Red Rabbit is surprisingly better than his other recent horseshit. I almost suspect it was an older manuscript he brought out of the closest, touched up, and published.
Anyone else awaiting/dreading “Brain of the Tiger” or whatever the sequel to his assassians-of-freedom thriller will be called? I hope its really bad and effectively ruins his career. I know its a lot to hope for.
Yay! 200th post!
I think Red Rabbit was indeed an old manuscript, but an unfinished one. Which would explain why the first three quarters of the book are actually readable. The ending, though, is cursory and poorly written. The whole scene in Rome is just bad, and I think it might have been written in a couple of days to add on to something he had in a desk drawer to satisfy some publisher.
I abandoned Clancy right after Patriot Games. The vapid characters, implausible plot, and gratuitous right-wing rants just got on my nerves.
So, everyone posting here seems to agree that Clancy’s recent novels (at least) are utter dreck.
Anyone else care to try and defend them?
Simple. Clancy’s ex gets a portion of any money he makes on a Jack Ryan novel. You will notice that not once is Ryan referred to by name in Teeth of the Tiger. And just where does Jack Jr. get cousins? Both of his parents were only children.
I have noticed that all authors eventually lapse into the same themes…this is very obvious with the later works of Dickens, Thackery, and more recently, people like James Michener. So, is it possible that Clancy just sketches out a general theme, then has his advanced word processor put together stuff from previous novels? That would explain the repetitive themes and characters, etc. Of course, he is rich enough to have a staff of ghostwriters, who could churn out endless variations upon the tried and true HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER stuff?
Anyway, can textual analysis (by computer) prove that an author is just basically cutting and pasting?
Asimov returned time and again to his “Foundation” series, mixing it in with the robots from “The Caves of Steel”. Most of the later stuff sucked.
Heinein let Lazarus Long and the “multiverse” concept take over his last half dozen novels. Most of the later stuff sucked.
Arthur C. Clarke? Rama, Rama, Rama…
Its certainly implied that it is because he is Such A Gol-Darned American Hero Nice Guy Who Cares More For America Than For He-Self.
I had also wondered about the cousins, but their surnames sounded familiar, and I let it pass, chalking it up to me having missed something in the Clancy Library.
To give the benefit of the doubt, the cousins may have been second cousins… in many families, they are just as close…
To be fair, the last 3 rama novels were written co-authored with Gentry Lee, super-christian extrodinare.
I’m not sure what annoyed me more in the later Clarke works. The Gentry-Lee Inspired Christianized works(Cradle) or ACC’s solo “There is nothing good about religion” stuff(3001). That’s probably the reason I quit clarke after 3001.
Well of course, but what lead to it? Obviously Jack took one for the good of the nation, but why…
You sure this wasn’t a Stephen King book? 
Thank you!
I wrote the story for Rainbow Six, the game. We were actually in production for about six months before Clancy decided to write the book, and many of the novel’s plot points originated in the game. I’ve always thought his adaptation was weak … . 
The name Jack Ryan isn’t used in Rainbow Six either.
I will. Rainbow Six was a novel about a jet-setting ultra-elite international top secret black-ops counterterroism team who rappelled silently down from Blackhawk helicopters with silenced submachine guns under the watchful eyes of their concealed snipers as they saved children and hostages from both petty terrorism and Bondesque organizations bent on genocide of nearly all human life.
If they’d had secret identities in which they both played professional sports and starred in the world’s most kickass rock band, it would have been perfect.
You forgot The “Bondesque” being crazy lefty tree-huggers. 
Another cheap right-wing plug.
Including of course moderate leftists, who are only one step away from falling under the spell of the evil extremists and trying to destroy the world. Gotta stay ideologically pure - the slightest move to the left and you are on the slippery slope to genocide.