February 1, 1999
Clancy's newest collaboration takes us to 2010, when the virtual Web looks like a stock-car race and gadgets and gizmos abound. Net Force, a computer security agency created by Congress, patrols the technological etherworld and those who hook into it. When the agency's director is assassinated, Deputy Director Alex Michaels suddenly finds himself in command. Diverted by the Chechen mastermind in Russia, Michaels and his forces are soon battling the New Mafia and an Irish assassin named "The Selkie." Out in the field, the Special Forces carry advanced armor and weapons systems while joshing around in cartoonlike jargon. The computer jocks drive their virtual Vipers to investigate "roadblocks" and "pileups." The equipment is interesting, but the action doesn't bear up under the ponderous exposition and flatter-than-a-floppy-disk characters. (Feb.) FYI: Net Force is soon to be an ABC mini-series.
January 1, 1999
The creators of Tom Clancy's Op-Center series strike again, launching what apparently will be a series about a near-future branch of the FBI charged with policing the global Net. It opens with a bang, literally. Agents of Russian computer expert Vladimir Plekhanov--who plans to buy, with the profits of global Net crime, Chechnya, then the Ukraine, then who knows what--assassinate the head of Net Force. New chief Alexander Michaels and his staff find themselves up against not only Plekhanov but also the Mafia and an engaging female assassin known as the Selkie. They need all their computer expertise and special-ops assets, a good deal of luck, and a couple of teenagers in the right place at the right time to defeat Plekhanov. Sf hand Steve Perry, prominent in the ackowledgments, seems to have had something to do with getting the yarn on paper, but however credit may be divided up (this is another of Clancy's "created by" products), kudos are due. This is a highly successful start-at-a-dead-run thriller with a hard-edged tone, vividly depicted hardware, and touches of humor and romance. Let us hope that the "fx" in the forthcoming Net Force TV miniseries do justice to all the action. ((Reviewed January 1 & 15, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)