Shadow Watch

Tom Clancy's Power Plays #3

by Jerome Preisler, Tom Clancy (Series Creator), Martin Greenberg (Series Creator)

The year is 2001, and American businessman Roger Gordian has extended his reach into space. His company has become the principal contractor in the design and manufacture of Orion, a multinational space station. But the launch of a shuttle carrying parts for the station is sabotaged. Mysterious guerrilla attacks occur at the manufacturing facilities in Brazil and Kazakhstan. And Gordian's deepest fears are confirmed... The Orion project has been targeted by an international terrorist whose criminal enterprises thrive on violence and political instability. Harlan De Vane's goal is to cripple Gordian's intelligence and security tean, while stowing a high-powered electromagnetic pulse generator aboard Orion--a state-of-the-art weapon with the capacity to throw every major American city into chaos...

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Military Fiction, Mystery, Adventure, Novels, War

372 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 1, 1999

About the author

Jerome Preisler is the prolific author of almost forty books of fiction and narrative nonfiction, including all eight novels in the New York Times bestselling TOM CLANCY'S POWER PLAYS series.

His latest book is NET FORCE:DARK WEB (November 2019), the first novel in a relaunch of the New York Times bestselling series co-created by Tom Clancy. Forthcoming in May 2020 is the enovella NET FORCE: EYE OF THE DRONE.

Among Jerome's recent works of narrative history are CODE NAME CAESAR: The Secret Hunt for U-boat 864 During World War Two, and FIRST TO JUMP: How the Band of Brothers Was Aided by the Brave Paratroopers of Pathfinders Company. His next book of nonfiction, CIVIL WAR COMMANDO: William Cushing's Daring Raid to Sink the Invincible Ironclad C.S.S. Albemarle,will be published by Regnery Books in October 2020.

Jerome lives in New York City and coastal Maine.

Reviews

[Theo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of groundwork, but it made me attach to the characters more than in most stories. Love Harlan DeVane and his contrasting character Annie Caulfield. Last 75 pages were impeccable.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 21st Century from its inception has been bloody and prone to new security risks with UpLink International seemingly connected in some way, then the Space Shuttle explodes on the launch pad. Shadow Watch is the third book in Tom Clancy’s Power Plays series written by Jerome Preisler that sees UpLink and its Sword security forces come up against a different type of adversary that sees Roger Gordian’s idealism as a threat to his black-market businesses.

The Space Shuttle Orion catches fire and explodes on the launch pad killing its commander as Roger Gordian is an eyewitness as UpLink is the major contractor of the ISS that Orion was to begin construction. Several days later a mercenary force attacks an UpLink run ISS related facility in Brazil, which makes the next ISS-related launch by the Russians seem like the next target. Which is what Harlan DeVane and his mercenary leader want not only UpLink but the Russians to believe as well. But DeVane wants the “attack” to be a diversion so that his mercenary chief can plant a device on the ISS component to turn it into a weapon he can attack and blackmail governments with, however UpLink’s new Sword operative sniffs out the plan and prevents the device from being installed though the mercenary agent escapes. But DeVane gives UpLink its due but moves on to the next project.

Unlike the two previous books in the series, this one is pure setup for the future installments because it introduced several significant characters though at the expense of a focused story that all the plotlines easily connected with one another. The book bounces all over the place from Cape Canaveral to Brazil to San Jose to Maine to Bolivia to Albania to Kazakhstan with a specific plotline (or several) in each location that related to the main plot but honestly some could have been scrapped. Preisler dedicated an entire chapter to a Brazilian train disaster caused by a smaller version of the device that DeVane planned to install on the ISS component, but it was separated into about five different points-of-view that just made it weird and essentially seem like filler. The feel of the entire book was just setting things up for future books.

While Shadow Watch isn’t necessarily a good book, it’s alright and frankly meant to introduce many characters that will prove pivotal to future installments of the series. Once again dealing with creating a story around a computer game, Preisler did a passable job but not as good as either of the two previous books in the Power Plays series.

[Anne Patkau · Rating 1 out of 5]

* "Shadow watch" (Power Plays 3) was created by Tom Clancy and Martin Greenberg, no writers attributed until Jerome Preisler by book 8. The farther from original Tom Clancy thrillers the worse. This series is about an American space spy-military agency. Annie, cancer widow, sees spacecraft explode just before launch, killing a favorite astronaut school buddy. Six plus pages nightmares with both dead men interchanging, boring. The agency asks her to lead the investigation. Evil Devane commands mercenary leader Kuhl to steal, demonstrate, and plant an electronic disrupter in the next launch, with great and gruesome loss of carefully described small lives, also torturing a minor criminal to emphasize his evil viciousness. These parallel plots seem to over-detail characteristics and provide gratuitous violence, rather than advance plot. Another line of action starts when Pete rescues Tom in the boonies to bring him back to work, but vengeful hicks almost murder Tom before he leaves. I think the Yanks should only give criminals one chance. Male good guys, - one of whom, spoiler, Pete, asks Annie on a date at the end - punch, kick and shoot their way to finding the weapon, but the big bad wolfs escape for another book. The ubiquitous series jargon is here guns and maybe-physics.

[Christopher DuMont · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was by far the best of the Power Plays series so far. Still not quiet as good as the Op-Center books but still have 5 more to go in the series. The development of the characters is getting better. There are times that the author loses his way in the core mission and storyline but overall it is an interesting read. I will keep plugging along with the next book in the series.

[Alfie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not a great book - it seemed to be full of overly detailed descriptions about nothing at all with a very loose plot to link it all together which I often did not understand.

[Ben · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read the synopsis. Now you know the best parts of the book. This is such a struggle to read despite it being well written. It starts with an interesting premise: there is a rocket-launch sabotage and mercenary incursion. But it gets progressively worse until a barely passable end sequence. There are chapters about a character called Tom Ricci, who dives for urchins, and reading them is like pulling teeth. There are pages about Gordian feeding his dogs at the table while talking politics with his wife and it just fails to captivate.

So much of the book is irrelevant noise or bland decision making that takes away from its few interesting components. Occasionally there might be a compelling sequence (Albanians) that is merely teased and mixed with superfluous military jargon. Annie is about the only character that deserved a bit more inner dialogue, as her arc is left unresolved. The main investigation is solved near the end courtesy of a brand new character, after a long and tedious build up. As a standalone read this was wholly unsatisfying, slow, and devoid of interesting content.

[Richard Harrison · Rating 1 out of 5]

I believe that every novel in some way enriches the reader, be it through the story, the language or the writing style. Due to this, the reading of any novel is a positive and worthwhile experience. That was until i read Shadow Watch.

Initially I thought that there must have been some sort of malfunction at the printers which resulted in only half a book been created as nothing very much happened and the book ends with many threads left untied. Yet in the 355 pages contained within the book, a vast majority of them are dedicated to drivel, adding nothing to the overall story. This could have been a decent novella with a bit of careful editing but instead its a painful waste of time and brought me far closer than any other novel to breaking my cardinal rule of always finishing a book.

I don't say this lightly, especially as I would consider myself a fan of other Tom Clancy books and computer games, but for the love of all things holy, do not waste your time and money on this book, there are far far better ones out there.

[Zach Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have never read any Tom Clancy books at first, but when I saw this it looked very interesting. That interest slowly depleted. When I read the first couple of pages I was shocked on how uninteresting it was. I felt like it wasn’t written correctly and I may have gotten a misprint, but that was not the case. It felt like reading like 4 incomplete books mashed up into one. I really couldn’t keep up with the story and how it was formulated

All I know about the story is how some shuttle was launched into space and it somehow revealed some terrorist plan. The USA is now onto its knees and begging for mercy when like 3 characters rise up to defeat them. I feel like the plot was made in like 20 minutes and has no thought put into it. Anyways, it feels like this is the last Tom Clancy book I will read and it sucks that I am not interested anymore.

[Ron Willoughby · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like Clancy. This was not up to his standard. Halfway through the book, long about page 310, it dawns on you that there are only 50 or 60 pages left. The ending is forced, condensed and struggles to find closure that is in keeping w the storyline. It’s as if he looked at the clock and said ‘Darn! I’m late for dinner. Better wrap this one up.’

So glad I borrowed this from the library.

Edit to review: Oh wait! I just realized: Clancy didn’t write this. Phew! Think I will pass on the remainder of this series.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Really struggled to get past page 50 and ended up giving up 1 1/2 stars. Interesting start with the explosion of the space shuttle on the launch pad but the story quickly degenerated into yawning dialogue between characters that to me did nothing for the story or developed it. Tom Clancy yes, Jerome Preisler no, not for me and not in the same league.

[Tim Corke · Rating 1 out of 5]

Yawwwnnnnn. After completing this out of a matter of principle, I'm annoyed at myself for wasting the time. There were two bits of 'action' sandwiched with lots of nothing. I finished this 10mins ago and I'm struggling to recall much of what happened. Very disjointed, lots of unnecessary detail and not enough momentum.

[Anjela Paje · Rating 2 out of 5]

A lot of boring technical stuff that I did not appreciate. Hard to read stuff I skipped over to the dialogue parts. I did not like the bad language in parts. The only parts I did like had to do with what was happening with the people and their jobs and how they interacted with one another. I doubt I will ever read another Tom Clancy book again.

[Patrick · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was an interesting book looking at the complications of running a multinational company while trying to also go into space. There were some slow parts that took a little time to get through but overall it was a good building of events and characters as well as plot lines.

[Kate Mooney · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book took a really long time to get somewhere and then finished in about 5 pages. I enjoyed some of the sci-fi tech imaginings and liked the narrative style and the jumps between characters but felt like it was a bit of a slog to get to the end.

[Jenn · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is typically not the type of book I read. I found it hard to follow the different story lines and am unsure which of the characters were the villians versus heros. I am also unsure if the conflict is resolved.

[Kristal Stidham · Rating 3 out of 5]

This grabbed me with the initial drama at Cape Canaveral. I enjoyed J.K. Simmons as a narrator of the audiobook.

[Ben Pashkoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh. Lots of fairly detailed narrative and not the action or plot that was expected or previously been in Clancy novels.

[Wayne Priest · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read. Detailed technical descriptions which seem believable. Good action sequences.

[Ernest · Rating 2 out of 5]

Was very difficult to keep up with all the different themes

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Space Shuttle catches fire 6 seconds before launch. A group of people tries to find out why.

[Lynn Hutchinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this story, lots going on in different places but easy to follow.

[Jeramey · Rating 2 out of 5]

Less predictable than what came before it, but still underwhelming.

[Kim Jarman]

Ok

[Randy Grossman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I would give 2.5 if I could...some interesting moments...some dry reading...some unnecessary events...the good guys stopped the bad guys from committing one disaster, but the ending left room for a sequel. I probably won't be in a big hurry to read it though.

[Rory · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mixed emotions about this book. At times their was excilerating moments that i could harldy put down and other times i had to force myself to progress not page by page but line by line. Although Some very memoriable quotes and speaches. Espically from Harlan DeVanre. Made this book not a complete waste of my time.
The plot was built well to begin with. A space shuttle crisis that leads to a fuel explosion makes way for an investigation. The terrorists build up excellent opposing charcters. The idea of them launching a space weapon is a ambitious story. But it just failed to deliver any climax and stagnated progressivly. The fuse was lit and the end was a fizzle. I cant really say much more but tom clancys name on the book seems like the only influence he had. The content was moulded on his take on military and covert affairs but martin greenbergs executation failed on many levels. Crash and burn seems like a good summary.

[Kate Millin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I hadn't realised this was in a series called Power Plays - but it is still readable as a one off.

It is 2001 and American business man Roger Gordian has extended his reach into space. But the launch if a shuttle carrying parts for the Orion space station he is the the principal contractor for is sabotaged. The Orion project has been targeted by an international terrorist whose criminal enterprises thrive on violence and political instability.

The book as a lot of exciting action and interesting developments of the key characters in it. I did find the descriptions of a series for characters whose only role was to be killed in one of the acts of terrorism an unnecessary addition of detail, though. Overall a good read if you like thrillers with characters who are more thoughtful and involved.

[Evan Wilson · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a lot. but be warned I felt this book had some violence with occasional mature language. this book was great because it talks about a topic that is still on the news today: terrorism. in this book a make believe space shuttle, the Orion , blows up and afterwards the mission is suspected of being sabotaged. so join business man who witnessed the whole thing happen, and a military intel team get to the bottom of who sabotaged the shuttle. they all end up in Russia where it comes down to a straight up gun fight to capture the Russian terrorist leader who planned the whole thing. one thing about Tom Clancy is that he writes a lot of realistic fiction usually involving the military so if your into that genre of books go check out tom Clancy. the best part is that this book is part of 4 book series which if you like this book you can read the series.

[Marilyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

From Florida to Kazakhstan to Brazil unexpected, unprecedented chaos is reigning. Harlan DeVane loves discord, or is that 'loves to disrupt order.' Determined to cripple Roger Gordian's efforts toward a multinational space station he puts strong men's minds as well as bodies to the ultimate challenge.

[Rik · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very exciting book to read.
Comes with a thrilling end.
Sometimes a little boring because the story doesn't read very fast.

But overall:
4 out of 5 stars for this thrilling masterpiece from Tom Clancy.

[Brett]

Thriller