Tom Clancy has died

http://www.businessinsider.com/tom-clancy-dead-celebrated-thriller-author-dies-at-age-66-2013-10

by BruceM • 13 years ago

214 85 13 years ago

businessinsider.com

chiph• 13 years ago

Sorry to hear this. I enjoyed his novels, and wished Hollywood could have produced better movies from them.

chadwickthebold• 13 years ago

I thought the Harrison Ford films were pretty good, and The Hunt for the Red October is absolutely a classic.

erbo• 13 years ago

I agree with you on Red October, which is one of my two favorite naval movies. The plot is fairly compressed and "amped up" compared to the book, but it still holds up pretty well. I suppose the only thing one could wish for is that Harrison Ford, rather than Alec Baldwin, had been playing Jack Ryan.

chris11• 13 years ago

Well, we still have one movie left. Tom Clancy was a writer on the new Jack Ryan movie. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1205537/ is in post-production and will be released on Christmas.

thehodge• 13 years ago

I'm a big fan of the Ryanverse and I am really sad to hear about his passing.. I've read and listened to the books countless times and it makes me sad to think that there is now an end once the next book comes out.

(I know that he has had ghostwriters for the last x books but the characters and stories are now finite)

contextual• 13 years ago

Perhaps Tom Clancy books will continue to be written and published by a cadre of ghostwriters, much like VC Andrews.

MartinCron• 13 years ago

I can't honestly speak to the quality of the ghost-written VC Andrews books, but the whole idea makes me feel icky.

VLM8• 13 years ago

The problem with ghostwriters is as a wargamer (both cardboard and silicon) I always read his books as Very accurate realistic wargamer fanfic with lots of background material for those outside of the hobby. Oh and he tried to add a little color to his counters ... err I mean characters ... by making up little stories about this guy always wanted to visit the state of Montana after he defected or whatever.

A real "Tom Clancy" style book would be take an exciting game of, say, Steel Wolves or Hornet Commander and remove all the dice rolling and turn it into fan fiction by adding a little imagination to the characters and tons of background for people outside .mil and outside the wargaming hobby.

Unfortunately what we'll get is a ghostwriter who will probably steal the plot of an ancient WWII era submarine movie and make it Clancy-style by adding a dude who wants to defect to visit Montana and the main character would be named Ryan and the tech details and "wargaming" would be completely butchered into laugh ability by anyone actually in the .mil or into wargaming.

acheron3• 13 years ago

He would have liked to have seen Montana.

(RIP)

enraged_camel• 13 years ago

fgwood• 13 years ago

America needs a real Jack Ryan!

ceejayoz• 13 years ago

Given the frequency with which he attracts world-changing trouble... no, thank you!

qoo• 13 years ago

Rest In Peace

tomjen3• 13 years ago

Damn, that was unexpected. I must say that his books were pretty awesome.

I especially liked his "Red dawn rising" which is one of the only WWIII books that doesn't go to a nuclear holocaust right away - if you a like to watch politics and have a military interest I recommend you check it out.

josephlord2• 13 years ago

Wasn't it "Red Storm Rising"? I liked that a lot as a teenager, don't seem to have it now though.

mseebach• 13 years ago

Yes. I did too, but I re-read it a few years ago. It's very interesting as a case study, but as literature it's more than a little contrived.

ianstallings• 13 years ago

It's Red Storm Rising, and there was a board game. I dug out mine just the other day: http://imgur.com/KEh3Y95

I really loved the whole scenario. It's the only time I've read a book with a ton of characters, outside of LOTR, that I wasn't incredibly confused.

acheron3• 13 years ago

There was also a (fantastic) computer game, designed by Sid Meier. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Storm_Rising_%28video_game%...

ZanderEarth32• 13 years ago

I never read any of his books but I spent many hours playing the original Rainbow 6 on PC as a kid.

mathiasben• 13 years ago

66 seems young.

null_ptr• 13 years ago

66 is young.

astrodust• 13 years ago

Even Asimov, who was 72 when he died, went way too soon.

spindritf• 13 years ago

I devoured his books as a kid and I credit that with having a somewhat realistic view of politics and military. Most of it came from meticulously investigated details but even plots that seemed fantastic (a plane crushing into the Capitol) almost happened later.

colomon• 13 years ago

I remember people after 9/11 saying "Who would ever have thought a plane could be used as a weapon?" and thinking that it had been a key plot point in a bestselling Tom Clancy book...

VLM8• 13 years ago

A lot of rally around the flag was going on around that time.

There was also a lot of talking up the amazing organizational skills of the hijackers. Meanwhile I'm thinking, um, let me get this straight... the amazing skill some stuffed suit is referring to is ... buying airline tickets?

All part of the big lie security theater.

treerex• 13 years ago

Though, IIRC, in the book the pilot of the plane was an actual airline pilot: hard to defend against an "inside job".

derefr• 13 years ago

Want something a lot weirder? Watch the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen (the X-Files spinoff), which aired six months before the attacks:

Foreshadowing a number of conspiracy theories which would arise in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the plot of the March 4, 2001 episode depicts a secret faction within the US government plotting to hijack a Boeing 727 and fly it into the World Trade Center by remote control. The stated motive was to increase the military defense budget by blaming the attack on foreign interests.

protomyth5• 13 years ago

If you can get the audio, he was actually interviewed about that on 9/12. It is the most bizarre interview with him sounding both scared and mad.

yock• 13 years ago

Possibly not the same one, but here Wolf Blitzer treats Clancy like a jerk. Clancy seems to handle it quite well. http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0308/12/se.05.html

theg2• 13 years ago

I also grew up reading both Tom Clancy and Michael Crichton and it greatly shaped the way I look at the world. It's sad to see them go and I've yet to find someone who writes in a style either of these men that can compare lately.

lloeki• 13 years ago

even plots that seemed fantastic (a plane crushing into the Capitol) almost happened later

I'm surprised actual terrorist plots similar to Rainbow Six have not happened yet. I was drawn to the book by the game, and while the latter is a landmark in tactical shooters, it's a mess in terms of delivering the actual story.

freehunter• 13 years ago

Are you referring to the game being a mess at delivering the story? In fairness, that games aren't supposed to be replicas of the book, but rather set in the same style (tactical anti-terrorism and hostage recovery). If the game was supposed to deliver the same story as the book, you're right that it completely failed. I've played almost every game in the series and I've never seen the connection.

Rainbow Six is one of my top-ten favorite books.

xradionut• 13 years ago

I credit my realistic view of politics and military to my military background and life experience coupled along with a metric-shit-ton of non-fiction reading.

There were other books before his that used commandeered airplanes as weapons. Clancy was just a much more adept and educated thriller writer than most in the field.

3am• 13 years ago

Let's also remember the fantastically silly geopolitical predictions that he made in that book. How's our big rivalry with a nuclear armed Japan looking?

georgechen• 13 years ago

Tom Clancy can be somewhat spot on with "predicting" the future of Geopolitics. In the 2006 Ghost Recon game: Advanced Warfighter (took place in 2013) was about heavy US entanglement in Mexico. Mexican mafia are getting pretty strong these days in RL....

ghc• 13 years ago

I'm terribly sad to hear this. Tom Clancy's "Into the Storm: A Study in Command" was one of the first books outside of the fantasy genre to inspire me as a child. It led to years of creating RTS total conversions based on his work; activity that laid the foundation for the broad range of programming and design skills I have today.

barkingcat• 13 years ago

Spent many hours with his books. Sad that he's left. A drink.

JunkDNA• 13 years ago

If you've never read it, this is as good a time as any to pick up a copy of The Hunt for Red October. I had never actually read it until three or four years ago (though I had seen the movie as a teen). It has held up remarkably well.

jedberg2• 13 years ago

I actually read the book before I saw the movie and it was great! I think partly it holds up because he wrote it before anyone was making any media out of his books.

All the other books clearly are written with (movie/video game) in the back of his mind, but that one was just straight prose.

Can't agree with you more, folks should definitely read it if they haven't. Then watch the movie again with a much greater appreciation for the story.

tnorthcutt• 13 years ago

All the other books clearly are written with (movie/video game) in the back of his mind, but that one was just straight prose.

His next four books were written before The Hunt for Red October came out in film form.

manojlds• 13 years ago

The Hunt for Red October is THE book that comes to my mind when I think of Tom Clancy. It was the only book I was thinking when I saw this link and came here. Glad to see it mentioned in the top comment.

On the games front, I am a huge fan of Splinter Cell series. Both the gamer, and the voracious reader in me would miss him.

brudgers• 13 years ago

Red Storm Rising was what turned me on to Clancy. Then again, in the 1980's the idea World War III was a bit closer to home.

Tycho• 13 years ago

I especially remember the first chapter of Red Storm Rising being absolutely gripping. Wonder if they'll ever make a film from that one (the plot is basically WW3 in the late 80s).

protomyth5• 13 years ago

Dammit

The first book by Clancy I read was "Red Storm Rising", I picked it up at 6pm and read until 3am. Some of the titles of chapters would have made great band names such as "Frisbees in Dreamland".

I wish they had actually made a movie of one of his books instead of just using the title.

larrydag• 13 years ago

One of my all time favorite books. I'm not sure if the newer generations would appreciate the nature of this book as it basically takes place in the Cold War. Yet as a story it is one of the most comprehensive and riveting.

VLM8• 13 years ago

"basically takes place in the Cold War."

What has fundamentally changed WRT the situation on the ground and the plot in the book?

Doesn't Russia and former USSR still burn oil? Doesn't the middle east still have oil? Wouldn't you need to distract the western powers somehow if they planned to sieze a country in the middle east, Imperial American style?

The main plot hole I see is invading the west is not going to help much with natgas exports which is a good source of incoming money. So they'd have some interesting economic issues. Then again eventually you'll be exporting natgas to "someone" in the long run and you need oil now, so no problemo.

Another plot issue would be it would be harder to frame the Germans precisely as described in the book. Well, adapt and overcome, something could be thought up pretty similar with the same outcome.

It is true, politicans now make smiley faces at each other, but when the rubber meets the road, and they need oil, and someone else has oil, and they've got the power to take it and believe theres no alternative, you do the math...

The other problem is the "newer generations" not appreciating something from the past, unless its a sequel of a sequel of a FPS WWII game, in which case they love it.

I don't think its a problem.

sybhn• 13 years ago

My all time militaristic fiction novel too!

thrownaway2424• 13 years ago

"Red Storm Rising" was Clancy's best, probably because of the co-authorship by Larry Bond. The book is engrossing due to its depth of detail and realistic timeline.

Clancy also credited Bond's warfare sim, "Harpoon", for helping in the writing of "The Hunt for Red October". I still have the original Harpoon for DOS and Harpoon II for Windows. Both are amazing games.

protomyth5• 13 years ago

Harpoon was an awesome game, I played the table (well, large floor area) game at Gen-Con in the 90's. I do believe Larry Bond was there that year.

Tloewald• 13 years ago

I was never a big fan of his writing or politics, but the original Harpoon computer game (based on the tabletop game he was partially responsible for) stands as one of the best computer wargames I've ever played.

fredsanford• 13 years ago

IIRC, it wasn't Clancy that had anything to do with the creation of Harpoon.

It was Larry Bond, who was an uncredited (I think) co-author on the early Clancy books. Bond and Clancy used Harpoon to help visualize the naval battles in the first few books.

A side note... I was chosen as the developer to port Harpoon to OS/2 in the early '90s but the company I worked for backed out. It pissed me off enough that I changed jobs. Anyway, I still have a few unopened boxes of the Harpoon software floating around here, which were handed to me by Gordon Walton himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpoon_(series)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Bond

nutate• 13 years ago

New 'Tom Clancy' brand books will be released for the next 100 years.

jpgvm• 13 years ago

A very sad day. R.I.P ...

theorique• 13 years ago

It's a shame. He was a smart detail man and he got the right balance of human interest and technical correctness in his novels.

hawkharris• 13 years ago

At the exact moment I read this headline, I was cropping a picture of Sam Fisher, one of Clancy's characters, for a fan website. (I'm a nerd, I know.) Terrible news. I'll definitely miss his knack for portraying action and suspense.

jedberg2• 13 years ago

In my high school you had to do a senior English thesis by reading three books of one author and then writing a thesis tying together the themes and characters.

I chose Tom Clancy. My English teacher said I was crazy and "would never find anything in those books writing about".

Somehow I pulled it off and got an A on that project.

So basically, I got to read Clancy books for school. :)

zerooneinfinity• 13 years ago

Tango down :O(

eCa• 13 years ago

Sad. I really liked the earlier Ryan-verse books (I've not read anything by him after Bear and the Dragon).

My favourite remains Without Remorse. I miss a film adaption; Jim Caviezel would be perfect as Kelly.

ISL2• 13 years ago

"If you don't write it down, it never happened."

Thanks, Tom.

rplacd• 13 years ago

"Red Rabbit" woke up the inner foreign policy wonk in me, despite how transparent Clancy's imperatives were - it's a pity he could never end up working his same genuine interest with China; I all recall is supposed Chinese naivety being dredged up - corporate espionage ("Chinese secretary has sex with supposed Japanese computer salesman in the name of her company"); "China: We Kill Priests and Babies".

They'd nevertheless invoked a great deal of meaningful machinery, though - certainly compared to the sheer suppository of machismatic agency that was Chavez-verse (credit probably required yet again, though: he was probably first to tread within the grounds of "contemporary tacticool".)

United857• 13 years ago

Thanks for all the memories, TC. My first shipped game title was Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and throughout high school, I read all his Jack Ryan novels.

Even though his later novels devolved into ghost-written, right-wing political soapboxes, still sad to see him go.

stephenhuey• 13 years ago

A friend's dad loaned me The Sum of All Fears when I was 11, and that was the first Clancy novel I read (Having seen the movie of The Hunt for Red October, I figured I'd enjoy it). Those 914 pages took me a couple weeks to read while relaxing in a recliner, especially since I was kind of OCD at that age about looking up every word I didn't understand in a massive dictionary that sat on my lap. After hearing about nukes throughout the 80s, the story felt to my young mind like it could happen any moment in real life.

tlear• 13 years ago

Really sad to see him pass. Some of his books were absolutely superb: Rid Storm Rising, Hunt for the Red October, Patriot Games, Without remorse. RIP :(

ChuckMcM• 13 years ago

I will miss his books, "Red Storm Rising" and "Clear and Present Danger" are both in my library. Some of his later books [1] suffered from too much detail, where I would have appreciated an editor with the guts to say "Tom, its great that this character has a full life history and several motivating events in their past, but we don't actually need all of that in the book to tell this story ...".

It's also sad to see a talented writer die at such a young age. Goodbye Tom, thanks for the great books.

[1] I am specifically referring to "The Bear and the Dragon" in this example.

Tom Clancy has died

Related Stories