Posted on 09/26/2001 6:56:41 AM PDT by Pokey78
Tom Clancy’s novels are hitting a little too close to home, some critics are charging. The best-selling writer of techno-thrillers is being blasted for supplying plots and details to terrorists.
“HE’S BEEN GETTING complaints from readers and people in the industry that some of his scenarios are too true to life, given recent events,” says a book publishing source. “And some people are even suggesting that because his books contain so much technical information, they actually could be helping terrorists.”
“Maybe terrorists aren’t beyond getting their ideas from a book,” one Amazon user wrote of Clancy’s “Executive Orders,” which tells of terrorists flying planes into the nation’s capitol. “Perhaps Clancy shouldn’t be praised as such a visionary for scheming realistic plots of terror. Having come out 4 years ago, this book may possibly have been a spark for the recent tragedy.”
In fact, author Jeff Rovin, who regularly ghost writes for Clancy, is re-writing a book that was scheduled to come out in January. The book dealt with a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. “It’s very bizarre to see things that were in your head being played out in real life,” Rovin tells the Scoop. He declined to say whether he wrote about planes hitting the WTC. “I’m not sure if I should discuss things that were in the book. There was stuff there that might usable by people looking do harm to this country . . . Part of what I’ve done as a writer is to scope out ways that America was vulnerable to terrorist attacks. . . . . I’m going to have to rethink everything I do and be very, very careful about what goes into any book that I write. I think all techno-thriller writers will have to look at that sort of thing now.”
Clancy’s publisher, Putnam Publishing Group, didn’t return calls for comment.
Clancy does his homework. A lot of what he writes comes out of research on how to do things. Whether it is a military campaign or how to make a nuke he has researched how people think in todays terms to do these things.
Are the ignorant self-important liberals really believing that the idea of flying a plane into some building something of a recent invention? The idea has been around a long time. Since just after the Wright Brothers flew. Have they ever heard of a Kamakazi? Did they ever see the incident of the Cessna 172 that flew into Red Square? Or how about the one that flew into the White House one year?
They wish to take pop shots at Clancy and I leave it to the smart people here at Free Republic to figure out why. You can start with Agenda and end with it as well.
It was Debt of Honor, not Executive Orders.
Everybody has a right to create fiction! Just look at x42(i)!
If Clancy could think of it, terrorists could think of it - unless of course Clancy came across a seam in security that only an ultra-insider would know and Clancy exploited the knowledge for the sake of plot.
But that's not the case. Clancy's enemies operate upon a base of knowledge open to, but not readily accessed by, the general public. But a real life terrorist will certainly be able to come up with this info - it is the focus of their miserable existance. Think of a Civil War re-enactor: they know butt loads of stuff on their subject, but they are ahead of the general public only because they chose to zero in on their given subject.
So, when Clancy presents a plot line for his terrorists, and it turns out to be feasible in the real world, is he not providing a service of sorts? Perhaps allowing the authorities to see a possible route of attack and take proper action? I'm not totally sure about this, and the answer probably isn't completely black and white, but I'll wager the grey majority lies on Clancy's good side.
I'd put Clancy smack in the grey area, as bin Laden doesn't live in the USA and we don't know if he even cares about Clancy. However bin Laden does have a Western education. Our Feds would do well to include all Clancy scenarios and variants in their plans.
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