In The Teeth of the Tiger the chemist who synthesized the drug used to kill the terrorists did so because his brother worked for Cantor Fitzgerald and died in the collapse.
Following the events in Executive Orders he tapped Robby to be his VP. Shortly before his elected term was up Ryan resigned (it is assumed to be the case because the books say that Ryan “retired”) and Robby took over. While he was campaigning in the South for his own elected term Robby was assassinated by a Klansman, and after that Ed Kealty (the foil in Executive Orders) was elected, even after his disgrace in EO.
That was the character of Ed Kealty but I’ve always assumed he was based on Ted Kennedy not Clinton.
The unnamed President of Hunt for Red October is Reagan (somebody even mentions him being a former actor) but he sort of morphs into George H.W. Bush later on and loses re-election.
Fowler isn’t based on anyone in particular that I can tell.
Durling is Al Gore (the book was written back in 1994 when conservatives still had some respect for Gore).
Jack Ryan is of course Clancy himself and Robby Jackson is his Black Best Friend.
They’re not new but Larry Bond’s next three novels were all along similar lines: Red Phoenix was about another war in Korea, Vortex was a war in South Africa and Cauldron was East vs. West Europe. All very good books.
I haven’t read anything of his since Debt of Honor, which was farfetched but fun. But dear Og, does he need an editor! Whew. Some of his books are waaaaaaaaay too padded. Tom, here’s a tip: not every word that comes out of your word processor necessarily needs to be read by your legions of panting fans.
The book is out now and after a couple of days I have a sore arm but I’ve read it.
OPEN SPOILERS!
First of all, it reads a lot differently from a Tom Clancy novel. I attribute this to the co-author Grant Blackwood. The writing style seems a lot looser. Characters make small talk and some scenes go on forever. For example, several of the first chapters are dedicated to Sam Driscoll’s hike in the mountains of Afghanistan. Clancy would have done those three chapters in maybe three paragraphs. There is also a lot of time in this book spent waiting in airports and sailing the high seas in Russia. Exciting stuff I tell ya.
On the other hand, the body count is astronomical. The Caruso brothers are like dual action Jack Bauers, gunning down bad guys everywhere they go. Rainbow gets together for one last hard takedown. The terrorists kill almost all their accomplices. Random hookers get murdered. Random criminals and cops get murdered. Civvies get blown up, gassed, struck with artillery, blasted with grenades, shot and drowned in burning oil. MAJOR SPOILER Tom Clancy even lets one of his hero characters get bumped off. I don’t feel it as a keen loss though because it was one of the interchangeable Caruso brothers. They weren’t developed enough as characters to mourn. MAJOR SPOILER
Oddly enough, Tom Clancy has decided to abandon some of his previous continuity. The 9/11 attacks happened in the Ryanverse and led to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. It isn’t specified who was President at the time, Kealty or Ryan. Ryan is said to have two wars under his belt. This could refer to the middle east (in EO) or China (TBatD). Or if we drop the previous continuity it could be Afghanistan and Iraq. But then again, in what reality would Tom Clancy allow Jack Ryan to think the Iraq war was a good idea?
He also name checks current world leaders like Putin. It’s possible that Putin could have been a background player in the Ryanverse thus far but didn’t Russia join NATO and have the US help during a war in TBatD? So that was strange.
Also, apparently forget about buying a nuke on the open market. You can just steal one from Russian junk floating way the hell out at sea.
I did like that Canada got a few visits. The description of Pearson was a little off but I loved that he had a character running around in Vancouver for a while. I didn’t like that he accused our border guards of being lax and letting all kinds of stuff (including his own version of Osama Bin Laden) slip through.
Overall I’d say it’s the best book with Clancy’s name on it out of the past five or six he’s pooped out. The story takes forever to build up but gets going at great speed once the plan comes together. And maybe you always wanted to know what it would be like to be a Russian boat captain up north in the winter.
It looks like Clancy took considerable literary license with nuclear technology. You can’t actually make a bomb out of pu-238 or for that matter out of fuel rods from a ship. I know some naval reactors use highly enriched uranium, but that is still far short of weapons grade uranium.
He also has the magic Hollywood silencers that can be fired without waking up someone in the next bunk.
The book is a page turner. It is over 900 pages and I finished it in 4 days.
I hope you’re being ironic. 4 days doesn’t sound much like a page-turner to me. 900 pages of largish type should take me 5-6 hours - including tea breaks.
So Clancy’s word processor has spewed out another “novel”?
I think he has a supercomputer that writes this stuff for him-it just changes the names and situations slightly.
The thing is, you just have to read the first chapter, and you know exactly what will happen-its like watching a Tom Cruise flick.
Utter crapola.
I reserved it at the public library last month before it was released. They called me when it came in. It is hard to beat that price and the quality of the paper and binding is much better than the copies they sell at Costco.