And you thought “Rainbow Six” or “Without Remorse” were bad? This one was a total bore. I kept waiting for some real pyrotechnics and all I got were birthday candles. GM Chrysler, there was no real action to speak of in the first 1,000 pages! Yes, the Dark Star drones were cool. Yes, the much vaunted SOW Smart Pig bombs were interesting, but there was little to no craft in the book’s writing.
At the risk of being politically correct (something that I detest), I’ll also venture that Clancy’s near routine description of the Chinese as “chinks” by so many of his characters was more than a little disturbing. I can’t recall seeing such blatant bigotry in any of his preceding books. Did anyone else get this sense as well? And the ending? Another total let down. Cancel my rhumba lesson, I’m going to sue!
Anyway, so much for hyperwar. This one’s a snoozer, I tell you, a snoozer! “The Sum of All Fears” was quite possibly his best book before churning out all of this drek.
I tried to stop reading Clancy a while back (after Sum of All Fears), but someone got it for me for Christmas and I felt obligated.
I think all Clancy’s editors are afraid of him. “Ummmm… Mr. Clancy, sir, you could cut pages 14 to 1,423 inclusive, and not skip a beat in your storyline. By the way, have you ever heard of this thing called character development?”
I wish someone would say that to him.
I can think of maybe three Clancy books that were worth spending the time to read them. The rest I hate.
Damn, that’s too bad. I was kinda looking forward to reading it. I haven’t read Clancy in a while, and this one caught my eye. But I do have to chime in my agreement that Sum of All Fears was easily the best. Can’t wait for the movie.
I enjoyed it. Not great but better than most other writers. Mea Culpa, I listened to it on tape. Clancy goes over better on tape. Especially abridged!
And I must be the only person who absolutley LOVED Rainbow Six. It was far and away my favorite Clancy. Sum of All Fears was pretty low on my ranking. I must be strange.
I also enjoyed the only book not set in the Clancy-verse, Red Storm Rising.
I’ve actually got this book on my shelf here at work, mixed in with Java texts. I enjoyed it as a low-to-middlin’ Clancy read. It was no Cardinal of the Kremlin - hell, it wasn’t even an Executive Orders - but it still killed some time. I read it mostly to see if it still followed the same Clancy Rules.
I was exposed to the Clancy Rules when I started reading Rainbow Six. A friend of mine began to discuss the book, and I shrieked like a crack-addled rhesus monkey about spoilers. Sam replied, “C’mon, Joe. It’s a Clancy book. You know exactly what’s going to happen.”
“Unh?” I replied, expressing my brilliant wit.
“The radical left-wing terrorists will win some small victories, but the God-fearing America-loving soldiers and civilians will kick their asses in the end.”
Munch, you’d better try to wait for that movie. I may be a long time coming.
Clancy has, unfortunately, placed himself on the horns of a dilemma. He has created a cast of characters which (in spite of the fact that they all speak in the exact same voice) people like, and he is definitely in tune with the technology of our times. Unfortunately, he has torn the universe these people live in to complete tatters, so that now it really, really fails to resemble the world as it is today. In addition, Clancy’s personal politics started bleeding all over the place once Clinton got into office.
The result is page after page after monotonous, monotone page of background and setup, because with every new book he has to describe–and revise–the setting, the background, and the politics. The result is nine hundred pages of preface for a two hundred page book.
Clancy did say something on the 11th which I found to be quite amusing–perhaps the only amusing thing I saw that day. When a CNN interviewer waved a vaguely accusatory finger at him for accurately predicting the use of an airliner as a fuel-air explosive, he responded with something very like, “well, it’s difficult to stay ahead of the absurdity of the real world.”
[sub]Newbie… check. Contrary view… check. I’m going to get hammered on this one. Oh well, unto the void dear friends.[/sub]
I am a fan of Clancy’s writing. While I did not think “Bear and the Dragon” was one of his best, I enjoyed it. It did follow his typical formula, though. Long build up of multiple story lines that seem to have no connection until the end of the story. Trying to figure out how these story lines are going to come together is part of the appeal of his writing to me.
They do seem to end too quickly, though, as if he gets tired of writing and just wants to end the novel. To me, the “Hyper-war” was a cop-out. If you are going to build it up slow, at least relish in the climax for a while.
I do have to take exception to panning “Without Remorse”. That is probably my favorite Clancy novel. I would like to hear why you thought it was bad.
Apparently us bean counters need to stick together, beancounter. Without Remorse was my favorite, too!
I guess I just go for sheer entertainment. I’m not looking for quality, I just look for a good read. All of Clancy’s development and subplots do it for me.
I did enjoy the Bear & the Dragon, and found it weird that when I put it down, I had trouble separating it from reality. It seemed entirely possible to me.
I still haven’t gotten around to reading “The Bear and the Dragon”. I’ll admit, I used to be a huge Clancy fan – started out with “Clear and Present Danger”, went back and got all of his previous stuff, eagerly awaited new releases, all that. I think he hit his peak with “Sum of All Fears”.
Then we get to “Debt of Honor”. I thought that it was pretty good, but I thought it took forever to get going. Also, I was frustrated by the fact that the villains were absolute morons! I mean, they were capable of thinking up one really cool plan, and that’s about all the mental capacity TC gave them. I recall that there’s something like three consecutive chapters that open with the Evil Japanese Industrialist ™ picking up his cell phone and exclaiming something along the lines of “What? The Americans can’t possibly have (shot down our planes/broken into my house/invaded Guam) etc . . .”. They were completely incapable of doing anything interesting and proactive.
“Executive Orders” was even worse about the antagonists’ slavish devotion to their evil scheme. Plus, Jack Ryan had become so insufferable that it wasn’t even fun to read about him anymore. It’s Clancy’s dream world, so he gets to make it come out how he likes, but can’t Ryan be wrong just once about anything? Maybe his economic policies create a recession, or he breaks a fingernail while shaving improperly, or something.
I finished “EO” and never read any more Clancy after that. I haven’t seen any indication that he’s dealt with any of this; but I might read him again if he gets over himself a little bit.
Which is why I like his work, but only the Cardinal inadvertently lighting the big fuse was a real plot twist for me.
Yup. The drones and SOW’s were quite cute but Clancy chewed more than he bit off with most of the war action.
As an inveterate fan of Jack Ryan, I was less enthused with the overall plot of “Without Remorse”. It didn’t have the global scale that I rely upon Clany’s stories for. I’ll give him credit for finally getting in a love interest for once, but that’s about it. Maybe I need to reread the book.
Bear and the Dragon was garbage. The only places where I didn’t just read it out of determination to finish it was when it was leading up to the actual abortion-minister-kill incident.
I kept thinking that everything was going so smoothly for Americans that something was going to happen. I see now I gave Clancy too much credit. That ass clown has to stop living in his own little fundamentalist good-evil world and learn how to write.
After reading some Clancy and Larry Bond stuff, I can now give full credit to Bond for making Red Storm Rising worth reading.
Plus it’s kind of annoying in his later books when he goes off on his tangent that marriage is so great, everybody should get married and have kids, blah blah blah.
Speaking as somebody who doesn’t intend to ever marry and who enjoys peace and quiet way too much to ever be a father, that really rubs me the wrong way.
I had that weird reality problem when I read “Sum of All Fears”. I read it in only three or four days while in College. Any moment I was not in class or studying, I was reading “SoaF”. Had to continually to remind myself that the Freshmen were only Freshmen, not terrorists or Russian spies.
That was one of the strenghts of the book in my opinion. It was a “fresh” point of view for Tom to explore. Instead of the global scale, it focused on one man. Who he was, where he came from and why he is the way he was. I got a chill when Clark/Kelly kills the first pimp. The pimp first asks him, “Why?”. “Practice”.
I actually agree with Eternal’s statement on things going too smoothly. “Red Storm Rising” was a great example of the good guy’s winning but doing it by the skin of their teeth: the ship captain gets his first command shot out from under him, the Air Force guy in Iceland is basically medically evac’ed at the end of the book, the forces in Europe are routed through most of the book, etc. His later books have Gulf War Syndrome – massive destruction and defeat on the bad guy’s side with victory and little or no casualties on the U.S.'s. Life is not that easy.
I just finished Bear/Dragon tonight. Is it just me, or is it Red Storm Rising with Jack Ryan in the story and the Chinese replacing the Russians, with a healthy dose of good ole Rush Limbaugh-minded politik tossed in?
Bad guys need oil. Bad guys decide to take oil.
Politburo filled mostly by automatons, complete with spineless leader, an evil and foolish defense minister, and a young, moralistic junior member.
American weapons work flawlessly, and every American serviceman does his/her job perfectly. All American technology is the newest and the best. Opposition doctrine and equipment is inferior.
No piece of dialogue is complete without one person in the conversation ending a sentence in “ok?”
As soon as the tide turns in the Good Guys favor, the Bad Guys start talking nukes, with the aforementioned young, moralistic junior member aghast at such a possibility.
When the war is won by the Good Guys, the evil Politburo types get tossed in the paddy wagon while the young, moralistic junior member is elevated in status to No. 2 man in his Communist government.
The phrase “Been there, done that” or a variation thereof appears at least 10 times in each novel.
I’ve read all of Clancy’s fiction. My favorite was Red Storm Rising, with Red October running a very close second. Cardinal/Kremlin very good, too - the rest of it, ehh. Ok time filler. I’m still more of a Cussler fan - has anyone read Valhalla Rising? I’m buying it this week.
