Clear and Present Danger

Tom Clancy does it again. The book kept my attention throughout and was hard to put down. Michael Prichard does a great job on this reproduction of the book. Unlike the other reading by J. Charles, Prichard is easy to understand and reads at an understandable rate. I can only hope that he narrates some of the other books.

Preface: I have been a fan of Tom Clancy novels long before I started audiobooks. I love the jargon, the level of detail, the technology described so completely. I like the military, political and even the personal intrigue. Also, as you might guess from the review headline, I think Jack Ryan makes a great hero character.

This is a fine story about America's attempt to use a covert military operation to stem the drug trade from Columbia, an action sanctioned by the president during an election year. The political infighting is fascinating - a study in personal gain, leverage, and back-stabbing. The operation itself is described with an enormous amount of detail, from the planning, supplies, strategy, tactics, and of course, weapons. Great stuff, if you're into it.

The narrator, Michael Prichard, was competent, but undistinguished. Many of his "voices" sound very similar, and at times it's difficult to keep track of which character is speaking, especially in a 3-way "conversation". Still, he is easy to understand and his pacing and pronunciation were very good. Still he's not as good as some other narrators.

I would recommend this book if there was a different narrator. It just killed me how I could zone out through chapters of this book, even through the "exciting" parts of it because the narrator was trained in the art of putting people to sleep. I digress, the story is great, the meat and potatoes of the book is great,

The detail... this is like all of his books are a master work of detail, character development, and overall delivery of the story.

I didn't like his narration at all.. it was so dry, all the characters sounded the same, and couldn't tell when detail stopped and conversation started.

Though sometimes offering details of inconsequental characters that seem like filler, the story IS awesome! I've seen it written that Michael Prichard is the voice of Tom Clancy and this is definitely accurate. I have had try to get past the performances of some readers but Michael's readings are not over-acted and sound intelligent. The story itself is well-written and very entertaining. Very much worth your time if you like the genre.

The narrator did a fine job of reading this book, I loved the plot and the story. It just sometimes had very dry content. I am a reader who never has bought an abridged version of any book, but I almost would for this one. Again I loved the story, characters and the narration, it was a great book and I would recommend it!

I didn't finish it so I couldn't say.

Quit bouncing around so much

No feeling for the characters

I wouldn't recommend this book, and have doubts if I'll get anymore from this author.

Yes and the reason is, it is so detailed there are so many things you can miss the first time through.

In the Jack Ryan series I always likeJack Ryan, but I also liked Mr.Clark and Mr. Chavez. the parts they play are very intense.

Yes, Much the same. He is a very fitting narrator for the Jack Ryan series.

When the helicopter landed on the small boat out in the middle of the ocean during the hurricane to bring the surviving men to safety.

I always enjoy the Tom Clancy books and especially the Jack Ryan series. I just really enjoy his personality.

This is not only one of the best audio books, It is one of Tom Clancy's Best. I have read this book and now have listened to it many many many years after I read it and Michael Prichard really did a nice job with this one.

Yes This Plot has so many twists to it just Like Tom always brings to his works

Mr.Clark walking right up to the truck and taking matters into his own hands to help out members of his team.

Tom Clancy's Ryan series is one of the best series ever created.

This is another great book by Tom Clancy, even though Hollywood made a hash of the movie. There were 2 options available to me from Audible when I picked out this selection not counting any abridged versions that might be available. I don't do abridged. I chose Michael Prichard as narrator over J. Charles because for some inexplicable reason J. Charles uses the stupidest accents when he reads a Tom Clancy book. Check out The Hunt for Red October. Unfortunately Prichard did a pretty poor job on this book although that might not be entirely his fault. I don't know how they do audio books, that is to say I don't know if the narrator is given a copy of the book to read from or if the narrator reads of something that was copied directly from the book. If the former then the fault lies completely with Michael Prichard, if the later then the majority of the fault lies with who ever copied the text for him to read. What I'm talking about specifically are a few places where the incorrect word was read onto the recording. One such case was when instead of the racketeering and corrupt organizations act he read the racketeering and corporate organizations act. Even if Mister Prichard was reading that off something that someone else had prepared he should have been able to catch that just by the context. Other that a few screw ups like that it was a decent performance of a great book. Since I've heard the J. Charles version I think I can say that mistakes and all I got the better of the two. One of the things that I find remarkable is the consistency from book to book. The thing that makes that remarkable to me is the fact that while this was the 4th book of this series to come out it is actually 6th in order of the overall story. So while there are a few inconsistencies, there are only a few.

My first attempt at Tom Clancy outside of the movie treatments, and I enjoyed the writing and narration enough to get the next one.