RIP Tom Clancy

Kreugen

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Reading Red Storm Rising is like the gateway to strategic wargaming. Clancy even got together with Larry Bond and used some Harpoon tabletop sessions to help map out a few of the major battles. The submarine game on the C64 was good stuff too. Seawolf class was totally OP.
 

Himeo

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Without Remorse and Rainbow Six are essential reading. Some of his other shit was decent.

John Clark is a bad motherfucker.
 

Agraza

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Yea, I really enjoyed his early work. I just stopped reading his stuff one day b/c the newest one I bought felt more like political propaganda than a plausible series of events. I still value the early stuff a lot though.
 

Cad

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He was mailing it in, the last 5 or so Jack Ryan books were also co-written, which probably means he sketched the plot out a bit and handed it off to whoever was ghostwriting. I think I stopped at the Bear and the Dragon, which I think was pretty mediocre too. I can quite clearly remember the plots and details of all of the books up to and including Rainbox Six despite not having read any of them in 10+ years, but I have barely any recollection of the Bear and the Dragon. Come to think of it, I don't really remember much about Executive Orders either. Debt of Honor was the last really good one IMO.
I thought Executive Orders was the last good one. Debt of Honor and Executive Orders were really like one book, IMO.
 

Cad

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And Red Storm Rising was the fucking shit. I re-read it every couple of years.
 

Fazana_sl

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His earlier stuff was indeed so much better than what came at the end.

If memory serves Bear & The Dragon was the war between China and Russia where he went completely off the rails and just made up a whole bunch of weapon systems so the "good guys" could win? His plots had always had the hint of convenience at the best of times but had been worth sticking with for the overall story but that was the point where he just went completely out there.

I only finished reading the latest released Ryan novel the week before he died and he seemed to wrap it up on 10x fast forward at the end, almost as if he was bored himself and just wanted to go drink beer and nap. There's one more Ryanverse book due in December, wonder if he was prescient enough to give it a proper ending?

An HBO/similar Red Storm Rising based conventional world war 3 series set in the mid to late 80s would be awesome indeed. It certainly couldn't be worse than the Rock Hudson ww3 miniseries
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Kreugen

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The trick to Red Storm Rising would be NOT ruining it by setting it in modern day and changing Russians to North Koreans. Which is probably why it has never been filmed. That and the difficulty of rewriting it to have a central character for Brad Pitt to play.
 

OneofOne

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As someone re-reading Red Storm Rising right now, I'm really not sure how you could get a mini-series out of it. Maybe a 3+ hour movie AT BEST, but even that feels like stretching it. Unless you added a shit ton of filler to create wholly new additional scenes.
 

Gankak

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As someone re-reading Red Storm Rising right now, I'm really not sure how you could get a mini-series out of it. Maybe a 3+ hour movie AT BEST, but even that feels like stretching it. Unless you added a shit ton of filler to create wholly new additional scenes.
You could probably get a mini-series if you just focus on what are essentially the 2 main characters. The Air Force weatherman on Iceland, and the commander of the Destroyer.
 

Zombie Thorne_sl

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Red Storm Rising and Without Remorse are 2 of my all time favorite books. John Clark is a bad mofo.

I enjoyed all his books, even though the later ones run together.
 

Baraz_sl

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Loved his books up to and including Executive Orders. Miss the old Jack Ryan days, so much fun.

I'll always remember my Grade 6 english teacher being disappointed in me for reading Clancy, so he gave me A Tale of Two Cities to read. I still keep going back to Clancy when I want some fun and quick reading.
 

Beef Supreme_sl

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Totally convinced my 7th grade english teacher to let me read Red Storm Rising and make a diorama out of it instead of the Yearling. I told her that I'd already had read it and it would bore me to have to read it again.

Everyone had these silly ass dioramas of kids, bears and a fawn; mine was a glorious WW3 battlefield complete with F-15 and F-14 models and GI Joes.

RIP you magnificent bastard.