Note: please don’t put any spoilers
Anyone get the new Tom Clancy book, Red Rabbit? I didn’t care all that much for The Bear and the Dragon (too much of Clancy’s politics) and I wasn’t all that excited about a Jack Ryan prequel. Is it a good read for a Clancy fan?
Not a bad book. Clancy’s distate for atheism comes through, and you can tell he really likes Reagan and Thatcher, but it’s a good read, and it fleshes out a bunch of minor characters in other books. The book’s more focused than most of his other ones. Most of his books have a bunch of subplots that all come together in the end, but in this, there’s basically just one plot that moves more or less straight ahead. Jack Ryan is more naive in this book than most of the other Clancy books, as you can imagine. You’ve got a real sense that he’s thinking, “Gee whiz! Spy stuff!” The end is kind of rushed and not extremly satisfying, but that’s Clancy’s fault. He can’t do endings. You get the idea in his books that he’s writing, and writing, and going along at a relaxed place, taking time to say, “Look, reader! This is how an M1 Tank works! This is how the CIA does dead drops!”, then he realizes he has 20 pages left and he has to resolve everything.
I’d reccomend the book, if you like Clancy and Jack Ryan. I’d put it below Clear and Present Danger and Cardinal of the Kremlin, but above Hunt for Red October, Debt of Honor, or Bear and the Dragon.
Eh.
Average at best. He needs to shake Jack Ryan loose and develop a new character, maybe keep working on Clark a little more.
I’m about 3/4 done and really like it. His latest works about politcs in Washington and Ryan’s political career have been a bit tiresome. I agree with Airman Doors and would hope for more of the Foley’s and some cloak’n’dagger stuff.
It’s a good read and certainly entertaining.
Just started it, maybe 100 pages in (nothing for a Clancy). Pretty typical so far. I’d imagine a fan would like it, but a non-fan probably wouldn’t (or they’d become one).
Just started it, maybe 100 pages in (nothing for a Clancy). Pretty typical so far. I’d imagine a fan would like it, but a non-fan probably wouldn’t (or they’d become one).
I read it a couple days ago. Honestly - I thought I was the most Catholic-centric person in the world. But it wasn’t a bad story. I think I’d like to see Jack Ryan just a little less perfect, though.
StG
I enjoyed it. I liked the way it wove the story around the real events. I did not like some of the prescient pop-culture stuff, for example:
Minor Non-Plot Related Spoiler
That new shortstop, Ripken, could go places
End Spoiler
Be forewarned, if you don’t like Clancy’s political missionizing, this book will probably peeve you mightily.
I like Tom Clancy. While I don’t like his politics, his writing has always entertained me. I’ve read all of his books, usually several times over. That said, Red Rabbit is bad. In my opinion, it’s Clancy’s worst.
I won’t explicitly post a spoiler, but this book is like watching Titanic; a work of fiction on a historical event where everyone’s already know how it’s going to end. The author has to throw in something extra to keep the story interesting when everyone knows the ending. Clancy fails to do this; this book doesn’t have a single plot twist. The plot is explained in the first 25 pages; the outcome occurs in the last 25 pages. In between you have over 500 pages of nothing much happening.
As for Clancy’s politicizing, he keeps it to a lower level than he has in the past. Maybe it’s because John Ryan has not yet attained Buddha Nature at this point in his career. The two most notable exceptions are when Clancy repeatedly complains about the evils of socialized medicine (moving an event which occurred in a private American hospital to a government run British hospital to make his point incidentally) and historical revision of the Reagan administration’s foreign policy (wouldn’t Judge Moore and Bob Ritter have been selling weapons to Iraq and Iran and the Taliban when this book was set?).