It came to my mind that Clancy actually made a story where all American war fantasies are basically fulfilled - and to a far greater extent than even many conservatives would think.

It would be so nice if milwankers just stuck reading this and imagining it, instead of actually trying to actively make the world feel more like these novels. Which is a pretty horrible world by any account. What's up with that fantasy? It is not enough to defeat Japan once, it is necessary to killify them again. It is not enough to be on more or less friendly terms with China at last, it is necessary to make war with them. It is necessary to subdue every nation on Earth to America, kill every hostile leader with the use of assassination (I guess Clancy spent nights masturbating over how the US finally poisons or otherwise kills Castro ), and repeatedly say that Democrats are destroying America while good Republicans "won't tolerate attacks on our citizens anywhere".

I wonder how long a real Jack Ryan would sit in the White House.

Forever. Repeal the 22nd amendment!

Ryan/Clark 2012

Tom Clancy is like if Burt Gummer wrote novels.

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"There is a principle which is a bar against all information, which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation." -Herbert Spencer

"Against stupidity the gods themselves contend in vain." - Schiller, Die Jungfrau von Orleans, III vi.

Tom Clancy's beliefs are rather simple - US foreign policy is incapable of creating long-term alliances and thus strong USA USA USA is needed.

And then he went on masturbating over his many Mary Sues.

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Whoever says "education does not matter" can try ignorance
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"You know, you insist government is depraved for not legislating against what we can see on newsstands, or what we can see in an art exhibit, or what we can burn in protest, or which sex we can have sex with, or a woman's right to choose, but don't you dare try to regulate this deadly weapon I have concealed on me, for that would encroach against my freedom!"
- Sam Seaborn
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Et si omnes ego non

I used to love reading Clancy novels when I was 10-12.

Then I grew up.

Well, it's also that the later books aren't as good as the earlier ones (compare Hunt for Red October to Executive Orders, for example.

Is he still writing?

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Member of the Anti PETA Anti-Fascists league.

And this is why you don't watch anything produced by Ronald D. Moore after he had his brain surgically removed and replaced with a bag of elephant semen.-Gramzamber, on why Caprica sucks

Hunt for Red October is OK. However some of his early stuff still includes gems like Ryan lecturing the Queen of England...

I thought it was Prince Charles he lectured, which is somewhat more forgiveable because... well, it's Prince Charles.

No, no, no. With Prince Charles he berates him, essentially calling him a pussy, for having any doubts and what was essentially PTSD over his actions during the assassination attempt on his wife and child.

Ugh

I think I have a copy somewhere still so I'll try to post the quotes later.

Last good book he wrote was Without Remorse.

Well you can always go for Red Storm Rising.

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SDNW5: Republic of Arcadia...Sweden in SPAAACE

I've only read The Hunt for the Red October, and one thing I did notice, was that during the Soviet Union vs the United States Navy maneuvers against each other, was that the US won every time when it came to them playing close calls against each other.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed,or numbered. I am a free man. My life is my own" Number 6
The Prisoner

I think it was Teeth of the Tiger where I realized quite suddenly that the books weren't fun anymore, and hadn't been for a while.

I re-read the Jack Ryan chronicles recently as a study in my own patience (and as a break from reading horrific histories of colonialism and the like). It's hilarious how as time goes on not only do his politics become more overt, but his writing degrades horribly, he reuses the same words and phrases over and over throughout the book. Literally the same phrase. Again. And again. And again. Sometimes it's because I think he's learned a new word and is trying to show it off as much as possible.

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What is Project Zohar?

Which is why the only one I read is Red Storm Rising...detached from the Ryanverse, an early book, and a book that was co-authored. Much better that way.

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SDNW5: Republic of Arcadia...Sweden in SPAAACE

I tried to read the Hunt for Read October but the infodumps put me to sleep.

I got up to The Bear and the Dragon but my dad warned me away from Teeth of the Tiger. Frankly, Bear and the Dragon was pretty shite as is. The last Ryan book I actually enjoyed (chronologically) was The Sun of All Fears.

The Hunt for Red October still sets the standard for me though.

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You are standing on a 4.5 billion year old complex, self-sustaining organic spacship, which is orbiting a power source a million times larger than your ship. There are 200 billion other power sources, many of them with ships like yours, in your fleet. There are 40 other fleets in the immediate neighbourhood and your entire neighbourhood is moving at two million miles per hour towards an object 150 million light years away. Welcome to life, it's a lot more exciting when you think on larger scales.

Without Remorse was so much better than...literally anything else he wrote that I had doubts it was actually a Clancy book. But it still had Clancy stuff in it: bad guys are all dumb, Clark suceeds in everything, etc.

I seriously think Teeth of the Tiger was ghostwritten though. For one thing it isn't a 2000 page impenetrable tome.

I'm going to echo recommending Red October, Without Remorse and Red Storm Rising.

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http://www.politicalcompass.org/test
Economic Left/Right: -7.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -7.74

This is pre-WWII. You can sort of tell from the sketch style, from thee way it refers to Japan (Japan in the 1950s was still rebuilding from WWII), the spelling of Tokyo, lots of details. Nothing obvious... except that the upper right hand corner of the page reads "November 1931." --- Simon_Jester

Cardinal of the Kremlin was easily his best book. Larry Bond was essentially a co-author of RSR, IIRC.

All his recent stuff is, isn't it?