Product Description

A Net Force Explorer plays an innocent game of hide-and-seek on the Web-and finds himself in trouble with the CIA. Now, the Explorers must help him clear his name, before he gets booted off the Net Force Explorers for good...

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #146537 in Books
• Published on: 1999-02-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• 384 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780425161722
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

From Publishers Weekly
Clancy's newest collaboration takes us to 2010, when the virtual Web looks like a stock-car race and gadgets and gizmos abound. Net Force, a computer security agency created by Congress, patrols the technological etherworld and those who hook into it. When the agency's director is assassinated, Deputy Director Alex Michaels suddenly finds himself in command. Diverted by the Chechen mastermind in Russia, Michaels and his forces are soon battling the New Mafia and an Irish assassin named "The Selkie." Out in the field, the Special Forces carry advanced armor and weapons systems while joshing around in cartoonlike jargon. The computer jocks drive their virtual Vipers to investigate "roadblocks" and "pileups." The equipment is interesting, but the action doesn't bear up under the ponderous exposition and flatter-than-a-floppy-disk characters. (Feb.) FYI: Net Force is soon to be an ABC mini-series.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
The creators of Tom Clancy's Op-Center series strike again, launching what apparently will be a series about a near-future branch of the FBI charged with policing the global Net. It opens with a bang, literally. Agents of Russian computer expert Vladimir Plekhanov--who plans to buy, with the profits of global Net crime, Chechnya, then the Ukraine, then who knows what--assassinate the head of Net Force. New chief Alexander Michaels and his staff find themselves up against not only Plekhanov but also the Mafia and an engaging female assassin known as the Selkie. They need all their computer expertise and special-ops assets, a good deal of luck, and a couple of teenagers in the right place at the right time to defeat Plekhanov. Sf hand Steve Perry, prominent in the ackowledgments, seems to have had something to do with getting the yarn on paper, but however credit may be divided up (this is another of Clancy's "created by" products), kudos are due. This is a highly successful start-at-a-dead-run thriller with a hard-edged tone, vividly depicted hardware, and touches of humor and romance. Let us hope that the "fx" in the forthcoming Net Force TV miniseries do justice to all the action. Roland Green

From the Inside Flap
In the year 2010, computers are the new superpowers. Those who control them, control the world. To enforce the New Laws, Congress creates the ultimate computer security agency within the FBI: Net Force

When the director of Net Force is assassinated, Deputy Director Alex Michaels is thrust into one of the most powerful and dangerous positions in the world. At the same time, cyber-terrorists sabotage mainframe computers across the country, causing famine, chaos, and death.

Now Michaels and his team must find out who is responsible and what they have to gain. But there is another problem. If they assassinated one Net Force director, what will stop them from assassinating another?

A powerful examination of America's defense and intelligence systems of the future, Tom Clancy's Net Forceis the creation of Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, inspiring this novel as well as the explosive ABC Television miniseries.

Customer Reviews

Beginning of a worthwhile series
I've read a few of the NetForce novels, including this one that launched the series, and thought I'd pop around and see what some of the Amazon.com users like me thought about them. I'm really surprised they're not more well received. Some thoughts in reply to several comments I've seen readers make here:

1) Tom Clancy did not write these novels. He and Steve Pieczenik are listed as "created by," and it appears that a writer named Steve Perry may have done most of the actual writing of at least two of the three NetForce novels I've read. His name is an attention-getter, and it is somewhat odd to me that so many reviewers comment on "this isn't Clancy's best work." Of course not. It's obviously not his writing, so the books cannot be accurately reviewed from that angle.

2) Comments regarding there being less than Clancy's usual tons of technical detail are irrelevant as well. Personally the technical detail bores me anyway, and there is too much here for my tastes, making it one of the weaknesses of the NetForce series IMO. YMMV; some reviewers want more technical detail, I want less. There's enough in this series to be illustrative, but for me (I prefer plot exposition, moving the story along, and character development) the writer stops to explain various weapons more than enough. It slows the story down, but at least it's not too distracting.

3) Someone commented that this series "is not written for people who actually use computers." Ahem. I have operated a commercial website for several years as a part-time job, and my full-time job is on my PC as well. I have rebuilt and upgraded entire computer systems by myself with minimal instruction. I practically *live* in e-mail. And I do enjoy this series. Again, perhaps the reviewer was looking for some kind of extensive technical detail on the computer systems and how they function and interface, but gimme a break, that's *work* to me. I read for pleasure, not to take my work with me into those hours. The internet crime focus and extensive descriptions of a futuristic virtual-reality-driven internet are definitely interesting reading.

Having said all that, the prospective reader of this series must also be aware that it is not just a series of self-enclosed stories but an actual serial of sorts. One of the bad guys in this novel returns later in the "Night Moves" book (third in the series), our heroic geek Jay Gridley meets someone in that one who changes his life and becomes part of future episodes, the working relationship between Alex & Toni (with occasional comments about an attraction) bears fruit in future volumes, and Colonel Howard's family life (plus the life of his son Tyrone) is another thread that runs throughout much of the series.

The NetForce books realistically include people of multiple races, backgrounds, personalities, interests, religions, politics, etc., and consistently have the interesting multiple perspective of viewing the story through the eyes of various characters. It also introduces us to some little-known martial arts, primarily from Indonesia, but in the later "CyberNation" book we get some sharply drawn bad guys and one of them has a Brazilian fighting style. By and large, this is a series which I will continue to follow with interest.

Great Book!
I read this for a reading assignment and was immediately hooked. I'm not sure if it's part of the Op-Center series, but if it is you'd never know it. Mr. Clancy does a great job tying in the characters. Net Force is a book anyone who likes computers would like, and the lingo isn't too hard to understand for those who aren't into computers. Enjoy! This is a great book!

Not a Clancy.... Well DUH!
Everybody likes to cry over how this isn't writen by Tom Clancy and blah blah blah. Right at the bottom of the title it says:

"Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieezenik, writen by Steve Perry"!

If you can read the book, at least read the credits before you whine so much. After that being said, this is an excellent series and I highly suggest. 4 stars, could have been 5 but a couple chapters were really really bad and kind of confusing. It's one of those rare books that even if you're dead tired you want to get to the next chapter to see what happened next.