Net Force is Clancy’s answer to the Matrix if the Matrix were to meet a Federal law enforcement branch constituted by human beings instead of machines. Put another way, imagine an intelligence agency and a counter-intelligence agency squaring off against one another, except the counter-intelligence agency is a web company with a specific vision for the technology future of the world.
The ensuing game is played between, predominately, Net Force Agents, and Cybernation adherents who are somewhat like pirates that cause internet problems to offer their service as a solution to the outage they caused–all without getting caught.
There is also a layer of martial artists that work in various capacities on both sides of the spectrum, and hackers who enter a kind of virtual space where they project a given reality around them while searching for the files they desire.
When digital hi-jinks, assassination, and espionage is not happening, there is a lot of sex going on. Straight sex, gay sex, casual sex, affair sex, BDSM sex–you name it, it is probably happening here.
Actually, there is too much sex, even for a spy thriller which came as a surprise since Clancy novels are not something strongly associated with gratuitous amounts of sex–at least not on the big screen. (Fisher in Splinter Cell had far too many other things to do)
The pacing of the writing, though, is designed to keep the reader interested, and one supposes the target audience reading Clancy novels at this point probably found sex motivating. It reminds one that humanity is motivated by two “F’s”. One of them is fighting, and the other one is–well–better left to your imagination.
Speaking of fighting, there is a ton of that here too. An excellent job is done by the writers discussing differing martial arts styles and how they play against each other and what might run through the minds of people using them.
There is a problem in transitioning between scenes in that the reader often has to remember some fragment from before and for awhile it is hard to deduce which people are on what side. Likewise, it difficult to ascertain as a reader which side to cheer for. Neither side is especially righteous or likable. Both of them have their views on life and technology, but neither of them has a great ideal for what that means. This makes the novel more realistic, and puts the reader in a more objective frame of mind. It also creates some emotional distance to all the main characters which might hurt the work as a whole since if any of them pop out during the novel the reader is not going to be especially jarred by their absence.
While this Clancy novel is an interesting read, it probably is not an excellent read. It does what it is designed to do–entertains the reader for awhile and then presents a solution to the problems posed in the narrative. There are no lasting lessons here, and one could probably punch “delete” in their memory files that they ever read it and not miss anything over the course of their life that might make it feel less complete. This is not to say that the work is a “bad work”–but it is more like junk food. A little bit goes a long way. Oh, and by the way, there is some sex in there…
Review note: One of the staff members in the earlier days of Facebook had Hillenbrand as a friend. Seabiscuit was out then.–Booklight staff
In case you ever want to know how long it takes books to get that weathered yellowing that books of antiquity often characteristically possess, the answer is about 25 years it seems, since the review copy of this work looked like it might have been around as a witness to the races of Seabiscuit during his prime.
Hillenbrand has a nose for stories. Her previous work, Unbroken, was reviewed by this site. Seabiscuit as a narrative theme, echoes some of what Unbroken encapsulated. The idea of the unlikely or unknown coming into a position of world notice only to encounter some insurmountable-seeming obstacle is something that both works share as the subjects of both books had to face uncommon amounts of hardship.
What makes Seabiscuit captivating though, is not necessarily the writing, though it is good, but the story itself. Hillenbrand is able to weave the narrative structure together such that the reader is transported back to the early 30’s when Seabiscuit was starting his ascent into national domination of horse racing.
Some of “The Biscuit’s” retinue is well known since the tale is frequently crossing paths with the likes of Bing Crosby who is surrounded by the kind of people one would expect for his time and place.
If you have ever wondered what the profession of a horse jockey is like, Seabiscuit is an eye-opening encounter of the hardships and dangers incumbent on those who pursued the sport and profession. In short, the conditions were barely above awful, and it is a wonder that any jockey stuck around through those years and even now since the same dangers are present.
What one learns, however, is that the jockeys are riding for freedom–or a kind of transcendence that only horse racing provides and arguably only Seabiscut could uniquely channel such than the entire US paid attention to his races above concerns even of a burgeoning World War II. We learn in the book that FDR kept diplomats waiting just to hear whether or not Seabiscuit would win a certain race against another horse that is still well-known who went by the name of War Admiral.
There is a kind of chaos that sets up around the races and the characters in them–and it is not a unique occurrence since it seems to happen in almost each race. Sometimes it happens during the race, and this usually portends a jockey either being seriously hurt or dead.
Seabiscuit seems, at one point or another, to trick everyone or to play tricks on everyone. The beginning narrative deals with Tom Smith, an enigmatic cowboy type, coming into the ranch and discovering what Seabiscuit’s psychology is after having discovered him. At the same time “Red” Pollard, Seabiscuit’s first real jockey, starts to comprehend what it means to motivate Seabiscuit to win. The fact that Seabiscuit requires motivation is an interesting spin, since most horses naturally seem to run, but Seabiscuit is not a “natural horse” as the story shows.
Pollard acts, at first, as Seabiscuit’s savior, and then later Seabiscuit acts more as his. The two of them are intertangled, and although Seabiscuit is ridden by another jockey for a time by the name of Wolf, eventually everything comes back to Pollard at a crucial moment for both jockey and horse.
We also learn about Charles S. Howard, the owner of Seabiscuit, who also kicks car ownership into existence with the early sales of Buicks in California assisted, in a major way, by the California earthquake of 1906.The Quake, we learn, made horses sparse, and cars were, on the contrary, plentiful. (so long as you bought them from Charles S. Howard’s lot) Howard, paradoxically, gets into horse racing, which is the animal he is replacing with the newest technology.
The pacing of Seabiscuit is fast, but it never becomes tedious. The story is worth at least one reading, and probably several additional ones as a kind of reminder about adversity and what can be done when the world arrays itself against you–maybe especially the media, gossip, and slander. (and your competition) Seabiscuit overcame it all, and became a legend. So too did the people who managed him. Somewhere in there though, a large portion of faith was involved, because in many given instances, things looked bad at best and hopeless at worst. Know anyone who can use some inspiration?
The expectations for Yiddish Folktales by Wolf and Weinreich require some adjusting. If you believe you will be reading about Elijah against various mythical backdrops, you will be right. On the other hand, if you are not expecting elves, ghosts, witches, and sorcerers, you will not be prepared for what you will find in the pages.
These tales are culled from people who were Yiddish from around the 1910’s and 1920’s. Many of them are Russian in origin. There are also smatterings of stories that have distinctly Germanic origins. Between all of them exists a type of story-telling that is as rich as any other culture when it comes to creatures that are relegated to the fantasy genre in the modern era of reading.
Some historical figures are present too whose influence and exertion of will is still felt during the storytelling time in which this book was composed and based. Tsar Nicholas the First shows up sometimes for the better, and sometimes for the worse. Napoleon also obtains some billing although it seems that many of his tales are cautionary.
There are several accounts that are classed as “Purim Tales” in that they court nonsense or have no ending that makes logical sense. Many of these stories are acknowledged as being these kinds of yarns by a certain kind of Yiddish rhyme that indicates somebody was drinking alcohol, but not the storyteller. (The teller of stories is, after all, the arbiter of truth)
In addition to many of these oral traditions, there are explanations as to how the storytelling was done, and what the climate was like around people who told tales. The primary source of entertainment during the early 20th and late 19th centuries were people who could tell stories and they had an elevated position among their social strata because people wanted to hear what they had to relate. Often, the storyteller appears near a stove, probably because many of these events happened more often when it was cold than when the weather was warm and people would be more active outside.
Satan shows up more frequently than perhaps he ought to, but usually he only makes an appearance to remind the listener that Satan is constantly pulling some manner of tricky trick. There are also prods that one ought to develop their character instead of their bank account, and that sometimes people who are foolish seeming are not inferior to those who are considered smart or wise. (indeed, they often get the better of the deal since being foolish they have no reason to use their intellect in malignant ways)
If there is a latent desire to understand what Yiddish culture developed, this book is an excellent work to give the reader insight into the oral story traditions it commanded. Be prepared, however, to understand the world not through the stereotypical Hebrew lens, but more like Lord of the Rings and the Hebrew Bible had some strange offspring. By the time you are done, you will probably wonder why these traditions have so few cinematic representations, whereas other cultures and their folktales have so many as to be nearly synonymous with some of these accounts. It isn’t appropriation, after all, when you have spent hundreds of years in a place and developed your own unique experiences with entities that show up in other traditions. By that point, it is the lens your culture uses to parse experiences in those places with its own unique fingerprints. Weinreich and Wolf are as good of a place as any to begin that exploration.
0-449-00561-5
ISBN 0-394-54618-0