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Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell #4
Polonio 210
Di nuovo lui: Sam Fisher. L'uomo che non c'è. L'agente Splinter Cell specializzato in missioni impossibili e segretissime. Questa volta, Fisher sta indagando sulla scomparsa di Carmen Hayes, un'idro-geologa figlia del più grande magnate texano del petrolio. L'investigatore privato Peter Lemon è morto cercandola, devastato dal micidiale isotopo Polonio 210, rarissimo persino sul mercato nero delle armi non convenzionali e messo al bando da tutti i governi del mondo. Come sempre Fisher dovrà agire da solo, senza alcuna copertura istituzionale, affidandosi alla propria straordinaria capacità di camminare nell'ombra, sparire e riapparire dal nulla, e al suo infallibile talento di cecchino. Dalle acque ghiacciate del Mare di Labrador alle inospitali montagne della Corea del Nord, Sam Fisher ricompone l'intricato mosaico di un complotto internazionale destinato a travolgere l'intero pianeta. Un nuovo, fulminante episodio della serie di tecno-thriller ideata da Tom Clancy e seguita da milioni di fan in tutto il mondo.
345 pages, Hardcover
First published November 6, 2007
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
July 30, 2025
Fallout is the fourth book in the Splinter Cell series, which currently has nine books. I'm not sure there will ever be more, as people seem to have stopped reading these. The last two, Firewall and Dragonfire, only have a few hundred reviews each, and they seem to have not even been produced in physical book form, as I can only find references to them as ebooks and audiobooks. The last one came out in March, only three months ago.
I've read all four in the series so far and they remain readable but average entertainment. In this one, NSA Third Echelon field operative Sam Fisher investigates the death of his brother, which leads him to all kinds of crazy leads and circumstances, everything from a cartoonish mob boss in Montreal to a kidnapping to a full-blown Central Asian military conflict in Kyrgyzstan involving a fungal biological weapon.
There are bouts of action, but the author really flops on the details and much of the storyline in this one, which took me out of it for large chunks of the book. For example, he says the Montreal mob boss' house is "a sprawling three hundred thousand square-foot French country mansion." I thought that number sounded ludicrous, so I looked it up, and it turns out I was right.
The largest house in the entire world is Antilia, a skyscraper in India owned by a billionaire that is four hundred thousand square feet, valued at US $4.6 billion. The largest house in the United States is the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, which is 178,926 square feet and valued at US $300 million.
So you're telling me some nobody mob boss in Canada has a house just a hundred thousand square feet smaller than the largest house on Earth, and over a hundred thousand square feet LARGER than the largest house in the entire United States? That house is smaller and is worth 300 million. So basically this mob boss would have to be a billionaire to even afford such a property, and no mob boss has that kind of net worth.
Stupid details like that bog this book down, and on top of them, the story is just silly at times. Like, when he describes this mob boss' house, it has its own artificial river for rafting and all this other crap and it made it sound like Fisher was in Disneyland. It was just clownish. He also spends the entire book on his "belly" or "crab-walking", which both also sound ridiculous and only add to the clownish atmosphere. At another point he's looking for hidden artifacts in a plane that went down decades ago in the jungle?
That's a larger problem with these books at large. They don't feel like the video games. In the games, Fisher goes on an op, and he's ruthless, cold, and efficient. He gets the job done, there's some political intrigue or context, and Colonel Lambert is the hardass voice in his ear that says very few words to him during the mission. Just enough to tell him what he needs to know. There's no personal life to Fisher other than a rare mention that he has a daughter named Sarah. And it all works wonderfully.
In these books, Fisher goes to hot yoga and has the hots for his instructor, he hunts for treasure, he crab-walks like an idiot all the time, he has a Russian brother, and Lambert talks way too much for his character and sounds goofy instead of hardcore like in the games. Also, the term "Fifth Freedom" still has not been uttered once in the four books so far. It's mentioned constantly in the games. It's an additional freedom given to Splinter Cells to protect the four freedoms articulated by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Fisher is given Fifth Freedom numerous times in the games by Lambert, but that term is nonexistent in these books. That further proves that the authors in this series really don't know almost anything about these games. They're simply not able to produce an authentic experience that truly feels like them, and as they're the original source material that's a big problem.
I don't mind what they do end up coming up with other than the clownish, moronic, lazy details and occasional bad storytelling. There is some action, and some details like those about the various locales Fisher travels to and the geopolitical information surrounding them are well-written and accurate, I guess I just wish these books were something more.
That being said, since I own three more of them, it's on to the next one. Here's hoping Conviction, by a different author, is better! Bring it on!
P.S. If Fisher "crab-walks" or "belly-crawls" again, I quit. FFS, he is "crouching" and "going prone". Wording makes a world of difference!
I've read all four in the series so far and they remain readable but average entertainment. In this one, NSA Third Echelon field operative Sam Fisher investigates the death of his brother, which leads him to all kinds of crazy leads and circumstances, everything from a cartoonish mob boss in Montreal to a kidnapping to a full-blown Central Asian military conflict in Kyrgyzstan involving a fungal biological weapon.
There are bouts of action, but the author really flops on the details and much of the storyline in this one, which took me out of it for large chunks of the book. For example, he says the Montreal mob boss' house is "a sprawling three hundred thousand square-foot French country mansion." I thought that number sounded ludicrous, so I looked it up, and it turns out I was right.
The largest house in the entire world is Antilia, a skyscraper in India owned by a billionaire that is four hundred thousand square feet, valued at US $4.6 billion. The largest house in the United States is the Biltmore Estate in North Carolina, which is 178,926 square feet and valued at US $300 million.
So you're telling me some nobody mob boss in Canada has a house just a hundred thousand square feet smaller than the largest house on Earth, and over a hundred thousand square feet LARGER than the largest house in the entire United States? That house is smaller and is worth 300 million. So basically this mob boss would have to be a billionaire to even afford such a property, and no mob boss has that kind of net worth.
Stupid details like that bog this book down, and on top of them, the story is just silly at times. Like, when he describes this mob boss' house, it has its own artificial river for rafting and all this other crap and it made it sound like Fisher was in Disneyland. It was just clownish. He also spends the entire book on his "belly" or "crab-walking", which both also sound ridiculous and only add to the clownish atmosphere. At another point he's looking for hidden artifacts in a plane that went down decades ago in the jungle?
That's a larger problem with these books at large. They don't feel like the video games. In the games, Fisher goes on an op, and he's ruthless, cold, and efficient. He gets the job done, there's some political intrigue or context, and Colonel Lambert is the hardass voice in his ear that says very few words to him during the mission. Just enough to tell him what he needs to know. There's no personal life to Fisher other than a rare mention that he has a daughter named Sarah. And it all works wonderfully.
In these books, Fisher goes to hot yoga and has the hots for his instructor, he hunts for treasure, he crab-walks like an idiot all the time, he has a Russian brother, and Lambert talks way too much for his character and sounds goofy instead of hardcore like in the games. Also, the term "Fifth Freedom" still has not been uttered once in the four books so far. It's mentioned constantly in the games. It's an additional freedom given to Splinter Cells to protect the four freedoms articulated by US President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Fisher is given Fifth Freedom numerous times in the games by Lambert, but that term is nonexistent in these books. That further proves that the authors in this series really don't know almost anything about these games. They're simply not able to produce an authentic experience that truly feels like them, and as they're the original source material that's a big problem.
I don't mind what they do end up coming up with other than the clownish, moronic, lazy details and occasional bad storytelling. There is some action, and some details like those about the various locales Fisher travels to and the geopolitical information surrounding them are well-written and accurate, I guess I just wish these books were something more.
That being said, since I own three more of them, it's on to the next one. Here's hoping Conviction, by a different author, is better! Bring it on!
P.S. If Fisher "crab-walks" or "belly-crawls" again, I quit. FFS, he is "crouching" and "going prone". Wording makes a world of difference!
May 20, 2018
3 stars!
In my life-long search to find my next novel, I literally DREAMED about picking this one up. It's odd how sometimes this things work, so to fulfill my inner subconscious desires I went and picked this one up.
"Fallout" tells the story of a invisible spy heroine trying to stop a vicious dictator from ruining the world's oil supply. Of course, that evil dictator also went after our hero's family.
This fun though nonsensical spy thriller was an OK read and nothing more.
The first half was quite boring and made me feel in fact quite slumpish and but in the second half the novel recuperated and the plot rolled on.
It is weird to except such things but of course the characters were underdeveloped and the pages long descriptions of the main character sneaking into placed didn't quite do it for me.
It was a light read, a well needed break in the sea of fantasies I have been reading lately and that's about it.
I will not be reading the many sequels.
Until next time!
[Instagram]
July 11, 2018
از لحاظ ادبی بهتر شده ولی هنوز خیلی ایراد داره.
January 11, 2010
I would have given this book 2.5 out of 5 but couldn't and since its Splinter Cell I decided to round up. In retrospect I enjoyed the book a lot but the story came to an abrupt halt, which is just this authors style (remember pseudonym=same name different writer). It wrapped up good & the story of Sam chasing the story of what happened to Peter was also interesting. I believe it was this book where some of the gadgets had different names than the game and previous books. I would recommend this book only after reading the previous books most definitely starting with #1.
June 19, 2015
Quick paced, lots of action, technology I could understand, and all kinds of interesting secondary characters are why I gave this one four stars. I hope that "David Michaels" continues to churn out these novels. I find Sam fisher to be just as intriguing as James Bond, and these books are better than any of the Bond books I've read.
June 3, 2018
Meh... Another batch of "Fisher [the protagonist] did this. Fisher did that." with a linear, boring-ish plot. No unexpected turns, zero character development. I don't like the style of this ghost writer - too bad we lost the parallel stories and the interesting narrative (Fisher in 1st person / others in 3rd person) that worked so well in the first two books.
December 29, 2024
Pretty disappointed. The new ghost writer doesn't understand the protagonist and never bothers to develop the villain as a character. The first 2 novels make for good junkfood reading, not this one
September 27, 2019
Well... at least this time there weren't any silly typos and grammatical errors in Fallout like there were in Checkmate. But still this one could've been better in terms of plot and character development.
Thankfully this is Grant Blackwood's final hoo-rah with Splinter Cell, no offense but I just don't like his writing style. I am happy that he has his fans, but I'm just not one of them. There are way too many technical terms for my taste that made me trip over the narrative while reading it. I realize it makes for a more engrossing read to be specific about what kind of missiles, and vehicles are being used, but doing it too much pulls me out of the narrative.
The plot feels like it could fit within the Splinter Cell mythos given the gameplay changes brought about by Conviction and Blacklist. But being that Fallout was published in 2007 when the series was focused more on stealth as opposed to the panther and attack-guns-blazin' play styles, I feel Fisher still would've stuck to the shadows even at the climax of this story. That said, it was nice finding out that Sam has family other than Sarah (his daughter.) Yet for some reason I feel like the brother relationship between Sam and Peter could've been expanded upon more. Even a memorial scene at the end would've been enough for me. And it would've added to Sam's character development.
All in all I liked what I read, and it was better than Checkmate despite sharing the same rating, but I really wanted it to be better.
Thankfully this is Grant Blackwood's final hoo-rah with Splinter Cell, no offense but I just don't like his writing style. I am happy that he has his fans, but I'm just not one of them. There are way too many technical terms for my taste that made me trip over the narrative while reading it. I realize it makes for a more engrossing read to be specific about what kind of missiles, and vehicles are being used, but doing it too much pulls me out of the narrative.
The plot feels like it could fit within the Splinter Cell mythos given the gameplay changes brought about by Conviction and Blacklist. But being that Fallout was published in 2007 when the series was focused more on stealth as opposed to the panther and attack-guns-blazin' play styles, I feel Fisher still would've stuck to the shadows even at the climax of this story. That said, it was nice finding out that Sam has family other than Sarah (his daughter.) Yet for some reason I feel like the brother relationship between Sam and Peter could've been expanded upon more. Even a memorial scene at the end would've been enough for me. And it would've added to Sam's character development.
All in all I liked what I read, and it was better than Checkmate despite sharing the same rating, but I really wanted it to be better.
February 28, 2023
Fallout was an okay book, with absolutely nothing exciting about it.
The good:
The book does a good enough job of explaining Peter and his relation to Sam without overdoing it.
The bad:
The book is pretty straight forward: Sam goes here, Sam learns something new and needs to go to new place: repeat.
The good:
The book does a good enough job of explaining Peter and his relation to Sam without overdoing it.
The bad:
The book is pretty straight forward: Sam goes here, Sam learns something new and needs to go to new place: repeat.
July 16, 2012
This book was the first book I read from the public library. This book is about Splinter Cell Sam Fisher, a "rogue agent on the right side of freedom". This series is created by Tom Clancy (one of my new favorite authors) and written by David Michaels. Overall, A fine read and great story.
November 2, 2017
I think reading 4 books in a row of splinter cell was a bad idea... this book reads exactly like the others and although the crisis touches a little closer to Fisher in terms of character it doesn't feel like there is much change at all through the book. I'll take a break from Sam.
May 13, 2018
If you are looking for a straightforward, spy-action novel that has pumped details into the most mundane things, this is your book. For the rest of us, this book was a pretty run-off-the-mill popcorn action novel, and even then it was slightly underwhelming. Three stars though because as outlandish as it was, it was coherent throughout, and there's a lot more action packed into the last 100 pages or so.
The plot: Super spy from super spy agency with super modern super gizmos goes on a super secret super important mission that takes our protagonist from USA to Kyrgyzstan to Canada to NK to beat a psycho dictator who wants to topple world economy.
Yup. It sounds like a video game plot and actually the only place it'd work is in video games, which it has. And I knew that beforehand so I walked into it - I'll not hold it against the book. But the problem is there's a lot many scenes too that would work only in a video game cinematic or gameplay. Crab-walking, crouch-running, ninja moves in excruciating detail again and again make you roll your eyes the 11th time around. It kinda made the book a little weak on the action front, and given that's almost the whole front of the book, it's a big deal.
Other than repetition of the mundane I do not have much qualms. It was easy-to-consume gamer-friendly literature, pretty linear story and though the trope was old, the situation was innovative. It is a rather good and relaxing read after a heavy, involved book - or if like me you need such books to read during travel so you can safely stop reading anywhere and pick right up.
I do think the author missed a huge opportunity; SUPER MEGA SPOILER FOLLOWS.
The plot: Super spy from super spy agency with super modern super gizmos goes on a super secret super important mission that takes our protagonist from USA to Kyrgyzstan to Canada to NK to beat a psycho dictator who wants to topple world economy.
Yup. It sounds like a video game plot and actually the only place it'd work is in video games, which it has. And I knew that beforehand so I walked into it - I'll not hold it against the book. But the problem is there's a lot many scenes too that would work only in a video game cinematic or gameplay. Crab-walking, crouch-running, ninja moves in excruciating detail again and again make you roll your eyes the 11th time around. It kinda made the book a little weak on the action front, and given that's almost the whole front of the book, it's a big deal.
Other than repetition of the mundane I do not have much qualms. It was easy-to-consume gamer-friendly literature, pretty linear story and though the trope was old, the situation was innovative. It is a rather good and relaxing read after a heavy, involved book - or if like me you need such books to read during travel so you can safely stop reading anywhere and pick right up.
I do think the author missed a huge opportunity; SUPER MEGA SPOILER FOLLOWS.
August 17, 2018
I read the predecessor and Rainbow Six prior to reading this. The fact I walked away giving Rainbow Six 3 stars and this 4 is likely because I'm judging all Clancy related novels off 'Six. Fallout features more action, a main plot that captured my interest, and characters I cared about. It invoked more emotion from me than a book actually written by Tom Clancy. Is that good? Is that bad?
Rainbow Six comparison aside, the first part of this book was a bit dull, but it certainly picked up and halfway through I was completely hooked, and super invested in it. Can't wait to start the next book in the series!
Rainbow Six comparison aside, the first part of this book was a bit dull, but it certainly picked up and halfway through I was completely hooked, and super invested in it. Can't wait to start the next book in the series!
April 2, 2025
Per il momento quello della serie che mi è piaciuto di meno. Inizialmente per alcuni tratti la trama mi ricordava Pandora Tomorrow, e ciò non ha fatto altro che gasarmi. Peccato però che poi, seppur con la volontà di Tom Clancy di non ripetersi al quarto capitolo della serie, sembrava quasi di stare a leggere un Indiana Jones più che uno Splinter Cell. Nel finale si è ripreso, ma come già detto, ho preferito capitoli che narravano vicende più orientate verso la diplomazia e lo spionaggio puro, piuttosto che un thriller d'avventura come questo.
January 15, 2018
This book had a lot of action in it just like all the other splinter cell books. Al tho they could have changed up the story a little bit it follows right a long with the other stories plots and could be changed up a bit. Also this story lacks the engaging aspect of other books but its a pretty good time waster. This book also created a pretty good picture f about what was going on. But besides that I think Fallout was equally as good as the other splinter cell books.
August 4, 2023
Fallout hasn't made me change my mind about the Splinter Cell book series. I mean the action is there, but it is driven by a single individual in such a dominating manner that my enjoyment can only be capped. Three stars means if it were in a library I would have borrowed it, which I think is my sentiment about the entire series anyway. Nice book still.
October 25, 2023
Pretty generic spy thriller but an enjoyable pulpy read. True to the characters but with some off choices plotwise regarding Sams personal/family life and some plot conveniences cliches, like needlessly crpytic messages from someone to justify an investigation being needed. Overall enjoyable though.
August 21, 2025
Fallout is a fast-paced action thriller filled with plenty of excitement and interesting characters. The technology used is easy to follow, which makes the story more enjoyable. It took a little while to get into the book, but once the story picked up, it was hard to put down. Overall, a solid and entertaining read worth the time.
August 25, 2019
Yes, five stars. In its category...
Easy, swift, action-filled, quick-bite for the spy-teenager in you. Also, the plot and its main premise are good.
Too bad that now in 2019, no one is using stylus to navigate their war-PDA during combat. O:)
Easy, swift, action-filled, quick-bite for the spy-teenager in you. Also, the plot and its main premise are good.
Too bad that now in 2019, no one is using stylus to navigate their war-PDA during combat. O:)
November 25, 2019
Love this books series
Splinter cell is the greatest game\book ever created. This turned me from hating reading to loving reading. Plus this writer has the right ideas of who and what Black ops are.
Splinter cell is the greatest game\book ever created. This turned me from hating reading to loving reading. Plus this writer has the right ideas of who and what Black ops are.
January 4, 2020
Fallout
I enjoyed the story but I found some of the detail a little to detailed. Thanks again for a great story. My fault but it also appeared that I read it out of order. The second one was better on the amount of details.
I enjoyed the story but I found some of the detail a little to detailed. Thanks again for a great story. My fault but it also appeared that I read it out of order. The second one was better on the amount of details.
May 17, 2017
Had moments where it was difficult to read. On a whole it is entertaining and creative book which has that splinter cell style.
February 10, 2018
Casual read
Writing was detailed at some points, then drastically skipped over details at many of the more exciting parts. The last few chapters needed something more...
Writing was detailed at some points, then drastically skipped over details at many of the more exciting parts. The last few chapters needed something more...
June 16, 2019
Interesting but probably made for screen and not pages...
May 31, 2020
very good read
May 5, 2021
Lots of pages showing how Sam is sneaky and very little anything else. Pretty thin plot.
Read it if you want.
Read it if you want.
September 9, 2021
Straightforward, no-nonsense fun. Easy to read, despite the numerous typos and sometimes excessive explanations and overall great fun. Definitely worth the time.
January 31, 2022
Awesome Story
January 1, 2024
This is by far the best out of the series. Worth a read
June 23, 2025
Excellent book!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews