Locked On

A Jack Ryan Novel

By: Tom Clancy, Mark Greaney

Narrated by: Lou Diamond Phillips

Jack Ryan Jr.--along with the covert warriors of the Campus--continues to uphold his legendary father’s legacy of courage and honor in this thriller from number one New York Times bestselling author Tom Clancy.

Privately training with special forces, he’s honing his combat skills to continue his work within the Campus, hunting down and eliminating terrorists wherever he can--even as Jack Ryan Sr. campaigns to become President of the United States again.

But what neither father nor son knows is that the political and personal have just become equally dangerous. A devout enemy of Jack Sr. launches a privately-funded vendetta to discredit him and connect him to a mysterious killing in his longtime ally John Clark’s past. All they have to do is catch him.

With Clark on the run, it’s up to Jack Jr. to stop a growing threat emerging in the Middle East, where a corrupt Pakistani general has entered into a deadly pact with a fanatical terrorist to procure four nuclear warheads they can use to blackmail any world power into submission--or face annihilation.

©2011 Rubicon, Inc. (P)2011 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved.

Decent story, well read, annoying political rants

Sadly, Clancy is still up on his soapbox. He tells a good, if tired, catch the terrorists style thriller. If someone could edit him down to just that story, it'd be a solid read.

Unfortunately, he's too popular to edit now and it really shows here. I don't mind authors who insert their opinions into their work -- lead characters have opinions after all, it's part of being a fully fleshed out character -- but this was ridiculous.

If you're reading "just a fun spy thriller" then it's fine to ignore the unrealistic lawbreaking by the good guys and purely evil bad guys. Since Clancy insists on making his politics the driving factor in his books, you can't do that.

Basically, Clancy's world has four kinds of people:

Type 1: Average citizen - a sheep, and unimportant to the story.

Type 2: Evil Terrorist - 100% pure bad guy. No redeeming value. No humanity. They almost always lose out because their pure evil nature makes them ignore large holes in their planing.

Type 3: Good, Conservative, American Men. Yep, almost always men. There's one strong female "good guy" and she's not really very helpful here or any any of his other books. To be a good guy in Clancy's world, you are always a Conservative politically.

Type 4: Weaselly liberal politicians interested only in their own gain and willing to sacrifice everything at the slightest threat to personal safety. No liberal politician is allowed to have the best interests of the country at heart in a Clancy book. If you have a character with any sympathy or dealing at all with the liberals, you have a character who will at some point betray the good guys. * In this one, whole paragraphs are written specifically to argue against the policies of the current liberal administration (which very obviously are the policies of the current Obama presidency).

We must ignore, of course, that the Good Guys (type 3) actually operate an unconstitutional, unlawful, secret spy organization and black-ops special forces unit based on American soil which routinely spies on (and frequently kills) people both in America and in other countries (including allies). These good-guys have no bones about forging passports, eluding law enforcement, and breaking national security laws. It's all ok, however, because they're "Good Conservative American Men" doing things all for the good of us all (even if we don't agree with it).

Again, all this silliness could be easily ignored if it was just the context of a good story, but when the author insists on making political points all along, the reader is drawn out of the story over and over again and the insanity of what's going on becomes apparent.

What a waste of good writing talent.

Outstanding!

If you could sum up Locked On in three words, what would they be?

Exciting,fast,compelling

What other book might you compare Locked On to and why?

Any of the Jack Ryan or Raibow six books. Very exact and well written spy thrillers.

Which scene was your favorite?

When the Hyper Liberal Scum Paul Laska gets found out.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would be the tag line be?

Jack Ryan is Back?

Any additional comments?

Nice way he has kept the characters evolving thru the many books and now on to a new generation.

Tediously slow in parts

Would you try another book from Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney and/or Lou Diamond Phillips?

I have enjoyed reading Tom Clancy in the past and will probably try another one.

Would you recommend Locked On to your friends? Why or why not?

No - it is hard to follow without long uninterrupted sessions.

What about Lou Diamond Phillips’s performance did you like?

Well read. Easy to hear pronunciation.

Did Locked On inspire you to do anything?

No.

Any additional comments?

No.

Decent plot but a bit too much politics

What did you like best about Locked On? What did you like least?

The action scenes and plot were classic Clancy, but his polictical diatribes are bit too much.

Would you ever listen to anything by Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney again?

Probably not.

What about Lou Diamond Phillips’s performance did you like?

Very much

Was Locked On worth the listening time?

So so

Exactly what you expect from Clancy

Where does Locked On rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

It's a great book that keeps you entertained.

What other book might you compare Locked On to and why?

Most of Clancy's other books. Especially his newer books.

Which scene was your favorite?

The final firefight in Soviet Russia.

Any additional comments?

Clancy does a great job of not only wrapping up some story lines and he leaves a few open for the next Jack Ryan book. Taking the direction of developing Jack Ryan Jr. is turning into a good one.