JCC RIP Tom Clancy: 1947-2013

R.I.P.

 

For me those political opinions were a refreshing 180degree turn from what usually dominates literature and media, i.e. Newsroom, West Wing, for example. To each his own.

I also forgot about Vince Flynn.

 

RIP Tom!

 

I'd like to give my thoughts.

To be brief, one of the few English words Mr. Clancy had never heard . . .

 

Always say Clancy's books on the shelf at the bookstore and was somewhat interested, but I never actually picked them up. I do remember watching "Sum of All Fears" on TV a while ago though, and it was awful. I also recall seeing a scene from "Hunt for Red October" where the submarines were flying through the water like jet fighters and I was like "wtf?". I also bought the Endwar strategy game off Steam for really cheap, but I have no idea how that plays because apparently there isn't an option to turn down the graphical settings to where my computer can actually run it. Also tried playing the demo for Ghost Recon or one of those shooter games, thinking that it wouldn't be too hard after having played Call of Duty...big mistake. Then again the guy was a writer, not a game developer.

Oh yeah, and I took a rather dim view of his politics, once I found out what they were...

 

Imagine what would ensue if G.R.R. Martin were to drop dead (that guy simply doesn't look too healthy) without finishing his story. Mass suicides, I tell ya.

 

I gave up after Teeth of the Tiger, which I thought was half-baked and sophomoric. Prior to that I'd always enjoyed his work to one degree or another (thought my politics have always been about 180 degrees away from his) even though I'd make the argument that he spent the last couple of decades, starting with Sum of All of Fears, writing what amounts to extremely grounded science-fiction.

The Hunt for Red October is still a wonderful book, and one of the great military thrillers, but I think the book that is probably his best is the somewhat less well known "Red Storm Rising" which in addition to being the only major novel he wrote set outside the Ryanverse, is also a well-considered look at what a non-nuclear WW3 might have looked like in the 80s. Also, it introduced middle-school-dilb to the films of Sergei Eisenstein, so even though he became a notorious crank, I can't really begrudge him his work.

 

I love the original trilogy of Clancy movies: Hunt for Red October, Clear & Present Danger, Patriot Games. Haven't seen The Sum of All Fears. Will probably catch the new one with Chris Pine when it comes out.

Tried to read Red October and . . . well, I finished it, but I found it hard going. I was in high school at the time. I've always meant to just start with Red October and see if I couldn't read through his major fiction in order. Never got around to it. Maybe one day.

 

Red Storm Rising was a masterpiece. Like many others here, I gave up after Executive Orders. Sad to hear of his passing.

 

dont worry, he probably hadnt actually written a book in a long time. the brand will live on.

im surprised his publisher even allowed this news to get out. in the future these sorts of "authors" (the clancys, the pattersons, the nora robertses) will be placed in some sort of cryogenic storage unit while the army of ghostwriters continues to crank out their branded schlock

 

lol or they'll just upload the author's mind onto a computer and force the A.I. image to write until the end of time.

"Goodmorning, digital J.K. Rowling - are you finished with 'Harry Potter and the Unicorns of Alpha Centauri?"

"Yes, master. Do I have a soul?"

"No. Keep writing."

 

i mean at least jk rowling writes her own stuff. im talking about authors who have become brands that a team of ghostwriters churn out product for. clancy was def one of these, about a fourth of the nora roberts books are supposedly written by a man, and the james patterson model is at least semi-honest about it by putting the ghost-authors names on the cover underneath the brandname

 

I wonder how much being a ghostwriter for one of those authors pays...

 

R.I.P Tom, such a great storyteller

 

Ah! I forgot Red Storm Rising! That one was very good as well.

 

dolphin, if you don't mind my asking, how old are you?

Marcus, I didn't even finish "Bear and the Dragon".Once the cold war ended, Clancy struggled to find relevance which is a shame, but it doesn't diminish his earlier works. And where's the respect for "Red Storm Rising"? A plausible WWIII novel? It was great!

 

In the late 90's he donated one million dollars to a private rocket company. It went under, it was never going to work, but it was one of the first few attempts ot make reusable spacecraft for one tenth Shuttle costs to orbit.

 

In what way? Weren't the ULA fighting for the unlikely goal of reducing American financial and material support for the IRA, their rivals?

lol @ "the cause"

 

Ahem, I am full of respect for Red Storm Rising.

 

The good news: Only two books left in the GoT series. The Bad news: His pace has slowed to about one book every five years. "A Dance With Dragons" came out two years ago, which means he should probably finish book seven in about eights years from now.

Verdict: I hope he's healthier than he looks.

 

Bah. Dance took so long because he ended up rewriting large parts of it several times. It and Feast were originally one book set 5 years later, but Martin decided that was unfeasible. Winter 2014-Summer 2015 is my prediction for TWOW.

 

His first two books were brilliant (Hunt and Red Storm), then I thought he dropped off slightly with Patriot Games and Cardinal of the Kremlin. The overall plots of the latter two were good, but there was just too much cheese (Jack')s heart to heart with the PoW in Games, the whole geek romance in Cardinal. I thought he came back quite strongly with Clear and Present Danger (a dreadful film though), far and away his best post-Cold-War book. I read most of the rest of Ryan-verse books through Bear and Dragon, mainly because Jack Ryan remained an incredibly compelling character, which I suspect is true for most. But, as others have said, his story-telling never really recovered form the end of the Cold War.

And, as Obi Anne said, Baldwin was far and away the best on-screen Ryan.