Red Storm Rising - Bad Amazon Customer Reviews

[OJsDad]

I was looking for a new book last night, and had gone to Red Storm Rising to see what similar books were out there.  I noticed that there were a number of 1 star reviews on the book.  Being curious on why people gave it such a low rating, I read through them.

Of the currently 12 single star ratings, four have to do with Amazon service issues and not the book itself, one says the print in the book is too small and too hard to read because of that.

The other seven are just, interesting;

Not borring, but extremly unrealistic

I do think that if world war III broke out between soviets and americans AND IF nukes weren't used. The US and its allies would be the ultimate winners. But I don't believe in the extraordinary events that take place in Red Storm Rising, there are just too many coincidences. For example, when the air strike against the american carrier group takes place, a small group of F-15s en route to europe just happened to be passing by and killed some of the soviet bombers... come on people, the Atlantic is way to big for this. And I'm just sure Soviet commandos in a covert mission get distracted enough to be ran over by a car every day! Sorry, I just had to get it out of my system. The book is just full of these sort of events. If Clancy had just left them out, the book would be in one word Excellent.

What this person fails to realize, is that the part with the F-15's had no impact on the outcome of the battle, as those bombers had already released their missiles, but was a tool to introduce the female pilot, and to get her first two or three kills.  As for the commandos, Clancy was using that to show that sometimes luck more than skill and weapons can decide events.

Poor Quality Control; Many Errors

The product is sub-par. There was no quality control, no review of the text. There were numerous errors, especially spelling errors. Just because you can run a spell check and get it to pass does not mean that the words are correct. Poor, poor quality. If you won't spend the money and time to produce a good product, I won't be spending my money on Amazon books in the future.

I just reread RSR last year, and I don't recall any issues that this person states.  Also, do they realize that RSR was written in the mid 80's, before spell checkers 

TERRIBLE, LONG-BORING, COULDN'T WAIT TO PUT IT DOWN....

I am a fan of Tom Clancy. I have read all but 2 of his novels and this was by far the worse....the story line was good, but the detail was so boring i wanted to skip half the book. In 350 pages this could have been good....now i understand why some readers view clancy as too detailed, technical and boring....

XR41s and Tri-whammers

Okay so I made those words up. They're not actual military terms. Buried in this Tom Clancy book though, I doubt that anyone except submarine and naval experts would even notice. I've never heard of an author doing TOO much research for a book. I think Clancy lost touch with the everyday reader if he thinks anyone would understand enough of the jargon he spews here to care about this book. And when jargon is all a book offers (characters? what characters?) the book, to put in simple, non-Clancian terms, SUCKS! Clearly it's not the dumbest book I've ever read, but it is the worst. I make it a mission never to stop a book once I've started, and never to refuse reading a book given to me. This book made me question the value of such a mission. Too boring, too long, too technical, too empty.

TOO DETAILED

this is clancy's most involved and boring book.do not buy it. instead try hunt for red october.

This book was very boring.

RSR was a book so much filled with techno jibberish I had to stuff it away on my bookshelf of bad books. When I pick it up twenty-five years from now, it may seem a little more realistic, but not now. This is one of the worst "Clancy" books I've ever read. Please Mr. Clancy, next time you think of a WW3 type of book, make it so it can be easily understood.

Red Storm Never Gets Off The Ground

I'll repeat what surprisingly only a few people have mentioned so far.

Unless you're an expert in military lingo and with the different types of military hardware you're going to find yourself lost and disinterested.

The first few chapters were actually quite good and laid the groundwork for what I thought would be a good story. The remaining chapters had little connection to this however. The book ended up being nothing more than endless military talk, little character development, tedious descriptions of military and submarine encounters. Even Clancy's much maligned Red Rabbit is far superior to this.

I'm confused on all of the 'its too technical' complaints.  I've always thought of RSR as a good 101 course level book on the introduction to modern warfare.  I wonder if these folks don't know that RSR was based off of battles Clancy and Larry Bond played using Bonds Harpoon. 

[BanzaiCat]

Ha, well, to each their own. Not everyone is going to like it, even if it is a classic piece on a what-if WWIII tale. Seems, though, that most of these people are pretty clueless and probably haven't read any novels in this vein before.

Not borring, but extremly unrealistic

I do think that if world war III broke out between soviets and americans AND IF nukes weren't used. The US and its allies would be the ultimate winners. But I don't believe in the extraordinary events that take place in Red Storm Rising, there are just too many coincidences. For example, when the air strike against the american carrier group takes place, a small group of F-15s en route to europe just happened to be passing by and killed some of the soviet bombers... come on people, the Atlantic is way to big for this. And I'm just sure Soviet commandos in a covert mission get distracted enough to be ran over by a car every day! Sorry, I just had to get it out of my system. The book is just full of these sort of events. If Clancy had just left them out, the book would be in one word Excellent.

Spelling and punctuation are your friends. I can't take any review seriously where they can't put a sentence together. Don't communicate in a written medium if wiping your bottom nets a result that's prettier than what I'm reading above.

[Steelgrave]

Of the currently 12 single star ratings, four have to do with Amazon service issues and not the book itself, one says the print in the book is too small and too hard to read because of that.

Subject matter aside, this is one of the most irritating things about Amazon reviews, the customer who has an issue with Amazon and leaves a negative review for the product instead. I first noticed this with The Walking Dead episodes. You have a problem with a download so you leave a one-star review for the show. Sheer stupidity.

[Gusington]

The proliferation of people who review Amazon service instead of the product on the product page makes me giggle.

[OJsDad]

Ha, well, to each their own. Not everyone is going to like it, even if it is a classic piece on a what-if WWIII tale. Seems, though, that most of these people are pretty clueless and probably haven't read any novels in this vein before.

Not borring, but extremly unrealistic

I do think that if world war III broke out between soviets and americans AND IF nukes weren't used. The US and its allies would be the ultimate winners. But I don't believe in the extraordinary events that take place in Red Storm Rising, there are just too many coincidences. For example, when the air strike against the american carrier group takes place, a small group of F-15s en route to europe just happened to be passing by and killed some of the soviet bombers... come on people, the Atlantic is way to big for this. And I'm just sure Soviet commandos in a covert mission get distracted enough to be ran over by a car every day! Sorry, I just had to get it out of my system. The book is just full of these sort of events. If Clancy had just left them out, the book would be in one word Excellent.

Spelling and punctuation are your friends. I can't take any review seriously where they can't put a sentence together. Don't communicate in a written medium if wiping your bottom nets a result that's prettier than what I'm reading above.

I'll give a little benefit of the doubt in that English may not be their native language. 

[Greybriar]

Some reviews on Amazon must have been written by griefers or people who have had a bad day. What I see here tells me that the book Red Storm Rising:
Has been reviewed 710 times and has an overall rating of 4.6 out of 5 stars
75% of those who reviewed it gave it a 5 Star rating
16% of those who reviewed it gave it a 4 Star rating
5% of those who reviewed it gave it a 3 Star rating
3%of those who reviewed it gave it a 2 Star rating
2%of those who reviewed it gave it a 1 Star rating

Considering that 91% of the people on Amazon who reviewed the book Red Storm Rising gave it a 4 or 5 Star rating, I wouldn't hesitate to purchase the book if I were to use that figure as the sole determining factor.