NationStates Jolt Archive

What is your favorite novel by him and lets discuss it.

I like Red Storm Rising and Clear and Present Danger. Executive Orders is a favorite to

*SPOILER WARNING*

Sum Of All Fears was a good book, but I was disappointed with the ending, not that the writing was bad, but what Ryan did pissed me off. In the end he killed 10's of thousands of Americans since it would've prevented the attack in Executive Orders and the war which killed over 100,000 UIRians, and Saudis (that is an estimate since many Corps were destroyed and about 10,000 in a single MLRS attack)

Rainbow Six, simply for the beginning stuff where Clark and Chavez fight the terrorists all over the world. I really like that kind of situation stuff.

Most of the time Clancy's novels are *really* boring in the beginning, and you just wait for stuff to come together. So I liked something interesting in the beginning

I've never read the books but I went to school with his son - he dropped out.

My favorite would probably be Debt of Honor, with Executive Orders as a close second.

When I first got them, I thought I'd never get through them. Debt of Honor took awhile to get good, but then it got great and rolled right into Executive Orders.

Executive Orders is brilliant. Rainbow Six and The Bear and the Dragon were excellent as well.

I'm a big fan of Debt of Honor, and am off to buy Executive Orders an a little while.

Is it just me or is it not possible to imagine what Ryan looks like without thinking of Harrison Ford?

I don't imagine him as looking like Ford. You will love Exec. Orders

My favorite Clancy novels are Cardinal of the Kremlin and Red Storm Rising.

Rainbow Six, simply for the beginning stuff where Clark and Chavez fight the terrorists all over the world. I really like that kind of situation stuff.

Most of the time Clancy's novels are *really* boring in the beginning, and you just wait for stuff to come together. So I liked something interesting in the beginning

Rainbow Six seemed really boring in the end. It seemed like the climax was in the middle of the book and the rest was just plodding along, shoot some bad guys, world saved, yawn....

Even then, I had a very hard time putting it down while I was reading it. It would be a neat movie, like most of all the other movies based on Clancy, but the recent Sum of All Fears movie creates in me a great sense of doubt and, well, fear. Talk about a dud. :x (EDIT: I haven't read The Sum of All Fears, however, and seeing the movie first was probably a huge mistake. Considering Clancy's other books, I am sure that the blame for the Sum of All Fears movie rests only on hollywoods shoulders.)

I was thinking about the ending of Rainbow Six the other day and how disappointing it is in comparision to his other works and a weird theory evolved in my mind. Maybe Clancy intentionally wrote Rainbow Six that way, in order to illustrate some theme of the book. Perhaps it was written that way to futher mock the Enviromentalist Morons Clark fights in the book, or again to attack those radicals who hold similar views today.

I think all his novels are crap

Rainbow Six, simply for the beginning stuff where Clark and Chavez fight the terrorists all over the world. I really like that kind of situation stuff.

Most of the time Clancy's novels are *really* boring in the beginning, and you just wait for stuff to come together. So I liked something interesting in the beginning

Rainbow Six seemed really boring in the end. It seemed like the climax was in the middle of the book and the rest was just plodding along, shoot some bad guys, world saved, yawn....

Even then, I had a very hard time putting it down while I was reading it. It would be a neat movie, like most of all the other movies based on Clancy, but the recent Sum of All Fears movie creates in me a great sense of doubt and, well, fear. Talk about a dud. :x (EDIT: I haven't read The Sum of All Fears, however, and seeing the movie first was probably a huge mistake. Considering Clancy's other books, I am sure that the blame for the Sum of All Fears movie rests only on hollywoods shoulders.)

It does, I saw the movie before the book and still enjoyed the book after hating the damn movie

My fav is Patriot Games, with Rainbow Six a close second. I just thought that the story lines for both were excellent, and they were well written.

My favorites would be Red Storm Rising and Debt of Honor. Both of these books i've read multiple times. I'll never forget Red Storm Rising, cheery beginning, Frisbees, and all.

I was thinking about the ending of Rainbow Six the other day and how disappointing it is in comparision to his other works and a weird theory evolved in my mind. Maybe Clancy intentionally wrote Rainbow Six that way, in order to illustrate some theme of the book. Perhaps it was written that way to futher mock the Enviromentalist Morons Clark fights in the book, or again to attack those radicals who hold similar views today.

I don't think Clancy was mocking the "Environmental Morons." The book involved terrorists organizations all over the world...making the main terrorist organization in question an environmentalist one was probably just to be fresh and different. His focus is on terrorism, the motovation is really besides the point.

How the remainder of the terrorists are handled in the very end, however, is absolutely brilliant.

Red Storm Rising was one of the best "What If" hard-realist wargames ever put to paper. The Hunt For Red October was also pretty good, but it was outclassed by the superb movie. Most of his other books are fairly to pretty good, but not in the same class as his earlier work.

I love the Net Force series.

Not a big fan of his writing anymore, but I'll give him this much--he had the imagination and foresight to recognize the potential effect of flying a jetliner into the Capitol building as a terrorist act. Maybe Clancy should be required reading for the intelligence community as an example of what a person with an imagination can come up with.

Not a big fan of his writing anymore, but I'll give him this much--he had the imagination and foresight to recognize the potential effect of flying a jetliner into the Capitol building as a terrorist act. Maybe Clancy should be required reading for the intelligence community as an example of what a person with an imagination can come up with.

which book was that?

I knew the first episode of "The Lone Gunmen" had a jetliner flying into the World Trade Center, but I didn't know Clancy wrote about it too!

Not a big fan of his writing anymore, but I'll give him this much--he had the imagination and foresight to recognize the potential effect of flying a jetliner into the Capitol building as a terrorist act. Maybe Clancy should be required reading for the intelligence community as an example of what a person with an imagination can come up with.

which book was that?

I knew the first episode of "The Lone Gunmen" had a jetliner flying into the World Trade Center, but I didn't know Clancy wrote about it too!The Sum of All Fears if my memory serves--it's been a few years since I read it. It's the reason Jack Ryan becomes president. That's the last one I read.

Not a big fan of his writing anymore, but I'll give him this much--he had the imagination and foresight to recognize the potential effect of flying a jetliner into the Capitol building as a terrorist act. Maybe Clancy should be required reading for the intelligence community as an example of what a person with an imagination can come up with.

which book was that?

I knew the first episode of "The Lone Gunmen" had a jetliner flying into the World Trade Center, but I didn't know Clancy wrote about it too!The Sum of All Fears if my memory serves--it's been a few years since I read it. It's the reason Jack Ryan becomes president. That's the last one I read.

I think it was Executive Orders. In Sum of All Fears, terrorists detonate a nuclear weapon at the Super Bowl.

Not a big fan of his writing anymore, but I'll give him this much--he had the imagination and foresight to recognize the potential effect of flying a jetliner into the Capitol building as a terrorist act. Maybe Clancy should be required reading for the intelligence community as an example of what a person with an imagination can come up with.

My first thoughts when I saw the planes slamming into the WTC was, 'this is straight out of a Tom Clancy novel'.

I'm in the same boat as you Incertonia, not a huge fan any more, but I used to really like him when guns and soldiers were 'cool'. The last book of his I bought was the Bear and the Dragon, after a long break from his work. As I have grown and my politics changed (or at least I've become 'aware' of politics) the 'goodies' in his books have become less 'good', IMO. Not that I'm a fan of killing off 95% of the human race, mind. A good writer none-the-less.

My favourite is Without Remorse, probably because it's his darkest book.

Not a big fan of his writing anymore, but I'll give him this much--he had the imagination and foresight to recognize the potential effect of flying a jetliner into the Capitol building as a terrorist act. Maybe Clancy should be required reading for the intelligence community as an example of what a person with an imagination can come up with.

which book was that?

Guys, it was Debt of Honour, done kamikaze style. Trust me on this, I literally just read it :)

Guys, it was Debt of Honour, done kamikaze style. Trust me on this, I literally just read it :)

Oh yeah, it's done right at the end, isn't it? A cliffhanger novel, how....novel.

Not a big fan of his writing anymore, but I'll give him this much--he had the imagination and foresight to recognize the potential effect of flying a jetliner into the Capitol building as a terrorist act. Maybe Clancy should be required reading for the intelligence community as an example of what a person with an imagination can come up with.

which book was that?

Guys, it was Debt of Honour, done kamikaze style. Trust me on this, I literally just read it :)

Ah, Executive Orders is the sequel then.

(and Incertonia said the above quote, not me)

Ah, sorry, i just randomly deleted names in the quote tag, wasn't paying attention to who actually said it first :D

Not a big fan of his writing anymore, but I'll give him this much--he had the imagination and foresight to recognize the potential effect of flying a jetliner into the Capitol building as a terrorist act. Maybe Clancy should be required reading for the intelligence community as an example of what a person with an imagination can come up with.

which book was that?

Guys, it was Debt of Honour, done kamikaze style. Trust me on this, I literally just read it :)

Ah, Executive Orders is the sequel then.

(and Incertonia said the above quote, not me)Thanks--it's been a really long time since I read Clancy, but I knew I'd seen that plot twist long before 9-11-2001. I'm reading Richard Clarke's book right now and he notes that they were planning for the possibility of a hijacked airliner used as a weapon during the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta as well.

Hmmm...tough choice, since I happen to love all his early stuff.

Red October - great book, lousy movie adaptation...you can make it a mini-series.

Red Storm - incredibly good read, ok in audio tape...yet another mini-series candidate.

Cardinal - outstanding book. Misha Filitov dies like a true hero, in his sleep.

Patriot Games - an ok read, very good movie.

Clear and Present Danger - decent book, decent movie.

Sum of All Fears - scary book...al-Qaeda, anyone? Really awful movie adaptation...political correctness stopped the moviemakers from calling a spade a spade, therefore all references to the Islamic terrorists were changed to Neo-Nazis. Gag me.

Every Man a Tiger - a fairly more recent book...gives the Chuck Horner life story a good exposure. The Desert Shield/Storm portions are a must-read.

The Bear and the Dragon - got it for Christmas in 2002, and have only managed to get through the first 50 pages in 17 months. Guess that's what happens when you become a dad.

I just finished Hunt for Red October, thought that was an awesome book, I read a couple Net Forces which I loved, im reading Op-Center:Mirror Image right now which I really enjoy.

CLancy never wrote, Op Center, Net Force, or Power Plays, they were concepts he created and he owns their franchises, but they are written by another author.

As for Red Storm, that is the greatest book I've EVER read.

Clear and Present Danger is amazing

Cardinal of the Kremlin has alot of technical data, is informative, and the only one to get me to tear up at the end.

CLancy never wrote, Op Center, Net Force, or Power Plays, they were concepts he created and he owns their franchises, but they are written by another author.

Hmm, it says Created by Tom Clancy and Steve Pieczenik, that might explain why the style seems a little different than Red October.

"Without Remorse" is most definately my favorite Clancy book, followed by "The Cardinal of the Kremlin".
btw I think some of his stuff is required reading at certain military schools- like air war college, some counter terrorism/espionage stuff. I'm not entirely sure though.

I like Bear and the Dragon. When it gets going, it is Red Storm Rising II.

bump; when is his next novel coming and will it have Ryan Sr.?