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Tom Clancy's Net Force #10

Net Force The Archimedes Effect By Tom Clancy 2006

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Paperback

Paperback

First published February 7, 2006

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1083 people want to read

About the author

Steve Perry

309 books358 followers
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

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5 stars
571 (38%)
4 stars
467 (31%)
3 stars
344 (22%)
2 stars
83 (5%)
1 star
31 (2%)
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews
Profile Image for Rachel.
940 reviews62 followers
January 2, 2008
This was a fun, well paced book. The women in the series (Saji, Marissa, Jen) have a very small role, but this is mostly because the villain is... you guessed it... female! On the minus side, she's stereotypical enough that it gets annoying. On the plus side, she's smart, a very good shot, and mostly successful.

After a couple of military bases are hit by a group of mercenaries who seem to know all the security details and codes, Jay Gridley discovers that the military specs for the bases were incorporated into a widely distributed game, and the results of successful attempts to penetrate the bases in the game were relayed back to the owner. This is actually pretty clever, and the book stays fast-paced and interesting. There is the usual excess of romance and children that Perry puts into these books, but I like that stuff, so it worked for me. :)

Oddly enough, Thorn resigns at the end of this one, and speculates that Gridley and Kent are on their way out, too, suggesting that this might have been the last Net Force book. That would be a shame -- they were really fun. I hope there are more on the way!
Profile Image for John.
219 reviews5 followers
February 7, 2009
Pedestrian effort on the 10th and possibly the final book in the Net Force series of books. This was my 3rd favorite series of the Tom Clancy out-sourced paperback series. I rated it behind Op-Center and Power Plays. This series ran out of steam a few books ago. I never got my arms around the whole virtual reality themes of the Net Force books.

It became clear that the series was winding down pretty early on, as all the major characters started to make major life decisions regarding marriage, careers and fidelity.

The Net Force books were easy reads, if I was hopping on a plane or lounging on the beach.

Profile Image for Wenzel Roessler.
797 reviews6 followers
July 17, 2020
Net Force is my favorite Tom Clancy series. I enjoy the personal life of the characters as well as the main story that features an interesting bad person that stays one step ahead of computer star Jay.
Profile Image for Jeroen.
264 reviews1 follower
October 29, 2021
First published in 2006, with a great reads guarantee. I probably should have taken them up on that and gotten my money back. Though perhaps a two star rating would not qualify for this.
Over the years I picked the book up multiple times, but never got past the first few pages. I really enjoyed this series of books when it first came out. I did not mind that we saw something of the main characters lives outside of the office, but in this book it annoyed me a bit. In the previous book (changing of the guard) the team gets almost fully replaced and my level of familiarity with these new characters was not good enough to enjoy a large part of the book being spent on their non-work lives.
The main story about break-ins at army bases is still a decent story, but padded out too much for my liking with the lives and times of non-important people. They primarily feature because they are part of the team, not because they are part of the story. So, two stars for the main storyline, which, interestingly, is primarily told from the bad guys point-of-view.
Profile Image for Fernando.
51 reviews2 followers
September 20, 2020
Sub-par final (?) entry in the Net Force series. I decided to re-shelf the series after the entry, changing from "Fiction - Thriller" into "Fiction - Fantasy" since the plot is only able to move thanks to magic. There's no other way to explain the series of "coincidences" that keep the story going on. Which, honestly, is indicative of pretty poor writing.

Not only that, but the villain also uses some of the oldest tropes, cliche, motif, and obvious misleading and non-representative characterizations I've seen in a while - after all, what's wrong with a femme fatale who uses her body to make her way through life?

The attempt to paint that as the result of trauma is shallow as a shower, and I was yawning at the end of it.

Good thing the series is over - it had became a burden, and I'm not looking forward to more of it.
4 reviews
July 9, 2025
I still don’t understand how he caught the villain, who was always one step ahead of him until he logs into a simulation and magically discovers her hiding spot. Seemed way too convenient and a little lazy of a wrap up, especially given how meticulous and careful she had been the throughout the entire story. It was an interesting main storyline, but a lot of background characters unrelated to the main plot were getting their storylines wrapped up so it didn’t always flow neatly. As this was the final Net Force book, I guess it was appropriate. Ultimately a disappointing ending for what was a fun premise.
Profile Image for Gabor.
33 reviews
August 25, 2025
The Archimedes Effect is the final entry in the original Net Force series, and honestly, it was the one I enjoyed the least. Unlike the earlier books, which leaned heavily into the technical and cyber-thriller aspects, this one spends far too much time on weddings, relationships, and romance. Nearly half the book feels more like a love story than a Net Force mission. It strays away from what made the series stand out in the first place, and because of that, it was a pretty disappointing conclusion.
Profile Image for Christopher DuMont.
293 reviews1 follower
March 19, 2023
This series had run its course - there was almost no additional interesting character development - lots of "personal development", but nothing related to the action and purpose of the series. The action plot was interesting and plausible - but the author didn't spend much time on it as he was just trying to produce one more book. Overall, interesting series and characters - but it was time for it to all end.
Profile Image for Donna.
825 reviews4 followers
December 24, 2022
Someone is hacking into new Army bases, going into them, and doing mischance. Who is doing this and how are they doing it? Jay working for Net Force tries to find out with the help of an Army Geek.
Profile Image for Preston.
432 reviews12 followers
June 4, 2021
I really enjoyed this book series, Steve Perry does an excellent job building unique characters with interesting interactions. I was always just so-so interested in the cyber world aspect, but the attention to detail he puts into some of the characters makes the book really enjoyable to read.
Profile Image for Monzenn.
844 reviews1 follower
July 29, 2023
Been a while since I read Net Force. I can't deny the level of interest sparked within me when I was reading about VR simulations and hijackings. Main characters were allowed to exit gracefully, so it's been a good read. Honestly I could make a case for one star lower, given the story is well-tread already - but nah.
186 reviews9 followers
May 2, 2012
There was a point where I read quite a few of the Net Force books and, in returning to the series with this book, I remembered why I kind of just stopped reading them...

The books are generally interesting and the action is well-paced, but the books have too many distractions - whole chapters built around events completely extraneous to the plot of the book.

I understand the idea of character development, but these books always seem to go way overboard with it...I like understanding the motivations and character behind the major players, but there's a point where it becomes overkill - and distracting from the book itself.
9 reviews
September 22, 2015
Notation stand alone read

I'm not sure where in the Net Force series this book is but don't read it first. The characters were introduced in a Hodge podge, the time frames jumped back and forth, unnecessary character love interests were randomly thrown in, and most annoying was the jump into Virtual Reality. Imo, a total mess
Profile Image for Betsy.
5 reviews
February 20, 2012
This book was less action filled than the previous books in the series. I felt there was a lot of extraneous storyline that detracted from the main focus. This should be the last in this series. I did like the female "enemy", though; that was a pleasant change.
95 reviews1 follower
January 21, 2013
Again a nice story. It is the last in this Netforce series and that shows, although he kind of keeps the door open to continue with this storyline some day. Should he do that, I know I will read those as well...
Profile Image for Angel Serrano.
1,373 reviews11 followers
May 10, 2013
Una serie de ataques relámpago en las bases del ejército americano harán saltar todas las alarmas. Net Force deberá identificar a los atacantes y derrotarlos. No parece fácil cuando se dan cuenta de que alguien se les adelanta sistemáticamente a cada paso que dan.
Profile Image for Cleo.
264 reviews9 followers
February 11, 2012
I love Clancy's work. This is one of the net force techy books. Sometimes they go over my head but this one I liked a lot. Adventure and logic combined
Profile Image for Anthony Messina.
652 reviews11 followers
October 4, 2016
Should have had this type of farewell two books ago, otherwise why bother adding new main characters? Oh well.
Profile Image for Hans.
65 reviews5 followers
January 6, 2019
No idea why I bothered to finish this book. Seems like someone’s threw a couple of stories he wrote in creative writing class 101 together and called it a book. Pity.
Displaying 1 - 25 of 25 reviews

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