books
On this page you can find a small selection of the books I have read ordered by author. Per author I describe what I like about his or her books. Be aware it is a small selection I will not post every book that I have read on this page.
Tom Clancy
What I like the most about the writer Tom Clancy is his attention to detail, the many complex storylines, the depth of character development, the topics he addresses and the detail of realism. He takes the time to develop a character so you can form an image of the character and project yourself into the character, you understand what they are going through and when the bad guy disappears or escapes from persecution thoughts of dishonesty come to mind. Tom Clancy addresses topics like global warfare, covert operations, foreign politics, domestic politics, relations between organisations like FBI, CIA, DEA, Homeland, NSA and others and cultural differences between populations and nations across the world. Every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, so you want to read the entire title all at once.
The Hunt for Red October
The story follows a CIA analyst leading a covert group of US Naval officers to steal a cutting-edge Soviet nuclear submarine from 26 defecting Soviet officers, and the intertwined adventures of Soviet submarine captain Marko Aleksandrovich Ramius and Jack Ryan, former Marine turned CIA analyst.
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
It is a sequel to The Hunt for Red October, based on the development of the Strategic Defense Initiative and its Soviet equivalent, covering themes including intelligence gathering and counterintelligence, political intrigue, and guerrilla warfare in Afghanistan.
Debt of Honor
In this installment, Ryan has become the National Security Advisor when the Japanese government (controlled by a group of corporate tycoons known as the Zaibatsu) goes to war with the United States. One of the sub-plots in this novel (on occupying the Siberian "Northern Resource Area") would later form part of the main plot of Clancy's later novel The Bear and the Dragon.
Executive Orders
Following the conclusion of Debt of Honor, Jack Ryan is sworn in as President of the United States minutes after becoming Vice President. With nearly every executive, legislative, and judicial figure deceased, Ryan is left to represent the United States by himself. Ryan deals with various hardships and crises, from reconstituting the House and the Senate; to a challenge on his legitimacy by [...]
Rainbow Six
Several NATO countries have collectively organized an elite counterterrorist unit, composed of the best soldiers from the militaries of several nations, named Rainbow. Based in Hereford, England (real-life home of the Special Air Service), the team is led by John Clark (who had the idea for Rainbow), a recurring character in Clancy's novels. Rainbow is "blacker than black," its American fun [...]
The Teeth of the Tiger
In Rome, a Mossad station chief is assassinated. The murder piques the interest of the Campus, an "off-the-books" intelligence agency situated in direct line-of-sight between the CIA and the NSA. A private military company, Hendley Associates, funds the Campus via stock market trades influenced by the captured intelligence data, thus removing federal oversight and allowing free rein in its [...]
Andreas Eschbach
What I like the most about the writer Andreas Eschbach is his attention to detail, the depth of character development, the topics he addresses and the detail of realism. The dimension of science fiction is particularly interesting; who doesn't want to fantasize about depleting oil reserves and the impact that it will have on daily live? He also takes the time to develop a character so you can form an image of the character and project yourself into the character, you understand what they are going through. That is particularly impressive because of the element of science fiction; no one has ever experienced these events. Andreas Eschbach addresses topics like oil depletion, manipulating elections, cyborg technology and visiting the past to see the Messiah. Every chapter ends with a cliffhanger, so you want to read the entire title all at once.
One Trillion Dollars
Yesterday John Fontanelli was just a pizza delivery guy in New York City. One day later he's the richest man in the world. One trillion dollars - one million times one million - $1,000,000,000,000: more money than anyone could imagine. For generations the Vacchis, an old Italian family of lawyers and asset managers, had supervised the fortune as it grew over five hundred years, until one pa [...]
The King Mob
Vincent Raoul Merrit, an American of German origin, is a computer genius. He developed a program that can manipulate voting machines. His program is used for the first time in America, without him knowing it; and during the most heated election campaign of the 21st century George Bush is elected president of the United States. But the program also finds its way to Germany, where Vincent's f [...]
Fatal Silence
Duane Fitzgerarld, a 35-year-old, single American, lives retired in Dingle, a small village on the Irish coast. Despite the fact that he is a man in the best years of his life, he lives on a small pension from the US Army. Duane is in fact one of the twelve soldiers who have been subjected to extensive experiments at the time of the first Gulf War: in striving to create an army of invincib [...]
