“The Sum of All Fears” by Tom Clancy – Nuclear Armageddon

The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy (Book cover))
First off, yes, The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy was actually made into a movie with Morgan Freeman and Ben Affleck, and although it hasn't exactly received the best reviews, it wasn’t a bad movie.

If you are planning on judging the book following what you have seen in the motion picture, I would urge you to take a deep breath and remind yourself how different books can be from movies.

In any case, for those hearing about it for the first time ever, the story starts off as a group of terrorists decide to rekindle the Cold War between the Americans and the Soviet Union, who are almost at peace with each other at the moment.

In order to accomplish their plan, the terrorists get ahold of nuclear weaponry and hide it on American soil, hoping that the conflict will also prevent Israelis from making peace with the Palestinians. In other words, the whole world is on the verge of nuclear wear, and deputy director of the CIA, Jack Ryan, is the man with the plan to stop it.

As with all Tom Clancy novels, this one was riddled with extremely detailed and (probably) accurate descriptions of various military procedures, not to mention that the reasoning followed by the military personnel and politicians is explained quite well.

There is no stone left unturned, and it never feels as if someone is acting out of character or is doing something that doesn’t fit in with the story in the slightest bit. It makes for a very long chain of logical reactions, leading to the ultimate climax where the fate of the world truly hangs in the balance, made even more thrilling by the fact that the potential Armageddon depicted in the book can very well happen in real life.

The story is gripping and suspenseful, even more than usual for a Tom Clancy novel. Even though it is true that in other novels the world is at stake, the threat has never felt more real or important than in this one.

The Sum of All Fears by Tom Clancy (Book cover))
Maybe it’s due to the fact that it has been put together by people who can’t accept failure and are willing to sacrifice literally all that exists in order to accomplish it. Maybe it’s due to the fact that, with a hidden nuclear weapon on their soil, not a single decision can be made easily by the Americans, not to mention that the Soviet Union themselves are gearing up for war should the inevitable come to pass.

All in all, a captivating novel filled with politics and terrorism, definitely recommended for anyone who likes this type of book or is just a Tom Clancy fan.


Tom Clancy (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013)

Tom Clancy (April 12, 1947 – October 1, 2013)


Personal site

With numerous books, movies and even video games under his belt, Tom Clancy was one of the most accomplished writers out there, being specifically known for his enthralling and accurately-detailed military novels, such as The Sum of All Fears and The Hunt for Red October.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular Posts

“The Locked Door” by Freida McFadden – Roots of a Lost Innocence

Image
  Freida McFadden has been quietly writing some exciting and original thrillers in her spare time from being a practicing physician, and The Locked Door is one of her latest offering in the genre.  It tells the story of Nora, a surgeon and daughter of a serial killer now in jail, who sees her life assaulted from the dark as someone begins to recreate her father's work with the exact same signature.
Read more

“The Lost Colony” by A.G. Riddle – A New Home Among the Stars

Image
A.G. Riddle's Long Winter Trilogy Series is one many of us will remember for the amazing story it brings of humanity's last stand against an overwhelming enemy in times of hopelessness. In The Lost Colony , the third book in the series, we follow James and Emma on their own respective struggles as humanity tries to settle itself on a new planet with an unseen danger none could have foreseen.
Read more

“Winter World” by A.G. Riddle – Ice Age from the Void

Image
A.G. Riddle is a true literary explorer seeking to push humanity to its limits and beyond, setting them on a desperate collision course with something beyond its understanding in Winter World . With a sudden ice age dawning on humanity entire swathes of land become uninhabitable and people begin dropping like flies, with anarchy reigning supreme. Looking to the stars for a miraculous solution, the remnants of humanity find a massive mysterious object floating near Mars ...whatever it is, our civilization's hopes of survival rest entirely in its hands.
Read more

“The Girl on the Stairs” by Barry Ernest – The Small Thorn you Can’t Ignore

Image
Girl on the Stairs , by Barry Ernest and with a foreword written by David Lifton, is an exploration of one specific aspect of the JFK assassination. More precisely, it looks into what a little girl by the name of Victoria Adams saw on that day while standing in the staircase of the Texas School Book Depository, where Lee Harvey Oswald was supposedly making his escape.  Actually, it is more about what she didn’t see than what she did see. Victoria was on the staircase Oswald supposedly used, at the exact same time he supposedly used it. If he were to be there, even the little girl she was, Victoria would have noticed a nervous man quickly running down the stairs. However, she says that on that day, she was alone there, with nobody to be found, especially Oswald.
Read more

“Three Comrades” by Erich Maria Remarque – The Other Side of the Barricade

Image
The two World Wars have been documented, discussed and depicted from virtually every perspective imaginable, ranging from small children caught in a crossfire all the way the leaders of each country. However, it seems that here is a startlingly small amount of attention dedicated to the small hiatus period between the two wars, a time during which many changes came to pass in Germany in a very short amount of time.
Read more