Rainbow Six

By: Tom Clancy

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Publisher's Summary

Ex-Navy SEAL John Clark is the newly named head of Rainbow, an international task force dedicated to combating terrorism. In a trial by fire, he must stop a terrorist group of men and women so extreme that their success could literally mean the end of life on earth as we know it.

©1999 Tom Clancy (P)2010 Random House

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Critic Reviews

“Action-packed.” (The New York Times Book Review) 

“Gripping...bolt-action mayhem.” (People) 

“A thrill ride.” (USA Today) 

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5 out of 5 stars
By Nathan on 04-12-11

Rainbow Six review

I listened to Without Remorse first which introduced me to John Clark in his early career. I bought Rainbow Six with a lot of hesitation because of the negative review about he narrator.

I have completely enjoyed the book and the narrator. I highly recommend the book and the narrator.

I have bought over 200 books from Audible and this book was really enjoyable. Buy it if you want a nice long listen that is loads of fun.

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61 people found this helpful

3 out of 5 stars
By adam on 05-01-15

Good book, terrible narration.

This was a good book and worth reading. However, the narrator was not very easy to listen to, and the audio engineer should be fired. The audio quailty was inconsistent, and it was more often bad than good. How audible has not replaced this copy of the book with one from a better narrator is unfathomable. This book had been around for a long time, sold a ton of copies. spawned a ton of video games by the same name, and came from a very highly respect author. I'm genuinely disappointed in Audible after listening to this book.

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27 people found this helpful

4 out of 5 stars
By Ray on 04-09-12

A Marathon Read!

For those of us who follow the works of Tom Clancy, there would be little surprise in the sheer length of this Book!
I have read criticism of Michael Pritchard's reading style from other Reviewers and after such a long reading I must also say that his voice is probably less suited to such long readings.
At times, I did feel that the detail that Clancy goes into, became just a little tedious!
Normally, I enjoy his expanded descriptions but I think Pritchard's somewhat gravelly voice did get to me on a couple of my longer Drives/Listens.
Overall though, I enjoyed the Book and would therefore recommend it! One thing you can always say about Clancy's Novels is that you get your money's worth!

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13 people found this helpful

5 out of 5 stars
By David on 02-11-13

great story

What did you love best about Rainbow Six?

multiple stories within one plot

What did you like best about this story?

the end exactly what I would do

Have you listened to any of Michael Prichard’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

no.he was hard to listen to at first but appropriate for the book.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

good luck with that

Any additional comments?

some couldn't stand the narrator's voice. but it grows on you and yes is appropriate for the story.

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26 people found this helpful

4 out of 5 stars
By elorc on 04-24-18

Great story, poor reading

Rainbow Six is a good Clancy story, but the performance of this audiobook version leaves a whole lot to be desired. The performer is easy to understand but is very dry in his presentation of the story. He also makes very little effort to distinguish speakers, which is a larger issue in a story like this where dialogue is a fairly large part of the novel. His use of different voices/accents is minimal, and in some cases almost random. Lastly, some of his pronunciation — like “VAY-gin” instead of “vegan” — can be almost infuriating. His tone and delivery abruptly change mid-chapter (and in many cases, mid-section). I’m sure he’s a great performer, but a novel like this is probably not the best fit for him.

The engineering is pretty poor, too. Volume suddenly changes, and there is varied abruptness and delay between takes. In at least one case, they used two different takes of the same paragraphs — you hear the performer read a section of the book, brief pause, followed by him reading that same section of the book but in a slightly different pace and tone.

I have to imagine there’s a better audiobook version of R6 out there, and if not, Audible should commission one.

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7 people found this helpful

5 out of 5 stars
By Kindle Customer on 01-06-16

narrator

The stoy was great the narrator is lousy. Very little ability in various voices

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7 people found this helpful

5 out of 5 stars
By rebecca on 01-23-13

Terific story.

This is another great John Clark story! A great plot. Lots of action. A horrible narration - flat, uninspired. I enjoy the story and know what is going to happen - otherwise I would probably lose attention to the story due to the flat narration.

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7 people found this helpful

5 out of 5 stars
By Ken on 02-27-13

A book that inspired the video game series

This is his first book Clancy wrote that does not have Jack Ryan even mentioned by name. if you fallow the series you know who he is, but if you don't and just want to start here, well there is a few hints that lets the rest of us know.

Knowing how scary but effective Clark and Chavez are then a whole book dedicated to this amazing team would make things even better.

Clark puts together a team of some of the greatest military units. they are training for two teams of counter terrorism. the cold war is over and there are not many terrorists active anymore but its always better to be safe then sorry.

A former KGB agent is hired to go to his old contacts and stir things up, unknown to him there is a new anti terrorist unit in town.

Some of the things that are different in this Clancy novel compared to most of his others is that its more even a read all the way through and not a snowball effect.

If you never have read a Clancy novel before this is a great one to start with, it has the excitement and adventure and is a great bait to the lure.

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18 people found this helpful

3 out of 5 stars
By Gatambwa on 11-15-12

Long but nice

This is an ok story. It is quite long and it takes some resilience to finish the story but at the end you care about the characters. It took me a while to eventually get through the entire book because there is a lot of explanations regarding surroundings which is a bit excessive. The narrator as well took some getting used to for me. Might be ok for someone else.

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3 people found this helpful

5 out of 5 stars
By Brodie on 04-19-11

Tom Clancy (Top Cat)

Adictive and a delight to move outside of the Ryan tales. For anyone into Clancy make sure you 'do' the Ryan tales before you get this one....then get this one!

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10 people found this helpful

1 out of 5 stars
By Gary on 03-09-11

Good story, poor narration

I got this book when it came out in about 1999.

The world has moved on since it first came out and the terrorist threat has moved on a good deal from the books cold war roots, but as a plot line it does remain valid.

It is still a good story, especially if you like Clancy's other Ryanverse works.
It well paced and Clancy develops the main characters nicely. As always, Clancy's attention to the accuracy of technical details is reassuring.

What ruin's it though is the reader - Michael Pritchard. Pritchard narrates as though he is reading the instructions for a microwave.
He over enunciate's everything, one character's 'voice' is essentially the same as every other character, and his attempts at doing accents, with the exception of English ones, is nearly non-existent.

Pritchard's reading of this book spoiled it for me, and i won't be going near anything else he narrates.

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4 people found this helpful

3 out of 5 stars
By Mike N on 02-04-12

great story - terribly read

Good Tom Clancy Story, but the reader sounds a bit pompous just doing his own American accent, and more awful doing British and Australian. It is very obvious that it has been edited together from different sessions - the tone, quality and rythmn of the reading changing abruptly is quite jarring.

I got another Tom Clancy read by Lou Diamond-Phillips which was much better.

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3 people found this helpful

3 out of 5 stars
By jezzer on 02-13-11

Was a great story in it's day but..

I loved this book when it first came out. I would have ranked it in my top 10 of all time if you'd have asked. Listening to the audiobook all this time later, I found the story dated and the audiobook quality variable. First the story; Clancy spends quite a bit of time on technology that's just not special any more, so the impact of it's use has been lost over time. The Zeitgeist has also moved on massively 'terrorists just don't blow themselves up' so the context of the story has also moved on. I have enjoyed lots of other 'of their time' books, like Le Carrier, but it seems a bit more telling in this one.
Overall, somewhat disappointing, but if you can get past the above, Clancy does write a great story.

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3 people found this helpful

5 out of 5 stars
By A on 03-28-17

More Rainbow needed!

Less games of rainbow and more books!
Read the book ages ago and felt the need to read it again but lots of late night reading has meant headaches so found audible a good alternative.
The reader is good without being exceptional. The story though far fetched is in keeping with Clancy's hollywood approach. If you accept this then you can overlook the fact that every military man is clever fit and brave and all the women are either doctors or nurses.

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5 out of 5 stars
By Spot the Dog on 08-24-15

Riveting

Another excellent Tom Clancy thriller... I've listened to this book twice and I'm sure I'll listen to it again in the future.
First Class and highly recommended!!

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5 out of 5 stars
By Biker72 on 07-06-13

Rainbow Six Needs to be Read

What made the experience of listening to Rainbow Six the most enjoyable?

Superb narration, gripping story line, believable in every way. A true pleasure to just lay back and listen and relax. Not at any point was I happy to turn off and just do something else.

What did you like best about this story?

The way the narrator took me by the scruff of the neck and dragged me into the world of terrorism, special forces. Its another amazing story by Tom Clancy with all the usual Characters playing their parts to perfection.

Have you listened to any of Michael Prichard’s other performances? How does this one compare?

Yes, I have listened to the other Tom Clancy novels and he just's gets better with each telling. I look forward to many more renditions from Mr Pritchard in the future.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Having already read this book several years ago, No, I neither had that time available or particularly wanted to !! If this had been my first then, yes I would probably have liked to done it in one sitting. It would be ideal for someone recovering from sickness or was in hospital.

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1 out of 5 stars
By Kevin on 05-30-13

Lifeless Narration

I know this is a really good book but it's impossible to get into as the narration is terrible. A droll monotone just sucks the life out of the story. Tried to get along with it had to give up which is a shame. Will be avoiding anything with this narrator in future (which took a couple of other titles out of my wish list).

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1 out of 5 stars
By Wayne Davies on 12-03-12

Boredom!

This book may be great but the naraitor bored the life out of me!! I had two choices, to knock it off or hang myself!!

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3 out of 5 stars
By George on 09-24-12

Poor narration

This is over long and has it's share of silly Gung-ho language but for me

it's the stilted and wooden narration that spoils the whole thing .

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