[nilanjanray]

Originally Posted by CaliAtenza

Well i'm an American, so i guess i am still "drinking the coolaid" as it were . Actually, read the Scott Harvarth series by Brad Thor; its much more contemporary for the current times. It is a lot of US rah rah, which i do like , but he also appreciates other countries and people and what they bring to the table.

Fair enough. I am an Indian, with increasingly little patience for American coolaid or hypocrisy. Nowadays I have little interest in such America-biased thrillers. I would rather read authors such as Mukul Deva (his Lashkar series is fantastic) .

My view towards Clancy's later novels can be summed up in this tongue in cheek review in Amazon - quoting from it:
http://www.amazon.com/review/R3LM2VF...55&store=books

"I'm from Holland and I cant wait to see how Tom Clancy would portray my country in his next novel. Probably we would be called cheeseheads or something suitably insulting every two sentences. We would obviously all live in windmills and walk around in clogs. In fact we wouldn't even be able to walk because we would be continuosly sticking our fingers in holes in dikes to stop our country flooding. We would invade some country that has been our ally for more than half a century (eg. UK) for some ridiculous reason (Dutch businessmen want to monopolize world cheese production). Finally our totally incompetent airforce/navy (whatever) would be destroyed by a single US plane: Final result: Cheeseheads, 100000 casualties. USA, 0 casualties. US (incompetent)allies, 200 casualties (to keep it realistic). Of course this would happen in a book of not less than 3000 pages and include JR telling us that he really really really dosn't like being POTUS every 2 or 3 pages."

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by CaliAtenza

Actually, read the Scott Harvarth series by Brad Thor; its much more contemporary for the current times.

Have you read Dirty War by Jeremy Scahill. That is no fiction at all. They are now doing the stuff Tom Clancy was dreaming in the 90s. In fact, the Bush administration got many of those ideas from Tom Clancy novels and put it into practice. Strategies from Clear and Present Danger is now official policy.

[Arch-Angel]

RIP Tom Clancy, i love the stories he comes up with and being a gamer, people would know how much Splinter Cell and Rainbow Six series meant to people who love special ops.

OT: That review made me laugh like an idiot . Thanks for the post Nilanjan. Guess all that US needs to do to win a war against holland would be to put a few holes in each of their dikes to keep them occupied .

[kannan666]

You will be missed Tom Clancy - RIP !

[wanderernomad]

RIP. I just finished reading RED STORM RISING yesterday after back to back reading the Cardinal of the Kremlin. However, I find the Rainbow series slightly too brazen and surreal.

[sourav9385]

Real sad news indeed. Tom Clancy was one of the greatest storytellers in the technically detailed espionage and military science story-line genre.

Too bad they had to go and screw up his books by turning them into crappy movies. Books like "Hunt for Red October", "Clear & Present Danger", "The Sum of all Fears" were spectacular!

[Eddy]

Hmmm, although I am a fan of the genre I never got around to read Tom Clancy. Looking at the comments here, I guess I have indeed missed something good.

Rest in Peace !

OT: Did he go into minute details, ala Michael Crichton, ?

So which book do I start ?

[Samurai]

Start with Without Remorse, where it all started.

[Eddy]

Originally Posted by Samurai

Start with Without Remorse, where it all started.

Thanks. I googled his books. Without Remorse seems to be 08 in the Jack Ryan Series.

Patriot Games is listed as 01.

So which one to start with ?

[Samar117]

RIP Tom Clancy. As a boy growing up, reading the books and playing the games occupied a very special place in my life. The depth and the gameplay were truly unparalleled. Will miss them a lot.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by Eddy

Thanks. I googled his books. Without Remorse seems to be 08 in the Jack Ryan Series.

Patriot Games is listed as 01.

When he wrote Patriot Games, he had no idea it will be a series. After the success of Jack Ryan Character, he went back and started writing prequels.

Without Remorse is the very beginning of the story, where Jack Ryan's dad is trying to catch John Clark. Clark later ends up working under Jack Ryan.

[mayankk]

Originally Posted by Eddy

Thanks. I googled his books. Without Remorse seems to be 08 in the Jack Ryan Series.

Patriot Games is listed as 01.

So which one to start with ?

Hunt for red October, followed by Red storm rising.
You can't go wrong.

[arunphilip]

Originally Posted by Eddy

So which book do I start ?

I'm kind of qualified to help you because I started reading Tom Clancy when I was 14, went totally ga-ga about him and his writing, but then grew older, wiser and more cynical. Today, there's only a few books of his that I go back to read.

I'd recommend Red Storm Rising because:

• Its a standalone book that's not part of the Jack Ryan universe, which gets trite and tiring as the series wears on (rather like Lee Child's Jack Reacher)
• Everyone gets their behinds kicked at different times
• It doesn't glorify war or war machines or even make it seem cool

In the Jack Ryan universe, you could read:

• The Hunt for Red October - classic stuff, and his first book
• Without Remorse - gripping and touching, with a strong human element in it
• The Sum of All Fears - for the bits about nuclear weapon construction which form a pretty significant portion of the book. Sort of like Forsyth's Fourth Protocol

Books I'd recommend avoiding:

• Patriot Games
• Debt of Honour - This book onwards has the whole US koolaid
• Executive Orders - as above. Also a meaninglessly bloated book.
• SSN - Submarine Warfare - Read this for a laugh, there's this one submarine that's like Rambo, going around sinking a bunch of enemies
• The Bear and the Dragon - koolaid infected book
• Red Rabbit - An attempt to get back to his classic style of writing. Borrow it if you wish.
• A bunch of books with Jack Ryan's son as the protagonist - skip them.

[Samurai]

Originally Posted by arunphilip

I'm kind of qualified to help you because I started reading Tom Clancy when I was 14, went totally ga-ga about him and his writing, but then grew older, wiser and more cynical.

Get in line dude, many of us have done that.

Originally Posted by arunphilip

[*]Debt of Honour - This book onwards has the whole US koolaid[*]SSN - Submarine Warfare - Read this for a laugh, there's this one submarine that's like Rambo, going around sinking a bunch of enemies

These are two books that made me taste the Koolaid for the first time. In Debt of Honor, one Apache helicopter practically wins a battle. When I was reading it for the second time, Kosovo war was going on. In that war they had dispatched 24 Apaches to Kosovo, lost couple of them in training missions and then they were too scared to use the rest. Go figure! The SSN was concentrated Koolaid in the very first read.

[Blue_V]

Cardinal of Kremlin is a nice read. Its not expansive in topic and drags a little, Tom Clancy has written it well enough.