Net Force 7. Cyberpirates by Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy's Net Force #7

by Steve Perry

Minor viruses are eating away at the Net Force computers. The e-mail shut-downs and flickering monitors are hardly emergencies—but they’ve been keeping the tech department hopping. Same with the sudden rash of time-consuming lawsuits. No one in Net Force has a moment to spare, which is exactly the way Mitchell Townsend Ames wants it. Because when the shadowy mastermind launches his master plan, he wants Net Force to be looking the other way…

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Military Fiction, Espionage, Science Fiction, Novels, Speculative Fiction

Paperback

First published February 27, 2003

About the author

Librarians note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Steven Carl Perry has written over fifty novels and numerous short stories, which have appeared in various magazines and anthologies. Perry is perhaps best known for the Matador series. He has written books in the Star Wars, Alien and Conan universes. He was a collaborator on all of the Tom Clancy's Net Force series, seven of which have appeared on the New York Times Bestseller list. Two of his novelizations, Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire and Men in Black have also been bestsellers. Other writing credits include articles, reviews, and essays, animated teleplays, and some unproduced movie scripts. One of his scripts for Batman: The Animated Series was an Emmy Award nominee for Outstanding Writing.

Perry is a member of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America, The Animation Guild, and the Writers Guild of America, West

Reviews

[Fernando · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tom Clancy's hardcore Republican ideals seem to seep more and more throughout his later writing. It's very hard to ignore the several libertarian messages he's putting across the book, the most blatant being the fact that a child was able to protect itself and its loved ones because it had a gun. I can't help but be slightly disgusted at the way that Clancy uses his platform to spread such an ideology, but I guess there will always be people in the world that we disagree with. Anyway.

Ames is a better villain than I've seen in many of the other Net Force books. It was great to see the confrontation moving from the field towards the courtroom, and I really enjoyed the pace of the first half of the book in that sense. That being said, at a certain point all the interesting bits of it are left behind, and we are back to the old formula that has been repeated to exhaustion. The Ames from the last chapter seems very different from the Ames of chapters before, to a point it's hard to believe it's the same character. An entry in the series that had the potential to be interesting became just another one.

[Charles Mitchell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Entertaining, even if a little formulaic. My major fault would be the realization of VR; this was written in 06 pretending to be 2010 and the tech just moved too fast for the portrayal in this novel to look anything but silly. However that can be contemporized and forgiven. Solid book.

Note: I read this, the 7th Net Force book, without reading any of the others. The authors do a good job catching you up, but I'm sure it would be a little more meaningful if I'd read the others.

[Gabor · Rating 4 out of 5]

It was a good solid story. It's interesting to see how much the world has changed, and how they've imagined the future. Mind you this was written in 2003 and I wa reading this in 2020. Anyway, the story was good, the characters are likeable. Although we did not learnt much more about cybernation, except they are shady. This book was a great lockdown read.

[Christopher DuMont · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another solid book in the series - a few parts are left dangling but for the most part this one tied most of the loose ends up nicely. It will be interesting to see where the series goes in the next book based on the plan exits from a few of the main characters.

[Kenneth Kushlan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Though I liked the book, I felt that the VR sequences were just put in a filler. Would have been much better to just go through a more realistic investigation.

[Travis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fun read

I enjoyed seeing some growth from the other “minor” characters in this installment. Looking forward to seeing where things go from here.

[Ernest · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent read

[Paula Stern · Rating 2 out of 5]

I did not find the book up to the standard of other Clancy books. The characters were superficial and the plot simple.

[Randy Grossman · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took a little bit of time to get the ball rolling in this one and at times I do not totally understand how Net Force uses Virtual Reality to get sources and clues in tracking down the enemy, but as it jelled together it was impossible to set down for any extending period of time. There was a section of the book that was becoming pretty laughable of the snowballing "bad luck" that one of the bad guys was having. And Steve Perry, the author, deserves a HEARTY "thank you" for writing a terrific novel with VERY MINIMAL foul language. I don't think I could count on my two hands even the usage of "minimal" cuss words....EXCELLENT. Proof that great books do not need gutter talk!

[Garry Thompson · Rating 1 out of 5]

Didn't realize it was so late in the series. May try again with the first of the series.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Whoa, was I complaining that they were too predictable? This one sticks to the formula, but only loosely -- there's a new co-author Larry Segriff with a more military POV, and everyone spends the book deciding to retire! The threat of the book is a wealthy lawyer who would probably be an admirable foe other than the fact that he's trying to take over the world and failing. He's busy suing Net Force for their military assault on CyberNation in the previous book, and probably would have won the case if his other interests hadn't interfered. The book is full of our favorite characters being married, having children, and realizing they don't want to do something so dangerous. Makes one wonder what the next book will be like.

Segriff is a welcome addition -- Perry was clearly getting kind of tired of the military aspect of things, and Segriff pulls things back on track. The story is snappier, the military parts don't seem quite so forced, and by the fact that it's all about retiring, it sounds a bit like they're trying to take the series in a new direction. Fun story, probably best if you've read all the previous ones so you care about the characters and their decisions.

[AndrewP · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the last of the Net Force books that features the main characters that have been there from the beginning. In the end Alex, Toni and Gen. Howard all call it a day and leave the government behind. From the reviews I have read, the characters that take their place in the following books are not as interesting so this is probably the last I will read.
A bit of a disjointed story. There are a few loose ends and threads that seem to have been forgotten, or go nowhere and the overall ending of the book was something of a let down. This was really a 3 star book but I had to mark it down for minor incorrect facts and one really big and annoying one;

"Amazing things, longbows. With their superior range and penetrating power, they'd given the English the Battle of Hastings, which had pretty much kept the entire nation from thereafter to speak French."

Unbelievable.

[Sylvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

i thought that this book was interesting... i hardly read science fiction but i really enjoyed it. it was in the year 2012 which is not that long from now. i was amazed at how advanded the tenhology that was described. i can barely use my computer and i strongly doubt that i would be to use the technolgy decribed in the book. i thought that the weapons that they used were at times good but also at times bad. in the story, a 15 year old gets acess to a gun and uses it but he use it in self defense. the author used the word VW alot, i thought it can/ might mean virtical reality. the plot of the story was simple and easy to follow but i thought it was a little bit to predictable. over all it was a good read.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

As you probably guessed, I really like Tom Clancy and specially enjoy the Netforce series (yep, I have already done 1-6 and now 7). I enjoy the on-going characters in the series and how each book adds to their story.

This installment is about a key member of the evil Cybernation group who hires a hacker to release a series of viruses upon the net. Netforce (cops for the net; kinda FBI-like) use "VR" (Virtual Reality) to track down their subject and they use VR to do various analysis and data mining. Jay Gridley is my man!

Yep, I will queue book 8 for the near future.

[Elyse · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read, especially following after Net Force Explorer #11 (which I thought was this set of characters).

Fair amount of time invested in character development, especially for John Howard and Alex Michaels. The reason becomes obvious as the plot unfolds.

A little disjointed, especially because told from the perspective of so many different characters. Not my favorite in the series, but still a fun ride.

[Greg (prince) Bandy · Rating 4 out of 5]

i thought it was really cool i like the whole idea of tom clancy's books. this one in particular because it was set up like movie there was a lot of dialougue to keep the reader interested to see what would happen next. i would give this book who is into combat and who likes tom clancy's style of writing.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

i did like this book because it was like talking about guns at some point and saying this is natural and i'm not too sure because it's confusing while it keeps on switching back on some things. But this is my first Steve perry book i read from him and i'm hoping to read more by him.

[Kevin Kosar · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, talk about slapdish. A real disappointment, especially as I have enjoyed some other Clancy novels. My review of this book is at http://kevinrkosar.com/wordpress/?p=378.

[Mustafa Said · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good book, fun to read, and although it's the first book i read from the whole series i didn't feel left out of the loop, very realistic and believable events made me really not believe it was written in 2003.

[Josh · Rating 2 out of 5]

I only vaguely even remember the story. I do remember it being a letdown for Clancy standards. It wasn't bad though. Worth the time spent listening (& driving).

[Jonathan Knopf · Rating 1 out of 5]

I hate hate hate hate hate Tom Clancy.

This crap is driveling, sensationalist, uninteresting, and uninspired. Boo.

[Trilok Reddy · Rating 1 out of 5]

this book is getting on to my nerves... have no regrets in saying i am quitting reading this book.... haaaaaaaa feel so delighted after saying that....

[Jaide · Rating 1 out of 5]

a little confusing right now, hopefully it'll get better, if it doesn't i'm gonna stop reading it.

[Jackie Cheung]

This book was very intriguing to me because a lot of events happen throughout the book. But the book seemed very confusing though.

[Xander · Rating 2 out of 5]

Meh.

[Joshua Richie]

great

[Andrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this Net Force book, but I am cautious to see how the series continues with the majority of the main characters leaving the story.

[Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

A další hacker na holení ;-)
Standardní kvalita, mírně nestandardní zápletka (hurá!), oddychové, předvídatelné, relax.

[Chris Wiley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really love books about the net. This one is no exception.

[Krissie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Minor viruses are eating away at the Net Force computers. The e-mail shut-downs and flickering monitors are hardly emergencies