A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

Reviewer's Note: This review is about the original 1992 edition; Berkley published an updated edition in 2005.  Until his death in October of 2013, Tom Clancy was a best-selling novelist whose books about American intelligence and defense agencies are read by millions of readers all over the world.  Some of his novels, particularly 1986's Red Storm Rising , are even required reading at some of our prestigious military academies. Four of his novels have been adapted into popular films, and a vast array of books (nonfiction as well as his novels), video games (Rainbow Six, Splinter Cell), board games, and computer simulations is available in many marketplaces, including malls, used bookstores, and online stores such as Amazon. The Tom Clancy Companion , edited by Martin H. Greenberg (the brain behind the seven volume Guided Tour series of non-fiction books about the U.S. armed forces) is a 1992 reference book that explores the Clancy phenomenon at the popular and critica

It is  July, 1945: As the scientists and military men who have built the atomic bomb prepare to test the ultimate weapon, an unexpected thunderstorm arrives at the Trinity test site near Los Alamos, N.M. Lightning strikes the tower where the first bomb -- code named "Fat Man" -- is tethered, and in a literal flash, history is changed.  There are still two nuclear weapons left, but until the more complex plutonium bomb can be tested, their use is postponed until 1946. In the meantime, the conventional operation of the Japanese home islands, code named DOWNFALL, is launched as scheduled on Nov. 1, 1945. With this almost Shakespearean touch, novelist and World War II veteran Alfred Coppel ( Thirty Four East, The Dragon ) begins his "what-if" account of the invasion of Japan in 1945 and 1946. Instead of covering the entire two-part campaign (OLYMPIC, the landing on Kyushu, and CORONET, the final landing on Honshu) in the main body of The Burning Mountain , C

"Hanover Street" (1979) Written and directed by Peter Hyams Starring: Harrison Ford, Lesley-Anne Down, Christopher Plummer, Richard Masur, Patsy Kensit, John Ratzenberger David Halloran: You people actually drink this stuff? Margaret Sellinger: No we just like to put it in our cups and stare at it. David Halloran: Tastes too much like, boiled water. Margaret Sellinger: It is boiled water. David Halloran: I knew there was a reason. During World War II, London was the nerve center of the Allied war effort against Nazi Germany. From 1939 to 1945, tens of thousands of service personnel from many nations, including the United States, flooded into Great Britain's capital to plan and execute a myriad of military operations to liberate Europe from Hitler's tyranny. Inevitably, the war fostered a "live and love for today, for tomorrow we may die" attitude among the men and women in Britain. This led to a surge of sudden and passionate roman

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, an evil legacy long believed dead is stirring. Now the dark side of the Force threatens to overwhelm the light, and only an ancient Jedi prophecy stands between hope and doom for the entire galaxy. On the green, unspoiled world of Naboo, Jedi Master Qui-Gon Jinn and his apprentice, Obi-Wan Kenobi, arrive to protect the realm’s young queen as she seeks a diplomatic solution to end the siege of her planet by Trade Federation warships. At the same time, on desert-swept Tatooine, a slave boy named Anakin Skywalker, who possesses a strange ability for understanding the “rightness” of things, toils by day and dreams by night—of becoming  a Jedi Knight and finding a way to win freedom for himself and his beloved mother. It will be the unexpected meeting of Jedi, Queen, and a gifted boy that will mark the start of a drama that will become legend. - Jacket blurb, Star Wars - Episode I: The Phantom Menace For nearly 40 years, Ballantine-ow

The Arsenal of Freedom   Stardate 41798.2 (Earth Calendar Year 2364)   Original Air Date: April 11, 1988   Written by Richard Manning and Hans Beimler   Story by Maurice Hurley and Robert Lewin   Directed by Les Landau       On stardate 41798.2, the  Galaxy- class  Starship USS Enterprise  (NCC-1701-D), under the command of Capt. Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), arrives at Minos, a Class M world located in the Lorenze Cluster.  Her assignment: to find any trace of the missing  USS Drake  (NCC-20381), a Federation starship of the  Wambundu  class commanded by Capt. Paul Rice (Marco Rodriguez).  For the  Enterprise’s  First Officer, Commander Will Riker (Jonathan Frakes), the disappearance of the  Drake  is of interest on both a professional and personal level, for not only is Capt. Rice a friend of Riker’s from their Academy days, but Riker had been offered command of the  Drake , an assignment he had turned down to serve aboard the  Enterprise.   The  Enterprise  scans Minos for li