I’m curious as to what other Dopers think of Tom Clancy. Does he have anything left? His work seems to get progressivly less-good. For example, The Hunt for Red October is good, Cardinal of the Kremlin I think is his best, Without Remorse was pretty good, I didn’t like Debt of Honor and Rainbow Six and The Bear and the Dragon are lacking something. So, does Clancy have another book worth reading in him, or should he call it quits?
I never read The Bear and the Dragon. The last one I read was Rainbow Six, and I swore that I was finished with Clancy forever after that piece of crap. He could have saved God only knows how much paper if he’d just written “I don’t like left-wing environmentalists, and I think they ought to be killed” and let it go at that. He’d been fading in my regard for quite some time before that, but that was really the straw that broke the camel’s back. He writes a good spy story or a good war story, but man, I wish he’d leave his personal politics out of it.
Don’t get me started on his cardboard cut-out characters.
Just…stop, Tom. Just stop.
When a book doesn’t revisit a side plot for 150 pages, something’s gone a little amiss in the whole process.
Remember once upon a time, when he wrote a book that actually had different characters in it?
I agree that his current work is really missing something that was present in the previous writing. His most recent works, Rainbow Six especially, seem to have lost some plausibility and impartiality that he was able to write into his previous works. He’s become more political.
On an another note entirely, I really liked Red Storm Rising. Read it in one sitting, was humming the Soviet national anthem for a week afterward.
I think Clancy’s main problem is he wrote himself into a corner with Jack Ryan–Ryan is Clancy’s alter-ego, and Clancy has hung on to him too long. And while I don’t mind alternate time-lines–which is what Clancy has created, whether he’d use such a sci fi term or not–his continually modifying it to acount for actual events drives me nuts. (Jack saves the world again; meanwhile, there was this war with Iraq we forgot to mention before…)
Red Storm Risingis actually my favorite Clancy novel, even if it’s dated now. But it should be noted that Clancy didn’t write that by himself–Larry Bond was co-author, even though he didn’t get credit on the cover. (Clancy did acknowledge this in his forward, however.)
I agree, Clancy is, and has been, “out of gas”. I did enjoy Clear And Present Danger, but that was the last one.
I agree that some of Clancy’s later books haven’t been as good as some of his earlier ones, but I still liked them… these are the kinds of books that you just read without thinking too deeply about the plausibility of the plot, etc.
I think he’s still got a good book or two in him… I just hope he’ll let them out!
Best: Without remorse, Patriot games, The sum of all fears, Clear and present danger, Red storm rising.
These are amongst the best in the genre.
Good: The hunt for Red October, Cardinal of the Kremlin, Executive orders, Debt of honor
Marginal: Rainbow six, The bear and the dragon
Mind you, I did not think these two were a complete waste of time, but it is far from good. Especially the 2D approach to groups of people (environmentalists, Chinese) is irritating.
Don’t even get me started on the series like Op-Center etc to which he has given his name (and pretty much nothing else).
So yes, it is going downhill.
My personal favs were The hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising. The first was simply a friggin’ good thriller, the second a rather chilling study in what might have happened. Kinda interesting for an European, especially as I read it before the wall fell. (Besides, it added the word maskirovka to my vocab.)
Cardinal of the Kremlin was a damn good read as well, almost John le Carre-esque in places. I’ll even forgive him for writing that Maersk Line is Polish.
The sum of all fears and Clear and present danger still held some interest, but Jack goddam Ryan was getting just a bit on my nerves.
The less said about Debt of honor and Executive orders, the better. What job will Ryan take on next - God ? I stopped reading Clancy about there - and I really wish I’d stopped before Executive orders.
Clancy seems to have lost sight of how to write a believable bad guy character. Too bad, it was good fun while it lasted.
S. Norman
I like his writing (when is the next fiction?) but wish he’d cut down on sideplots. Too many 800 page books taking detours. Write more books if you wish, but stop digressing.
Anyone think Ryan is going into office because Clancy projects himself as Ryan and has changed his shoot’em-up tough guy self image to one of political power he may want IRL?
Met the guy once. He visited the military school I attended. Apparantly, the superintendant was the Navy’s Cheif Submariner at the time "Hunt For Red October " came out. They had a little official talk about coincidences between his “imaginary sub” and a real top-secret sub. Any way, real engaging man. He spouted out trivial bits of military minutia all throughout the visit.
Sorry for the hijack.