Net Force Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik is back with a new cyberterrorism challenge which challenges the world's money supply.
The year is 2018, but some things haven't changed: personal liberties are eroding across the world, countries are taking up arms against their neighbors, and the United States remains the leader of the Free World.
Prince Sami Mustafa of Birhan is not a bad man. Educated in the West, he maintains close ties with the US. But Birhan's economic and political instability threaten his rule, and he fears he will soon be deposed like other rulers throughout his region. If the US sides with the rebels, he has no hope of surviving.
Unknown to Mustafa, there are sinister forces at work within his own government that will soon compel America to align against him. When a nerve gas attack massacres his ethnic opposition, the prince is horrified but ultimately held accountable. The US immediately threatens sanctions and military action.
The man secretly responsible for launching for the gas attack--a traitorous official within Mustafa's government--has other plans. He does the unthinkable and hires the services of master hacker Drajan Petrovik, one of a new crop of cyber-criminals known as technology vampires. Petrovik is a genius and a man without fear.
Petrovik knows that America can't be defeated--but it can be distracted. And he's got the plan and the tools to do it. He'll start by bringing this conflict home to US soil. If everything goes right, he'll end up not only buying time for the country of Birhan, but getting obscenely rich, too.
The only people standing between Petrovik and his destructive goals are a select group forming the nucleus of Net Force. Though still untested, the newly assembled Net Force team must simultaneously engage the cyber-terrorists abroad and fend off a crippling attack in America's largest city. Failure will mean global catastrophe. Success may lead Net Force to the highest level of the United States government.
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.
Started reading NetForce novels a long time ago then there was a gap of about 15 years before picking up this one.
This is a spin-off series from Tom Clancy's Op-Center series which I read on/off from about 1995 onwards.
This is a Kindle free-ebook version. Apart from a few distraction of the odd word missing or poorly constructed sentences which caused a re-read, on the whole no problems. The only odd part was I think there was supposed to be a few graphics of text messages/emails at the start that didn't render. Although annoying, didn't detract too much.
The main premise of the series was that a group backed by the US Government in the near future tackled crimes related in the internet/cyber environment - be it near present day (as in this novel) dealing with hackers planning the destruction of the economy and reliance on technology, to far-future based stories where people "jack-in" and get hacked.
Jumping back in after a long period away wasn't too difficult and I was soon wrapped up in the story element. It was fast-paced with plenty going on to keep you hooked in. This book relates what seems to be the early-days / inception of the NetForce program.
At times in the middle of the book I felt as if it dragged longer than it needed to, but may be down to my busy life at the time with non-consistant reading patterns.
Really enjoyable read, but was shocked at the end with the abrupt cliff-hanger ending leading into a sequel as previous NetForce novels I read years ago were modular self-contained stories. Oh well, will need to seek out the second half now ;-)
Was confused when, at the end of Code War, I looked for Cyber Strike and couldn’t find it. Started on Dark Web and thought it sounded very familiar. After some digging, and finding a post from Mr. Priesler here, I found out that the 3book series starting with Dark Web is literally a reboot. Been reading for most of my life and I don’t think I’ve seen it done this way.
Additionally, Code War / Dark Web only has a passing acquaintance with VR—one scene and it’s completely different from Smokin Jay’s scenarios. Then again, I always did wonder how he could write scenarios leading him to answers without first knowing the answers to begin with.
Anyways, been with the series from the beginning and Tom Clancy since the original Hunt for Red October.