Tom Clancy

[insurgent]

I have read a number of Tom Clancy's books, and I find it a repeating annoyance that he has not ever made a single good, realistic ending, that holds the standard of the complicated and sophisticated plots he's know for.

I admire his works, his insights and the books have a wonderfully advanced escalation.

When you read it you get really excited, wondering what the ending will be. Then you are met with a depressing disappointment, when he ends a 1200 page book within 20 pages (Executive Orders).

He can spend a whole book explaining how impregnable and secure the nuclear missiles are and how strongly the bad guys have built up their air defences, and then, suddenly and almost without casualties, the Americans find a way (Debt of Honour). You really get the impression "Gosh, those Japs were really stupid, not thinking of that."

I was directly infuriated when I read the ending of Executive Orders: The Iranians have assembled large tank forces, this time with proper navigation systems, amassing them on the border of Saudi Arabia. The Indians have blocked the American ships from reaching the Gulf and supplying their troops. The Chinese are distracting the Americans at Taiwan. Everything is lined up for a large-scale plot. What happens? A single American brigade (without sufficient supplies) defeats the entire "Army of God". Destroying every single of the Iranian tanks, completely uncontested. The Indians withdraw when the Americans threaten them, enabling the Americans to sail into the Gulf.
Meanwhile, a complicated plot shows how the Iranians have breeded ebola, and spread it all over America. And it's airborne. What happens? The virus kills itself after infecting once. Another plot shows how American extremists have built a large bomb and plan to attack the Congress (I think). What happens? They are incidentally stopped at a gas station.

Those were only the anticlimaxes of Executive Orders. It's the worst of them, but the rest have similar endings.

Does anyone agree, disagree, or want to explain why it is so, to me?

 

[Lab Monkey]

What with the current, ahem, uncomfortable situation going on the the US, I wonder what facet of national security he'll glamourise next...
I have to admit I've never bothered to plough through more than half of one of his books, they're just not me. And the films are just as bad - Diet Clancy, if you will.

Much better to read one of the books by a certain author in your signature, Insurgent, methinks.

 

[floppa21]

In the process of reading the "Jack Ryan Series" of books so I had to skip some of your post. Red October had good ending, no? (I'm almost done with Clear & Present so maybe I agree with you in a week or so...)

 

[andyo]

read red storm rising - great book

 

[insurgent]

Originally posted by Lab Monkey
Much better to read one of the books by a certain author in your signature, Insurgent, methinks.

I assume you mean the first one... If you do, then yes he's a good author. Better than Clancy. But the charming thing about Clancy is that he writes geopolitical thrillers.

 

[napoleon526]

Originally posted by andyo
read red storm rising - great book

YES. This and The Hunt For Red October are his best books. I really think that the end of the Cold War was hard on Tom, because now he has to use less clearly defined villans (arab terrorists in The Sum of All Fears) and others that are just totally unrealistic. I really don't think that the US is in much danger from Japan (Debt of Honor) or the IRA (Patriot Games) or genocidal eco-terrorists (Rainbow Six).

 

[Damien]

I got a book written by Tom Clancy called Befehl von Oben(Order from the top),i don't know the title in english.In this book he foresaw what happened on Sep 11 01.

 

[Lucky]

The on you mean is called "Executive Orders"!
But the one with the airplane crashing into the Congress is called "Debt of Honor".

Both have some similarities, those 2 and "The Bear and the Dragon" also have just one single plot

And it were the Japanese, not terrorists in that book!


P.S.: You read your books in German in France?
Well, not too unusual, I almost only read mine in English.

 

[insurgent]

The aftermath of the attack on the Congress is depicted in Executive Orders.

I don't know what you mean when you say that they have one single plot. They don't. They have several (for instance; Executive Orders: the ebola attack, the American extremists, the army of God and the American brigade, the attack on Taiwan, the rise of Jack Ryan and the quarrel with the former vice president, and Dariaei and the Chino-Indo-Iranian alliance.)...

 

[Lucky]

With a single plot I mean a consecutive one! There is no interruption in between, all 3 could have been a single book, albeit a huge one.

And to fully understand everything, you will have to read all three, preferably in a consecutive order.

 

[The Art of War]

Originally posted by insurgent
When you read it you get really excited, wondering what the ending will be. Then you are met with a depressing disappointment, when he ends a 1200 page book within 20 pages (Executive Orders).

That is usually what happens in the real world. Hitler's death wasn't much, heck, he killed himself.

He can spend a whole book explaining how impregnable and secure the nuclear missiles are and how strongly the bad guys have built up their air defences, and then, suddenly and almost without casualties, the Americans find a way (Debt of Honour). You really get the impression "Gosh, those Japs were really stupid, not thinking of that."

C'mon, what do you expect from a Japanese government that doesn't have armed forces large enough to take on the US. They can't be everywhere at once.

I was directly infuriated when I read the ending of Executive Orders: The Iranians have assembled large tank forces, this time with proper navigation systems, amassing them on the border of Saudi Arabia. The Indians have blocked the American ships from reaching the Gulf and supplying their troops. The Chinese are distracting the Americans at Taiwan. Everything is lined up for a large-scale plot. What happens? A single American brigade (without sufficient supplies) defeats the entire "Army of God". Destroying every single of the Iranian tanks, completely uncontested. The Indians withdraw when the Americans threaten them, enabling the Americans to sail into the Gulf.

The Indians are whimps, and I'm sure their navy was stretched pretty thin, with all of the running around they did in Debt of Honor, I'm sure that the IN was pretty worn. As for the "Army of God," they had nice navigation systems, but the tanks were still old, and what tank owned by a third-world country could take on the Abrams M1A2? Oh, if you read "The Bear and the Dragon," you get more about the Chinese.


Meanwhile, a complicated plot shows how the Iranians have breeded ebola, and spread it all over America. And it's airborne. What happens? The virus kills itself after infecting once. Another plot shows how American extremists have built a large bomb and plan to attack the Congress (I think). What happens? They are incidentally stopped at a gas station.

Oh course the virus kills itself! It isn't an airborne type of virus in the first place. That was a fluke, and it wouldn't work in the real world, like it didn't work there.

As for the american extremists, The Mountain Men, they were just two idiots who thought they could actually do something. What did you expect? For them to brake the road block and rush to Washington? They would've been arrested that way, too.

 

[ComradeDavo]

In the process of reading the "Jack Ryan Series" of books so I had to skip some of your post

Me too

The ending to Red Storm Rising could have been better, but I haven't got too many complaints.

 

[Damien]

Originally posted by Lucky
[BP.S.: You read your books in German in France?
Well, not too unusual, I almost only read mine in English. [/B]

I lived in alemanic switzerland and bought that book there.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

I've said it once, I'll say it again:

Clancy did good work to start off with, but as he has progressed, things get more and more fantastical, and he slips more and more of the frequent political rant in.
He has always been in need of a harsh and dominating editor.
Red Storm Rising - a very good book, but it contained dozens upon dozens of pages on submarine dialogue that in the end contributed nothing to the plot. He was trying to write the story of the modern "Battle of the Atlantic", rather than covering the whole scope of the conflict, but he got carried away with the techno-weenie detail of frigates and subs. It is just surplus to requirements.
That is the difference between Clancy, and the masters of the art, such as Forsyth and Higgins: never give in to the temptation to flood the reader with pointless detail for its own sake. Retain a plot driven prose that builds suspense through meaningful twists.

Hunt for Red October was good, but again, very sub focused. As would be expected. This is an example of what he was capable of without going overboard.

The polemics and fantasy start surfacing in Patriot Games onward, with his quick and simple 'solutions' to world problems, and his nauseating depiction of the British Royal Family...

The problem with his later work is finding a foe to destroy with the absolute minimum of US casualties. (minimum equalling zero)
His convenient trick of eliminating nuclear weapons is also a bit of a cop out, and the unrealism of US response to major attacks on it is rather silly - Heck, they try and nuke us. Let's do nothing...

 

[Richard III]

First, as I have said elsewhere, Red Storm Rising is a work of genuis. It made me cry (see other thread for confession).

That said, yeah, Clancy's new style sucks for its political kaka and its ridiculously extended plotlines. But I have to admit, the very very worst element - so far unmentioned, - to me is the whole "devious player" element, where some sneaky Chinese fellow meets some sneaky Iranian fellow and then some sneaky cartoon Arab fellow, and, on the phone with the Japanese, they concoct some sneaky plot. And when the plot fails, half are arrested and the other half disappear conveniently. It's just pathetic.

What's interesting, though, Insurgent, is that your complaint should be applied to the genre: Forsyth's books (although far, far better) have fairly anticlimactic endings (see Dogs of War and Day of the Jackal as examples); I was always amazed at how formulaic the (not bad) Larry Bond books were: crazy government goes rapid, US steps in with allies, enemy collapses at first sign of combat. In short, equally anticlimactic.

I wish they would all try to emulate Ellroy a bit more: tighter on the sentences, tighter on the plot, jargon where jargon works, and tangents allowed but only if you sew them together later. Clancy's never really sew, except in this awkward BS "the world against Jack" sort of way.

PS Orwell is still my fav. More people should read his other stuff; Keep the Aspidistra flying and Homage to Catalonia are brilliant.

 

[floppa21]

Lot of Orwell fans here eh? I've only read the book about all the funny animals... And that was too long ago, should read it again. I'd probably appreciate it a lot more now...

Darkshade, you ARE talking about the "Ryan" books, not Op-Center and those 'created by' series, correct?

 

[Grisu]

Originally posted by floppa21
Lot of Orwell fans here eh? I've only read the book about all the funny animals... And that was too long ago, should read it again. I'd probably appreciate it a lot more now...

I only read 1984, it's really a great book and it scared me a lot (though darkshade probably loves the idea...)

As for the political rambling in clancys latest works: I'm just now reading "The Bear and the Dragon". I haven't read a clancy book in a while and I was already beginning to wonder if I just didn't notice this political stuff before. Glad I'm not the only one.

And as for Forsyth novels, I haven't yet read one, which one would you recommend?

 

[Richard III]

1. The book with the animals has some political value, and 1984 is good, but his journalistic work (e.g. Inside the Whale and other Essays," his "as I please" columns, and Homage to Catalonia are fantastic.")

2. As for Forsyth, I've re-read both the Day of the Jackal and the Dogs of War a million times; both are superb. His others (e.g. the Odessa File) aren't quite as thrilling.

3. Don't blame yourself KaeptnOvi; the political stuff really does get worse and worse. I think it crossed the line somewhere between his obvious sexist kaka in the Sum of All Fears with the NSAdvisor, and the whole Edward Kealty thing in Debt of Honor. Way overboard.

 

[Ohkrana]

I gave up on Clancy years ago, his just writing for cash full stop.

Try Eric L Harry - Arc Light. It has body count on all sides US/Russia/China/NK. Limited nucleur 3-way nucluer exchange between USA/Russia/China.

Greg Iles (Kicks Clancy's ass!!)
Spandau Phoenix
Black Cross *One of the Most Phenomenal reads I've indulged in*

Larry Bond
Vortex - South Afrika might on a rampage
Cauldron - Interesting take on the European Union
Red Phoenix - NK vs South Korea

Robert Harris
FatherLand - the way it should of been!!


1984 and Animal farm - read them Yr 12 English and even got to see the animated film of Animal farm, pretty funny. The 1984 film with Jogn Hurt and RIchard Burton was pretty damn cool.

 

[LaRo]

Originally posted by Simon Darkshade
The problem with his later work is finding a foe to destroy with the absolute minimum of US casualties. (minimum equalling zero)
His convenient trick of eliminating nuclear weapons is also a bit of a cop out, and the unrealism of US response to major attacks on it is rather silly - Heck, they try and nuke us. Let's do nothing...

Yeah, zero casuality. His worst book is Code SSN where only one submarine destroy the entire chinese fleet.

But imagine if things change too much (in Clancy's world) compare to real life, people wouldn't recognize their world and probably like less Clancy's book.

BTW, those who like techno-thrillers should read Patrick Robinson.