BW Media Spotlight

Chapter by Chapter features me reading one chapter (or possibly multiple chapter for this one) of the selected book at the time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as read-along book club.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to have as much political commentary as the last chapter, but I kind of had to comment due to how closely it mirrored (no pun intended) current events. It’s time to check back in with the rest of Strike this round.

I know I harp on all the extended trivia about locations, weapons, vehicles, and even unnecessary background on the characters. I also know that at least the first three are one of the things fans of Clancy’s franchise are totally into that. I’m not, so not learning this until I had gotten three Op-Center novels and a Net Force means I wasn’t prepared for it, and probably wouldn’t have gotten more had I known. Also, I thought the series regulars were terrible in the first novel, though that’s improved in this one thus far. What works for some people doesn’t work for everyone and that’s fine. That’s why I look for things I like or thought were at least done well in something that otherwise wasn’t made for me (a loaded term these days), to be fair about my assessment. I don’t want to write something off that isn’t to my taste unless it’s ruining something that was “made for me” in the past. Sometimes a choice isn’t bad overall, just not something everyone likes, or sometimes it is a bad idea and you would have been better off not doing it. For the target audience, this is an improvement over the first one and there’s stuff I can get behind.

With that, let’s check in with our field team and see what they’re doing to save the world from the commees.

Tuesday, 3:05 AM, over the Barents Sea

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