Customer Reviews

Rainbow Six (Unabridged)

While Tom Clancy may be best known for his Jack Ryan series of novels, he has shown that he can easily translate his skills over to a more action-orientated novel. For some, a Jack Ryan novel may be a little heavy in detail sometimes but the action is always brilliantly written. With Rainbow Six, we are given further insight into the characters of John Clark and Domingo Chavez, who will be familiar to readers of Clancy as being Jack Ryan's 'action men' in the CIA. With this new anti-terroist team 'Rainbow' we have an international team of men all the best within their field. British, Germans and Americans altogether. While there is the main plot-line running in the background (now even more frightening given recent events), 'Rainbow' are assigned other missions - and with these the pace and description is sheer genius. The incident at the Spanish theme park is fantastic - totally against the norm, yet shows the human nature of the characters we are presented with. While I am a great fan of the Jack Ryan series, I would dearly love to read another Rainbow Six novel. Are you listenning Mr. Clancy?!

I'm well aware that that probably isn't even a real word, but it sums up the book so well. The set-piece action scenes are hugely exciting, leaving you on the edge of your seat in the wait to see if they will succeed. In the "calmer" interludes, Clancy keeps the story chugging along, just quick enough to keep you interested yet not so quick that you lose track of who is doing what.

Typical Tom Clancy - a brick of a book, but suspense from A to Z

Dont pay too much attention of most negetive reviews for this book because it is FICIONAL, its great.

The story involved is highly detailed and exciting, leaving you that feeling "I want to finish this chapet, to read the next one".

I recommend this book for your first Tom Clancy, strictly as a warm up to some of his more thrilling, but less action packed, novels.

What can be said about Tom Clancy and any of his novels other than, he knows his stuff. "Rainbow Six" is a pure page turner, no ifs, ands or buts about it. As most Clancy readers know, John Clark is a well developed character in the "Ryanverse" to include "Without Remorse," which gives his back story. "Rainbow Six" puts him in a more modern spotlight. I read this masterpiece not long after it came out, however, on that tragic day of September 11, 2001 this and a couple other of Clancy's novels were what I thought of. It's literally very unfortunate we don't have these heroes out there watching our collective backs! Hopefully for us, the bad guys of the world have never heard of Tom Clancy, for they might get a play book for terrorism.
From the first page to the last this novel, like his other novels, is purely enthralling and you will hardly be able to put it down. Even if you've never read a Clancy novel before, pick this up if you're looking for pure intrigue, thrilling action and a few good laughs along the way. A huge thank you to the Author for this one. {ssintrepid}

Rainbow Six sees the return of John Clark (he of Without Remorse, Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of All Fears to name but three) who is asked to lead an elite multinational task force. Based in Britain this group of elite soldiers encounter an unusually high number of terrorists around the world, leaving Clark to look at what it is that links all these events.
This is one of my favourite Clancy books - it's non-stop action, with twists and turns along the way; the characters are well defined and if you've read other Clancy books you'll have an appreciation of how they've worked together before. Don't worry though, it's a perfectly good first Clancy book to read. Unusually for Clancy, the level of information offered on warfare is not too excessive leaving more time to understand the characters and enjoy the story. And finally in John Clark it has in my view the best character Clancy has invented - this strange secret character who manages to always find a way of succeeding against all the odds.
Definitely recommended.

Pacy thriller with three excellent stories coming together for the finale. Tom Clancy very often gets bogged down with too much technical information (that we've all read 100's of times anyway!)this book sticks to the plot and is very readable for both the ardent thiller fan and newcomer alike. Its nice to see some of his old characters coming alive again in this, his best thriller since 'clear and present danger'. the special forces side of the story is great. Brilliant soldiers with the best training and equipment, as expected. expert discriptions of the terrorist 'takedowns'. The underlying story of the 'mad scientist'is scary and believable and keeps you guessing. I read the 900 odd pages in 4 - 5 days and enjoyed every page. The only real critisism is of the final disappointing confrontation. I expected more of a 'Bang'!!!!

"Rainbow Six" was written by Tom Clancy and was published in 1999. Tom Clancy specialises in Political Thriller novels and has a vast knowledge of general military procedures and tactics due to his military heritage, which he effectively shows in all of his books. He has written many novels (more than 10) and some of his books have been made into film (The Hunt For Red October, The Sum Of All Fears,). They are so realistic that you actually feel that the events described in his books could actually happen in reality. He can describe in perfect detail and change the pace of the book nearly instantaneously, adding action, creating suspense and a tense atmosphere that makes you want to keep reading.
"Rainbow Six" is a book about an extraordinary group of the best counter-terrorist operatives in the world. They are hand picked agents from the USA, the United Kingdom, France and Germany, and are led by and ex-Navy Seal called John Clark. He is US president Jack Ryan's first choice when it comes to covert counter-terrorist missions. The team is based in Hereford, U.K, where they live with their families and train every day, to make themselves even better at taking down a big problem fast. Life seems easy and everything is going fine until a terrorist cell takes a Swiss bank under siege. They quickly assemble Team 1 and Team 2 and take out the threat. Too easy, lots of mistakes were made by the terrorists. A Russian mobster named Popov becomes interested in the group. Then a spate of more attacks happen. A stately home. A theme park full of children. The Hereford base. The connections are unclear, but something more sinister is at hand...
In my opinion, Rainbow Six is an excellent novel with an intricate plot, precise descriptions and surprising twists. I would recommend it to everybody.

In short I thought that Rianbow Six was a fantastic follow up to Executive Orders. I felt that I didn't actually get to know Clark and Chavez all that well in Executive Orders and was very pleased when I read the sleeve that these two characters where the main focus. The plot was well thought out and although I was dubious about some of the scientific background of the book - to the lay person it read beautifully. To be honest I could hardly put this book down. Some critics might say that the main focus was america and that some of the other nationalities in the book didn't get any air time as it were, but to say that actually misses the whole point of the story! In my opinion a great five star read!!

Clancy usually produces good books, well research with a cracking good plot Not so in this case. Apart from the obvious mistakes. (Hereford is due WEST of Stansted airport, not south! and the speed limit is not 80mph!) this book is more and more a carriage for his own particular views. Being written for the American market, it is overtly patronising to UK readers, and suffers from Clancys obvious lack of research and first hand knowledge of the UK. He should know however that the British dislike being called Brits just as much as they object to Yanks, and he really ought to dispense with the cliched speech and phrases that litter the entire book. He also doesn't like environmentalists much.....