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[Strife26]

How about Red Storm Rising?


I don't have that many books available to read right now (actually, it's Red Storm Rising and a NSRV Bible). There's supposedly a tent somewhere around here with a few bookcases, but heck if I've ever found the thing. I might go on a quest to find it today.

[Lord Shonus]

One of Clancy's best works, and definitely Larry Bond's. The chief problem with it, which would be repeated in Bond's Red Phoenix, Vortex, and Cauldron is that the book is too short for the scale of the scenario. It has a number of neat Checkov's guns, such as

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Alekseyev's aide during the coup being the paratrooper who's daughter was murdered by the Maskirovka bombing.

The most annoying thing to me was that they somehow forgot about

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the captain of the Fuciks- they never mention whether he survives or not.

[Captain Mayday]

this doesn't seem like a book club or discussion group so far. It seems more like people talking about their own personal favourites, without any particular discussion at all.

Don't get me wrong, I don't want to come off as blasting anybody for enjoying their preferred books, but if you're actually wanting to have a Bay12 book club, why not do it properly?
You know, everyone reads the same book, discusses it... that sort of thing?

[Heliman]

Fair enough mayday, perhaps the OP should make a Poll then?

[Caz]

Which book are we reading?

[Captain Mayday]

Since I understand books can be expensive, you could always start with the classics as uploaded on Google Books for free?

[Sowelu]

If folks are in a sci-fi mood, there's always Pastwatch: The Redemption of Christopher Columbus, probably Orson Scott Card's best standalone book.
...But yeah, let's get this thing on the road.

[Zrk2]

How 'bout The Ethos Effect or The Eternity Effect. Both are sci-fi, and both address some political/philosophical issues. They are by L E Modesitt Jr, and I think they are actually better than The Sage of Recluce.

[Realmfighter]

I'll Just Take the time to plug The Culture Novels by Iain M Banks.

Have you ever wondered how a Entirely Pacifistic (Except for the parts that are Entirely Not) Society, Who's Post Scarcity Level of Technology Ends all Conflict Over Petty Things (Except When it Doesn't) And Who's Anarchistic Democracy means That Everyone Is Happy and No One Secretly Plotting Destructive Acts Behind Everyone Back (Except when That Fails)

[Zrk2]

Did I just Hear The Blue Text?

[Strife26]

One of Clancy's best works, and definitely Larry Bond's. The chief problem with it, which would be repeated in Bond's Red Phoenix, Vortex, and Cauldron is that the book is too short for the scale of the scenario. It has a number of neat Checkov's guns, such as

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

Alekseyev's aide during the coup being the paratrooper who's daughter was murdered by the Maskirovka bombing.

The most annoying thing to me was that they somehow forgot about

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the captain of the Fuciks- they never mention whether he survives or not.

I'll give you that it's too short for the scale, but it's an awfully thick door stopper as is. 700 some pages if memory serves.
And

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

I always assumed that the Captain died, but I guess that there was the definite implication that he could've been saved. Now it's bugging me too! Darn.

[Lord Shonus]

When you consider that a book about a single murder trial (Grisham's A Time To Kill) is 500+ pages, 700 is absurdly low for for a full-scale land war in Europe, an all-out convoy battle, political machinations on both sides, and intelligence gathering on all of the above. The result is that the Soviets, despite an honest effort to depict them as mostly no worse than NATO leaders, come off (except for Sergetov and Alekseyev) as Always Lawful Evil lunatics; the intra-NATO (in a book about shattering the NATO alliance) and intra-Warsaw Pact wrangling is relegated to scattered references except for

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

the conference in which the DDR heads discuss Soviet chemical weapon use and refuse to allow it.

Clancy and Bond made a valiant effort to cover everything, but they didn't give themselves enough room to work with.