Posted on 10/02/2013 7:41:19 AM PDT by BenLurkin
I read “Hunt for Red October” during a drill weekend while a Reserve at NAS Coronado.
“Rainbow Six” was the first Clancy book I read. I was late to the party. My wife (girlfriend at the time) has all of his books in hard back. She’s a huge fan. I read “Patriot Games”, then Hunt, and was hooked from there. I enjoyed his recent book “Dead or Alive”.
I especially liked when he would try to talk sense into Bill O’Reilly on The Factor.
Will miss Tom Clancy. RIP.
Hunt for Red October was such a good book -- I've read it many times, and God willing, will read it at least a few more times in the years to come. Novels are like works of art -- when you get a painting, you don't just look at it once and put it away, instead you admire it repeatedly. Same thing with a good book. Reading it only once is like only looking at a fine painting once!
What a memory the man had.
I remember reading a blurb from someone who provided him research for one of his books. Clancy wasn’t writing anything down. The expert asked Tom why he wasn’t taking any notes and he just said that he had it “up here”.
Amazing. How do you compete with that kind of memory.
I loved his early work. Not the best writer of character. His heros were too good and his villains were too bad, but I loved the way his books began with several unrelated story lines that seemed impossible to weave. Then when they merged, it was like the most natural thing and supported the story.
At least he was good at good dialogue for writing characters larger than life. I remember when “Jack Ryan” met either the Soviet leader or the head of the KGB over tea — can’t remember which book but probably Cardinal of the Kremlin, it has been too long since I’ve read it. At first it seemed implausible that this journeyman CIA analyst is talking to one of the Soviet Union’s most powerful men, but as the dialogue went on it felt more plausible, even as the Ryan character best the soviet. You do measure your protagonists against the strength of your villains, as Sherlock Holmes is made greater by the brilliance of Moriarty.
As an engineer, my favorite thing about Clancy was that he constantly taught me delicious details about the military and government. Red October was like a primer on undersea boats and submarine warfare.
I miss that quality of writing.
I stopped reading him after Debt of Honor. Just didn’t work for me. Without Remorse is the last Clancy book I loved.
I really liked The Cardinal and the Kremlin and thougt it had by far the best character development of all his books....but I read and enjoyed every book in the Ryan series.
My only regeret about his career is that he let Hollywood change the villians in The Sum Of All Fears from Islamists to Americans. I don’t know if he could have stopped that, but if so, he should have fought for it.
RIP,
Hank
That very succinctly describes why very few new movies are any good. The bad guys are usually just two dimensional monsters.
Yep the Pampanito is a great exhibit; as well as the Jeremiah O’Brian (Liberty ship).
Thanks for a great story.
I’m not surprised he was picking your brain about driving and traffic. He was constantly doing research.
Back in my navy days we would occasionally fly into NAS Pax River and while in the pattern you could occasionally catch a glimps of his house on the bluff. Sailors just called it “Toms place”. He knew the Crystal City VA area like the back of his and and spent a little time in Fred’s, a bar in the Naval Air Systems Command (NAVAIR) building, or so I’m told. Referred to Fred’s in a couple of his books. I used to watch for him when I went in there but never saw him. Great author. I sat up all night in the “Q” at NAS Sigonella and read Cardinal of the Kremlin from cover to cover. Impossible, to put it down.
and Breitbart etc, etc.
not necessarily a conspiracy theorist but.....
Great story!
I agree. 66 is young.
RIP
Great story!
Don’t forget Michal Crichton. His book “State of Fear” was RIGHT ON THE MONEY. Having re-read it, I am seriously thinking that the man was assassinated.
Very sad to hear this...
A great author, with a lot of insight and intelligent story lines.
You will be missed, Mister Clancy. RIP and prayers out to his family.
Elmore Leonard’s bad guys were so well drawn they were almost the good guys.
He was quoted recently as having said about Hollywood’s treatment of his books that in one movie they had people laugh at the bad guys’ comments. He had told them not to do that, because these guys weren’t kidding.
That particular movie did not do well, I believe, not like the ones where nobody laughed (except the audience).
Excellent fiction writer with a core based on probable facts.
Clancy’s “Hunt for Red October” was briefly discussed in a great book re our Silent Service and intel actions, “Blind Man’s Bluff” by Sontag and Drew.
On page 322 of “Blind Man’s Bluff”, Admiral Watkins noted that about 2/3’s of “Red October” is on target and the rest is wrong.
your in the Ricin generation.
“Among researchers of age-related diseases, there’s a consensus: the first person to live to age 150 has already been born. The only question is how old they are at this moment. “
One might be a younger female relative. When she was born in the mid 1990’s, she had 4 great grandmothers still alive and active in their 80’s/90-’s.
She is in great shape and very smart.
Awdang. I think I read most everything he wrote.
RIP, Mr. Clancy
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