Tom Clancy red storm rising

830 page paperback pub 1993.i bought this after having it recommended by a friend and it was my first Tom Clancy book.The book is a modern wartime thriller based on the premise of cold war conflict. The large scale, land, air and sea battles are crisply described, building tension and curiosity in the reader, making it very hard to put the book down. The story is told from a handful of main characters, serving in their particular war arena, be it in depth battle or intelligence briefings. This allows the story to shift between actions across the planet in a realtime scenario, building the bigger war picture and highlighting the conflicts that each character must face. The real success of this book comes from it's composition. It's consistent in it's writing, and it manages to avoid bogging you down in technobabble and dialogue. It leads and you follow, willingly. If i had to pick anything out for criticism, it would be the 'love story' subplot which didn't really hold up, partly due to the matter of fact style of telling used in the rest of the book, and my own doubts as to whether it is really necessary for the plot. I would have left it out. I definitely recommend this book, it's a gripper and it's well written.