6 reviews for Tom Clancy’s Op-Centre Acts of war
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Tom Clancy’s Op-Centre Acts of war
by Jeff Rovin
Description:
Syrian terrorists have attacked a dam inside the borders of Turkey, threatening the water supply of their own homeland. It is not insanity, but the first step in a deceptively simple plan to force all-out war in the Middle East. This strategy will draw elite troops out of the capital of Damascus, leaving the Syrian president unprotected — and an easy target for assassination. What the terrorists don’t know is that a new Regional Op-Center is now online in Greece. A mobile version of the permanent crisis management facility, the ROC is a cutting-edge surveillance and information mecca. And its team can see exactly what the Syrian rebels are trying to do. The terrorists are more resourceful than anyone thinks. They also have ways of obtaining classified information. And the Regional Op-Center — the United States’ newest weapon — is not a prize to be passed up …
About The Author
Jeff Rovin has been editor-in-chief of Weekly World News, an assistant editor and writer for DC Comics, and an editor for Warren Publishing and Seaboard Periodicals, as well as a science and media columnist in such magazines as Analog, Omni, and Famous Monsters of Filmland.
His How to Play video game books of the 1980s and 1990s detailed strategies for dozens of games for the Nintendo Entertainment System, Sega Genesis, and Game Boy. This series was preceded by his The Complete Guide to Conquering Video Games in 1982, and followed by his Gamemaster series that lasted until the late 1990s, which began containing a violence rating for the games included in these books. Rovin’s publisher at the time, St. Martin’s, later decided to continue the “How To Win At”, series, but this time written by Hank Schlesinger, to cover Nintendo 64, PlayStation games, and Pokemon.
Rovin has written encyclopedias about popular culture, including The Encyclopedia of Superheroes (Facts On File, 1985), The Encyclopedia of Super Villains (Facts On File, 1987) The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Cartoon Animals (Prentice Hall, 1991), and The Encyclopedia of Monsters (Checkmark Books, 1990). He has worked on biographical and film books on such performers as Kelsey Grammer, Lana Turner, Adam West, Ellen DeGeneres, Jackie Chan, Charlton Heston, Elvis Presley, Sylvester Stallone, Richard Pryor, Luke Perry, Jason Priestley, and Julio Iglesias, and on the animated series The Simpsons. Additionally, he has written quiz and joke books.
Rovin’s novels are in the fields of thriller, horror, adventure, and mystery, in addition to the military field with books in the Force Five and Tom Clancy’s Op-Center series. His Tom Clancy’s Op-Center: War of Eagles became a New York Times Best Seller.
His later Unit Omega books were written under the name pen name Jim Grand. He then began writing further military suspense novels under his own name, such as Tempest Down, Dead Rising, and Rogue Angel.
Skryf Review
“Amazing Reading”
Sejal
This is a general review of all the book in the series I have read so far. They’re ok. They have all of the dryness I have come to expect from Clancy without as much of the thrill and intrigue as some of his other works. If you really liked book Like “Patriot Games” or “Red Storm Rising” then this series is a bit of a let down. If you like the action without quite so much to keep track of, then this series delivers.
Smit
The story was good, but I found things confusing for a large portion of the book. It’s hard enough to start a new series where you have to introduce all of your main characters, but to have the main conflict occur in Korea, where the problem is between the north and south countries, was very confusing. It was hard to remember the acronyms for North and South Korea, plus all the names sounded the same and I had a hard time remembering who was from where.I liked the underlying story line of the family conflict, but I’m not sure I liked the additional layer of the press secretary’s unrequited love for her boss. It seems awfully demeaning. In fact all of the main female characters were rather stereotypical — the put-upon wife who’s only purpose in life seems to be her mostly-absent husband and sickly son, the power-hungry second-in-command who would put her career before her country, and the love-sick underling who longs for the unavailable boss.I loved the computer geek, but since this book was written 20 years ago, it was disheartening for me to see how much the tech industry has changed! I mean diskette’s and no internet? Wow!I have already requested the next book in the series from the library, because despite the flaws, I did enjoy the book.
Kalgi
Considering the boring title and the fact that Tom Clancy farmed it out to a ghostwriter, OP-CENTER is surprisingly excellent. It doesn’t feel all that dated either, except for the scenes in which characters play video games on their Sega Genesis or Atari Jaguar consoles. I was particularly interested in how Clancy & Co. handled the Korean setting, since I’ve been living in Seoul for the past several years. Clancy gets the geography right and has a few good insights into Korean society, but, overall, OP-CENTER fails to capture the unique flavor of Korea. For example, the descriptions of Seoul and the DMZ are completely generic, and the Korean characters all speak perfect English. On a nit-picky note, Clancy doesn’t fully understand how Korean surnames work, and the result is character names like Kim Lee–which, in English terms, would be like naming your character Jones Smith. I also smiled when one character, an American, could count to ten in Korean and say things like “Do me a favor” and “How long?” but didn’t know the Korean word for goodbye. Hmm…But these criticisms are very minor. OP-CENTER is a solid read, and I’d describe it as basically the TV show 24 minus the character of Jack Bauer. Sure it’s not as weighty as Clancy’s other work (i.e. the stuff he actually wrote himself), and I fully admit that the scene in which a guy uses his pipe to defeat a knife-wielding assailant was cheesy in the extreme, but I guarantee that, when all is said and done, techno-thriller fans will end up with more than their money’s worth.
aashna
I’m surprised to give three stars to this book, as I’ve read and intensely disliked most of Clancy’s work, but this is not nearly so bad as many of his novels. Part of the explanation for that may be that, even though the cover bears his name, Clancy actually had little to do with the construction of this book. This is one of the many outsourced series that other writers pump out with Clancy’s name on the cover. I doubt he even bothers to read them.This is more or less a straightforward spy thriller revolving around a new US intelligence clearinghouse trying to figure out who is responsible for a terrorist attack and other provocations between North and South Korea. It is largely stripped of Clancy’s reactionary politics and is full of very short, fast reading chapters. The major drawback, as with many books of this type, is the complete lack of characterization–it’s essentially impossible to tell one character from another, and there is little to no complexity in any personality. Nonetheless, it’s a servicable spy thriller if that’s what you’re looking for.
Kahaan
This is much better than the previous novel. It is surprisingly relevant to the current Syrian Civil War. The the story revolves around the Kurds plunging the region into a potential civil war and there is some quite detailed analysis of how the regional alliances would fall in the event of a number of scenarios in this part of the world. Some of the plot elements are a little stretched but as the conspiracy unfolds you will find it a compelling read with plenty of action.