Tom Clancy died

I know his books weren't SF, but I'm sure there was a lot of crossover reading, especially with his early books.

News reports having him dying Tuesday night, October 1, in a Baltimore hospital. He was 66.

I enjoyed The Hunt for Red October when it came out, but only for plot--it was a great plot. Did his writing get any better over the many years since?

I also enjoyed The Hunt for Red October as well as Red Storm Rising and others. Plot was definitely his strength, and unfortunately, I think he became so big that he either eschewed editorial advice or they were unwilling to recommend cuts which resulted in some awfully bloated books and plot threads that needed to be excised.

Still, a very talented writer who brought me hours and hours of reading pleasure.

I'm a big fan, and this is sad news.

A librarything generated list of Tom Clancy books I have read, sorted by most to least stars:
stars title
5 The Hunt for Red October (Jack Ryan)
5 Clear and Present Danger (Jack Ryan)
4 The Sum of All Fears
4 Red Storm Rising
4 Without Remorse
4 The Cardinal of the Kremlin
4 Dead or Alive
4 Locked On
4 Threat vector
3 Debt of Honor (Jack Ryan)
3 The Bear and the Dragon (Jack Ryan)
3 Rainbow Six
3 Op-Center (Tom Clancy's Op-Center, Book 1)
3 Patriot Games (Jack Ryan)
3 Against All Enemies
2 Games Of State
2 Executive Orders (Tom Clancy)
2 Red Rabbit (Jack Ryan)
2 The Teeth Of The Tiger (Jack Ryan)

I liked his earlier books, Hunt for Red October, Cardinal of the Kremlin, as well as Red Storm Rising and Patriot Games.

He will be missed. :(

>2 timspalding: Did his writing get any better over the many years since?

Modestly. It lost the stiffness that I remember being there in Red October and Red Storm, and he learned to create characters -- especially supporting characters -- who felt "real" by genre standards. He was never a great stylist, but he became a competent one

The prose stopped getting in the way of the story by (I'd say) Cardinal of the Kremlin, and Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of All Fears might surprise you.

>4 mainrun: Wow . . . score one for the wisdom of crowds! That ranking matches my own impressions of those I've read almost exactly. I'm especially impressed by the love for Red Storm Rising . . . easily his most underrated novel.

That sucks. I've read a good chunk of his books. Without Remorse was a fav "outside" of his Jack Ryan stories. Going to have to go through all my books. I used to have his whole collection.

I thought he'd stopped writing years ago and now just had a sweatshop churning out books for him, like Clive Cussler and James Patterson do.

I greatly enjoyed the early Jack Ryans, but by the latter stages it all got just abit silly - and his spin out sweatshop creations were barely mediocre. But his Techno-thrillers such as sum of all fears were excellant. That is probably my favourite book of his, and high on my all time thriller list.

I haven't read Clancy, but I happened upon a discussion of how he used extensive wargaming to support one chapter of Red Storm Rising; pretty interesting.

>9 reading_fox: I seem to recall Algis Budrys, in one of his F&SF reviews, going so far as to call A Sum of All Fears a perfect novel.

Never read the man myself, though.

> 8 I agree, I don't know if it was sour grapes but I thought that many of the books attributed to him were actually ghost written for him.

In general, I always found his books too technical...I felt I was prepping for a CIA exam or something....I liked Fredrick Forsyth much better where you had enough detail to understand what was going on but you were not burdened with the details.

Sorry to hear he passed away though.

I loved his first two books, Red Storm Rising and the Hunt for Red October. I should probably re-read them and see if they held up through the passing years and my supposed advancing maturity since then. I always felt like his books went on a slow decline after them. I think The Teeth of the Tiger was the last book I read of his, and I never bothered to read any of the book that had a co-author listed.

Sounded like he was an interesting guy, I remember hearing that he had a tank that he'd drive around occasionally.

#13

Still on his front lawn at last check. :)

> 12; "I felt I was prepping for a CIA exam or something"; well, a lot of the intelligence and submariner community were asking themselves "Who has he been talking to?" when they read 'Red October'...

I have enjoyed reading Tom Clancy's books, at least the older ones. For me, his stories are interesting and a bit challenging, which I like. I don't care for spoon-fed pablum when I read. ;)

Just to further connect this to the science-fiction community for a long while he was a member in good standing of SFWA.

In my teenage years I liked his stuff. At least until Ryan became overpowered for his universe.