Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising novel

[Richard III]

Okay, I'm re-reading it for the eighteenth time last night. Couldn't get to sleep, so the book helped. And if there was one place I could get an answer to a question I've argued many times in the late '80s early 1990s when Clancy was still king in my circles,

How long do you think World War III in the book was actually supposed to have lasted?

I've heard so many different views on this I thought it was worth a poll to try and answer it once and for all.

 

[Knowltok]

I went with 3-4, but I could see 5-6 weeks too. I figure it in convoys across the Atlantic and the time it would take to cross Iceland. I've got nothing firm on this, and it has been a year or two since I last read it, but I would strongly argue against the longer choices.

 

[Simon Darkshade]

Read it recently (love the cameo of BB62, USS New Jersey! ), and I would also choose about 6 weeks.

It is arguably his best effort, along with Red October, before he put in too much political rhetoric, and lately, appalling crudeness and attempted sex scenes. Given the subject matter, he couldn't leap to far from reality; i.e. Jack Ryan and Mr. Clark suddenly paradrop into East Germany and kill the entire Red Army with nothing but a broken tin opener and a small aubergine, who was lame! Total US war casualties come to zero! And let this book be an official warning to all you out there who will even dream of thinking of p1ssing us off!
He is not in the class of Higgins or Forsyth; he can communicate a nice amount of technical information. Bringing this down in his later works is his own personal agenda (Not that I necessarily disagree with it; but it is very unsubtly done, and this harms the books)

What Clancy needs and needed is a vicious harsh bastard of an editor, who could slash the hundreds of unnecessary pages from his works.
In Red Storm, there is too much focus upon the frigate, and the SSN, to the neglect of the wider picture. It is still a very good book, but would have benefitted from the knife being wielded more ruthlessly.
Case in point: The Bear and the Dragon. Close to 1000 pages, and the real action starts in the last 100...
It has been downhill since then for old Tom though, even though his sales still remain high.

OK, rant mode taken off now. I'm going to reach for my medication and then have a lie down.

 

[ComradeDavo]

Hey i'm reading it now!

I'm on page 550 or something.

Great book so far

 

[H Tower]

For those still reading the book, DO NOT read my post, it might ruin the ending for you

ast time i read it, it was a while ago. However, i do believe that it was pretty specific in how long it lasted. For instance, i remember the russian admiral for the northern fleet talking to himself about how long he was supposed to have held onto iceland, and how he had held it for twice as long... I can't remember the numbers though. Also, the campaign was only supposed to have lasted a 2-3 weeks, but they made it four when they presented it to the politburo, just to be conservative. They didn't achieve that obviously, but that rules out the shorter lengths in this poll One more thing i can remember about the length of the campaign was the pilot of the F-19 on his last mission thinking about all the friends he lost during the campaign, and i think he mentioned how long the war lasted.

 

[RedWolf]

Do you think that Clancy's political slant has gotten MORE obvious? I'm asking this as a genuine question because I never used to notice it before - However in "The Bear and the Dragon" it seems to be jumping out at me - I see negative references to both liberalism AND socialism. It sometimes seems that he's re-iterating the same point over and over again.

Another funny thing... There are also references to the "Monica Lewinsky Scandal" (although it's subtle) I find this kind of funny because we all know which president THIS involves - good ole Clinton. HOWEVER in Clancy novels the real presidents don't really exist (especially since Jack Ryan took over). So WHEN in the "Jack Ryan" world did Clinton hold office? I always thought "not at all".

 

[Simon Darkshade]

It has always been quite obvious to me and my compatriots, but it has grown more virulent as it progresses, to the stage where the books have become wafer thinly disguised platforms for Clancy's critique of the world, and how he (Ryan, his alter ego) will solve it and lead us on to a bright future...

There is the Lewinsky stuff, and his hammering of evil Ed Kealty, who is a typical Clancy villain- you would be flattering him to label him one dimensional. Actually, make that for ALL his characters.

If I want a book that preaches at me, I'll dig out the Bible or something else that does it good. This is not what Clancy is good at, but it is virtually all he writes these days. Even in his non-fiction books, he gives you a nice laugh. Take "Fighter Wing", for example. In the "fictional" scenario at the end (you can almost hear Tom jumping up and down praying for it to happen), one USAF fighter wing fights and wins the Vietnam War again, killing all those wicked commies this time in one day!
(Why didn't they think of replacing Westmoreland with Clancy?)

He forgot the cardinal rule of writing; stick to what you are good at, and to what is a winning formula.

 

[H Tower]

i especially loved his tax policy in executive orders. what a winner that one was. he also keeps advocating building up the military, of course, with Dubya in charge, we just might need the military since he keeps declaring nations are "evil"

 

[polymath]

They were good yarns to start with, and I did like Red Storm Rising particularly, but when Jack Ryan became President (yah, OK, sure) I came to the opinion that he could stick the rest up his kazoo. He must have an extremely one-dimensional mindset, the stuff he's come out with recently. Shame, because I thought Clear And Present Danger and the others pre-Executive-Schmaltz were very enjoyable.

 

[Richard III]

Agree with all here; I particularly started to hate his "three plots" formula, where the chinese, the liberian opposition and three democratic senators are all always cooperating at the same time (just an example). It's like "JFK" in print. Why just say the mob did it, or the cubans, when you can say the mob, the cubans, the ebola virus, aliens from mars, the FBI, the IRS and LBJ killed the guy?

Oh, if politics were only so simple.

However, with Red Storm Rising, totally different. It was the guy's peak. I even teared up at the point in the book where the engineer Major becomes a hero of the Soviet Union. Great stuff.

Which leads to my point: I voted 6-7 weeks, thinking really it was 6. I agree it has to be over 2 weeks, given the Icelandic thing and the fact that they take 10+ days to walk through Iceland. I don't remember a specific time with the F-19 pilot though; I'll have to check.

I started this poll because I have several friends who vehemently insist the war was 3 months + in duration.

R.III

 

[VoodooAce]

Originally posted by RedWolf
Do you think that Clancy's political slant has gotten MORE obvious? I'm asking this as a genuine question because I never used to notice it before - However in "The Bear and the Dragon" it seems to be jumping out at me - I see negative references to both liberalism AND socialism. It sometimes seems that he's re-iterating the same point over and over again.

It has gotten worse. It was always there, he was just better at the art of subtlty or something. Now its just blatant.

He's pretty much a right wing nut , but I still like to read some of his stuff.

 

[Nobody]

Another funny thing... There are also references to the "Monica Lewinsky Scandal" (although it's subtle) I find this kind of funny because we all know which president THIS involves - good ole Clinton. HOWEVER in Clancy novels the real presidents don't really exist (especially since Jack Ryan took over). So WHEN in the "Jack Ryan" world did Clinton hold office? I always thought "not at all".

No this refers to the former vice president who had an affair and resigned. Who jack ryan replaced as vice president before he was made president after the attack on congress.

 

[Turner]

I remember it being about six to eight weeks.

 

[Mr. Do]

Another funny thing... There are also references to the "Monica Lewinsky Scandal" (although it's subtle) I find this kind of funny because we all know which president THIS involves - good ole Clinton. HOWEVER in Clancy novels the real presidents don't really exist (especially since Jack Ryan took over). So WHEN in the "Jack Ryan" world did Clinton hold office? I always thought "not at all".

I do love it when fiction fudges in real-world references like this In the recent series of Dr. Who, it's revealed that aliens murdered the (un-named, present-day) Prime Minister of Great Britain. Then at another point, one of the characters specifically mentions that Tony Blair had been elected Prime Minister, thus, Blair was killed by big fat green space aliens!

 

[Turner]

That's something else I've noticed with his books. He does tend to incorporate past presidents, even when the time line doesn't jive with his older novels.

 

[IglooDame]

I'm thinking 6-8 weeks, based mostly on USS Nimitz' missile damage, quick repair, and participation in the retaking of Iceland.

 

[jamiethearcher]

I think around 6 weeks. I also concur with those who say this was his best work. I love this book.

 

[Nobody]

I prefer patriot games, hunt for red october or clear and present danger. but red storm rising is cool. I dont dislike the latter books either by which i mean debt of honour, executive decision and bear and dragon. The last two though (red rabit and teeth of the tiger) were crap.

 

[Speedo]

I agree with the 6-8 weeks figure.

IMO though Clancy's best is The Sum of All Fears, hands down... it's where he peaked, and things have gone downhill fast since Executive Orders. I'd have to give RSR, Hunt for Red October and Without Remorse a 3-way tie for second best.

 

[Turner]

I actually liked Red Rabbit, aside from continuity errors. That was a fairly decent story.

Teeth of the Tiger...that was was just weird.

His last real good book was Sum of All Fears. And Clear and Present danger is my favorite of his.

I think the Iceland parts of RSR are my favorite. Although the Stealth Fighter squadron parts were cool too. Oh, and Jerry 'The Hammer' O'malley.

Edit: I forgot about Without Remorse. Clark is my favorite character he's done.