but not as or where it depicts in the film.
The book is really good, but I was continually faced with differences, so it was an interesting journey. The other reviewers have done a good job of explaining the story, so all I'll say is that you owe it to yourself, if you're a Clancy fan, to see what HE wrote instead of what the screenwriter did with it. I can assure you, you'll wonder if the screenwriter even read the book!

This is my favorite Clancy Book! Some SPOLIERS in Review

It is late 1991 after the Gulf War. The Soviet Union is in its final days and the American victory in the Gulf causes President Fowler to try and push a Iserali Palstienain peace treaty through.
So enter Jack Ryan now acting as the DDI after James Greer death in Clear and Present Danger, Jack comes up with the idea to have Jesurlm split into diffrent sectors, one Mulism one Iserali and then have it guarded by Swiss troops. The US officaly declares it would protect Iseral.
Jack has made enemies though. Elizbeth Elliot becomes the new National Security Advisor and she brngs a hatered of Ryan with her. She is hell bent to destroy him. In elliots quest to destroy Ryan she begins "banging" the President and gets him to dislike Ryan.
All the while a group of Islamic Terrroist, German Red Army Commuinsts and an Indian Convict plan on leading the world to a Nuclear War between the US and the USSR.

All this goes to make a great Novel. One can really hate Elliot after reading about her for a while. Jack quickly learns that having enemies isn't great and it screws up the home life. The climax of the Novel is the best. The Russian and American President slowy and somtimes accidently pushing each other towards war. A must read for Clancy fans.

READ THIS BOOK!

The Sum Of All Fears is by far THE BEST CLANCY NOVEL EVER! First it starts off that a Israeli nuclear missle is missing, and it falls in the hands of a Palestinian man who's father owns some land with the missle in his land, so begins the process of a nuclear missle. So with some help from ex-felon Marvin Russell, and the help of a German man who's wife is held in prison for murder, they decide to get a hold of some German nuclear scientist and begin the making of the bomb.
While in the good U.S. of A, things are taking a toll on Jack Ryan, the Fowler Administration dislikes Jack, especially Elizabeth Elliot, Presidential Advisor, and lover on the side of the President Fowler.
Jack is now caught in the fire by the Fowler Administration in which they did a background check without his ok with it, and they find that he is helping Buck Zimmer's wife Carol and her kids with money for all her kids in college. So they take pictures of him talking to Carol by giving her presents for her kids, and along side with him is John Clark.
Now the Fowler Administration see's a advantage to taking care of Jack. At home, tensions with Jack's wife Cathy who wants another child, cannot seem to do it because the job is taking a toll on him real bad.
Now Cathy is depressed because she feels that Jack is cheating on her, then comes John Clark and his partner in crime Domingo Chavez. They tell her the truth, and they set up with the CIA for Jack to take a couple of days off to be with his wife and a romantic dinner and a hotel suite.
Now we turn back to the terrorist, once they get to Denver, they kill Marvin Russell in the hotel room they were staying in, and all the scientist and the German guy too. They then decide to release the bomb in Denver where the Super Bowl was being held that year.
So they bring the bomb to Denver, they rent a Budget truck, and hide the bomb in the back by disguisting the truck as a news truck, so they go through security in a breeze.
Then disaster strikes! The bomb goes off killing everyone in a three mile radius. Then Russain subs attack an American vessel, but the vessel is being controlled by a man who got a Russain colonel suit and told the vessel to attack the sub.
So with his failed intelligence, Fowler then decides that it could be no one other than the Russians, so he sets up a nuclear warhead toward Moscow and vice versa.
Then comes Jack Ryan, he finds out that the Russians didnt do it, and it was the work of terrorist, but Fowler sticks to his plan on killing innocent people in Moscow because of something they didnt do.
So then comes John Clark and Domingo Chavez, they find out who did it, and now they are on the hunt for the nuclear terrorist, eventually they got lucky, and they caught them in Mexico.
Then Jack Ryan gets through the President of Russia and Fowler and tell them that the Russians didnt do it, Fowler pays Jack no attention, but by the brinks of God, not a single nuclear missle was fired.
This is a great novel, and I am just sad to see that Tom Clancy cant write like this anymore.

In his sixth novel (and fifth entry in the Jack Ryan series), The Sum of All Fears, Tom Clancy once again turned his attention on the specter of global terrorism and meshed it to the themes of the limits of Presidential power, the sometimes nasty backbiting that goes on in the world of politics, and the ever-present danger from weapons of mass destruction.

The book opens with a prologue set during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, when Egypt, Syria, and even a few Iraqi units attacked Israel in a stunning surprise attack. Faced with possible defeat for the first time in 25 years, Israel alerts its small nuclear deterrent to be placed on standby. In the confusion of increased mission tempo, a single small nuclear bomb is loaded onto an A-4 Skyhawk attack bomber whose pilot has no clue what he is carrying. In an attack on a Syrian SAM battery, this A-4 is shot down and its deadly cargo falls into a Druze farmer's rocky field, where it will lie undisturbed for almost two decades.

Fast forward to Clancy's fictional mid 1990s-era world. The Cold War is ending, and the easing tensions between East and West offer the weary world both hope and fear. With America and the Soviet Union now working together to solve some of the thorniest problems on the planet, expectations are high for a new, peaceful world order.

First and foremost of these problems, of course, is the Middle East, where Israeli-Palestinian relations have once again heated up in a chain of religiously-motivated incidents. This time, though, the Palestinians have taken a cue from the American civil rights movement and started a Martin Luther King, Jr.-style "peaceful confrontation" campaign, which places Israel on the moral defensive. Yet, a chance remark by Jack Ryan to a senior White House official begins a promising process that might lead to a fair solution to the long conflict between Muslims and Jews

The down side to all this is that not everyone is overjoyed with the wave of good news washing over the world. In Eastern Europe, die-hard Marxists refuse to accept the end of communism and rail against the "betrayal" by their former "socialist comrades" in the Soviet government. Among these deluded die-hards is German terrorist Gunther Bock, a vengeful radical whose wife is now behind bars in Germany and his twin children put up for adoption. On the run and lusting for the ultimate payback on the world, Bock will journey to the Middle East, where he will make contact with Palestinians sponsored by a shadowy Islamic leader who is equally unhappy about the coming peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors. And when by sheer luck this group (which will be joined by the unstable Native American Marvin Russell) comes across Israel's missing nuke, the ultimate revenge plot will begin to take form.

In this huge and complex novel, Jack Ryan is pushed to his limits both professionally and personally. For although the stalwart CIA analyst has now stepped up in rank to the post of acting Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, he is not held in the highest regard by the new Fowler Administration, which ironically won its place at the White House in part due to Ryan's actions at the end of Clear and Present Danger. The new Director of Central Intelligence, Sebastian Cabot, is merely a pawn cleverly manipulated by the "power behind the throne" in the West Wing, and the President himself, Robert Fowler, is more interested in securing his ultra-liberal domestic agenda at the expense of a strong and consistent foreign/defense policy.

To make matters worse, Ryan has earned the personal enmity of Dr. Elizabeth Elliott, President Fowler's new National Security Adviser, who not only wants the acting DDCI to be fired from his CIA job, but wants to wreak havoc on his personal life.

When all these plot threads converge and a deadly crisis arises, it is Ryan who must act quickly to avert an even worse conflict that could be the product of the sum of everyone's fears.

I have never read one of Tom Clancy's books. I have seen most of the movies that were made from them and have enjoyed most of them. I was moved to read this one after the flack over the much publicized "plot changes" that were prompted by sensitivity to the 9/11 tragedies. Curiosity led me to buy the book and read it to see what the changes were.

Yes, the movie did change the bad guys from Arab Muslims to some neo-nazi types, but I never understood how detailed these books were. I have decided to stick to the movie versions. I cannot fault Clancy for his writing, it's just more input than I want. I really don't care about the exact sequence of how a nuclear devise explodes. I really don't want to know the manufacturing process of that devise in detail.

I gave the book 3 stars because (at least for me) if I skip the pages and pages of technical detail the book is entertaining. I certainly don't want to try and chase folks away from this book if this type of detail is your cup of tea. But if you're like me, then just wait until they make it into a movie

It takes a while to get into this book, but when you do its worth it. Its a real page turner (and there's alot of them), its several stories that all come together to one great ending.

The book reflects the constant danger we are in from terrorist attack, in this case the threat of a nuclear detonation in a major city. Terrorists come up with a plan to start the Third World War and its upto Jack Ryan, CIA, to stop them. What unfolds is a great story that makes you think 'what if'.

Having not read a Tom Clancy book before I didn't quite know what to expect. While reading the book though I found myself amazed at the amount of technical details I had read without even thinking about it. Am not one who likes to look at the specs of things but I was impressed by the way Clancy included these in the book without it dulling the readers interest, if anything it made the book more interesting. This guy knows his stuff and when it comes to writing he has his style and it obviously works, many movies have been made from his books and he is still writing after many years.

I found some of his newer books to be more difficult to get interested in but when it comes to the Jack Ryan series he has it made.

This book was turned into a highly successful film that I am yet to see, but if it is half as entertaining as the book i'll watch it a dozen times.

4 Stars (would have been 5 but as I said, it was a little difficult to get interested in it to begin with).

Wow. This book is, for me, the best Clancy has ever written. It's masterful plot concerns a peace plan for the middle east set into plan by the Americans, and a missing Israili nuclear weapon discovered by Islamic extremists.This is a book I couldn't put down, in fact i read it for a day and a half straight while on holiday. The plot drives toward its great conclusion, and while it helps to have read the previous Clancy novels, if only for the backstories referenced to in the novel, it is still a great book in its own right. This is the first Clancy novel I read, and after this I have now read all off them. One of the best books by one of the the best modern authors, The Sum Of All Fears fails to disapoint.