I will be upfront and say I have never completed a Tom Clancy novel. In fact, I don’t believe I’ve ever made it past the first chapter of any book I’ve tried to read. I’d say that it was because I’m not big on the whole military/espionage/action genre anyway, but I never get far enough into his books for that to be the problem.
Case in point, I picked up a copy of Rainbow Six that was lying around today, and was just struck by how bad the writing was (IMHO, of course). I mean, three pages in, he’s referring to hijackers as “bad guys” and I just put the book down in amused disgust. I’m no writing critic - I know what I like, I know what I don’t like, but don’t ask me to explain my reasons for either. All I know is, when someone says of hijackers: “the bad guys were still in the cockpit”, I’m not going to read any further.
But Tom Clancy is a best selling author. So I must be missing something, because I think his writing is horrible, juvenile, boring and long-winded. (Hey, just like me!) So what say you? Do I just have bad taste, or are millions of people buying drivel?
I agree with you. I feel the same way about Robert Ludlum and Clive Cussler. Yet I had to read several books by each of these guys before I realized that they were (in my view, at least) hacks.
Eh…I used to read him when I was 15-17, but have since given him up. He has some good books. Clear and Present Danger is filled with action, delima, life, death, spies, espionage, romance, ninjas, stealth, explosives…everything really. It’s a wonderful novel. Without Remourse is a pretty cool book too. Thing is, when you get right down to it your time would be better spent elsewhere. While some of Clancy’s books might be good, you can always find something better.
And for what it’s worth, I think Rainbow Six is ghost written. I noticed a drastic different in writing styles when I started reading it after I got done with the Jack Ryan series
I love Tom Clancy. There, I said it. I especially love Rainbow Six.
Rainbow Six is a novel about a jet-setting ultra-elite international top secret black-ops counterterroism team who rappels silently down from Blackhawk helicopters with silenced submachine guns under the watchful eyes of their concealed snipers as they save children and hostages from both petty terrorism and Bondesque organizations bent on genocide of nearly all human life.
If they had secret identities in which they both played professional sports and starred in the world’s most kickass rock band, it would be the perfect novel.
John Grisham is another good example, thanks. Dry, stuffy, overblown… The only book I ever liked by him was The Partner - and I liked that one quite a bit. Because of that, I tried reading his other stuff, and was bored stiff in pages flat.
He’s long been in desperate need of a good editor. He has a tendency to repeat the same points over and over again.
SOME of his books are obviously contractual obligations- fans can usually tell within a chapter or two whether he’s done his homework and is passionate about his subject matter, or whether he’s phoning in a formulaic thriller. I mean, “Without Remorse” is a cheap, mindless hybrid of “Death Wish” and “Rambo” that he probably dashed off in a few days.
The first Tom Clancy novel I read was The Hunt for Red October and the last was Debt of Honor. His first few novels were OK, but the later ones were less interesting.
I read all of his fiction books(not counting Ops Center, which are ghost written) up to *Yellow Sausage Rising *, er…I mean, The Bear and the Dragon. At that point, I couldn’t take it anymore. Particulary when DC just happens to be saved from an incoming Chinese nuke by an upgraded AEGIS crusier.
Clancy writes entertaining novels, and Red Storm Rising is a must for anyone interested in a cold-war convetional WW3. However, it seems he hit his peak when he wrote The Sum of All Fears and has been on a decline every since.
And Rainbow Six is a much better game then a novel.
Hunt for Red October B+
Cardinal of the Kremlin A
Red Strom Rising B+
Patriot Games B-
Without Remorse B
Clear and Present Danger C+
Sum of all Fears B-
Rainbow Six D
Red Rabbit F
Executive Orders C-
Bear & Dragon D
I liked his books up to (not including) Rainbow Six, then I gave up on him (did read Red Rabbit, didn’t like it). My impression is that his right-wing agenda got more annoying, and his original ideas got rarer with time.
No, Clancy wrote it. I was the lead designer on the original Rainbow Six game, and I actually read a draft of the novel while he was working on it so I could synch my game story up with his book story. Oof, that was a painful 48 hours … .
That about sums it up for me. Tom Clancy, like Steven King, isn’t exactly a dab hand at the prose–though both have had their moments–but at their best have a knack for building a plot that rolls on smoothly. The Hunt For Red October was a good action-thriller that was far more grounded and more technically and politically tenable than the usual entry in the genre (Ludlum, Fleming, ad nausum), and is comperable in tempo and accessibility to the best of Alistair McLean. Red Storm Rising was an interesting (if retrospectively flawed) take on a conventional European land war, although the personalities were generally forgettable. He started to lose me with The Cardinal and The Kremlin–the pro-Reagan agenda was showing–and Clear And Present Danger presented a very confused message about the Drug War. The Sum of All Fears, aside from the irritating internal political subplot, was a return to form but he’s quickly slid downhill since, and the ever-increasing mass of his novels drags him further into the quagmire, and his obsession with continuously upgrading Jack Ryan to increasing positions of responsibility (inevitably he’s going to be elected Pope) ventures into absurdity. Rainbow Six was a terrible embarassment to read, and it is one of the books I’m frankly kind of happy that the dog chewed up.
People keep buying his books for the same reason they continue(d) to buy Grisham and Ludlum and so forth–mainly, because when you’re delayed four hours while awaiting a flight, they serve as both an excellent soporific and a passable head support. It may be tedious crap, but at least it’s familar tedious crap.
He’s OK if you like technobabble and whizbang gadgets, but if you’re looking for plot continuity, consistency, and style, shop elsewhere.
I liked The Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, Without Remorse, and Clear And Present Danger. I actually came away from The Sum Of All Fears more well informed about the world, but yeah, Rainbow Six was a drag, and I didn’t even bother with The Bear and the Dragon.
Also, Clancy comes across as an absolute prick in real life, so I give him a miss these days.
Is it possible that the faceless middle-management meatballs who read this stuff like it even better because of the heavy seriousness of the style, the utter lack of irony in the narrative, and the high conformance to type of the characters? Each of these reflects similar values in their office environment, which is the real focus of their lives and the reason they fly so much to begin with.
I used to enjoy Clancy, until [insert forgettable book/title here]. After awhile one blurs into the next. The final stray came on page 1 of ??? when I read about Jack Ryan, Jr.