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Tom Clancy Is Dead At 66
guttentag writes "The author of The Hunt for Red October and many military and espionage novels which inspired a number of movies video games died last night in a Baltimore Hospital. The news was first reported by Publishers Weekly's Twitter account this morning and confirmed by New York Times Book Reporter Julie Bosman's Twitter account."
Although his writing was pretty mechanical, his stories were real page turners. It's sad to see him go.
Harrison's Postulate - "For every action there is an equal and opposite criticism"
Huge influence on my life as a reader and tech enthusiast. He will be dearly missed.
He was very tech oriented and worked extensively with people in the field to try to make his novels sound as accurate on the details as he could. He was good enough at taking non-classified data and extrapolating where things could go from there that he received visits from the FBI and CIA to find out how he knew what he knew.
He certainly made things up (caterpillar drive for the sub etc), but the point is he worked tirelessly to get technical details right in as many cases as he could, and to try get them as plausible as he could get away with in those cases where he needed to make the up. He put a lot more effort into getting the details right than most authors and far more than Hollywood ever did and for that his passing is very relevant for Slashdot. He took creative license, but he took it far less than a lot of other authors (Bourne Ultimatum series etc) and used it far more selectively.
He wrote 17 number one selling books and had three of his books turned into blockbuster movies. He was active in having games made about his books even back in the 80's and made sure a series of games was made ever since then. He came up with ideas for terrorism like flying a civilian airliner into a government building before 9/11.
It used to be you could read Tom Clancy and identify with the characters, exult in the common mission, and marvel at his technical details. It didn't matter what part of the political spectrum you hailed from, you could still read his books and feel good about being an American. Then at some point, I think it was "Debt of Honor," his schtick slid beyond to a right-wing crazyland fantasy where I could not follow.
I come from a military family. I come from a family with deep roots in America, half native-American, half-original European settlers. I could not stomach the jingoism that defined his later writing. America is not a destination, it's a process. If you forget that, and kick everybody who you don't see eye-to-eye with off the bus, then you forfeit your own seat on the ride, as far as I'm concerned.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
His early books, (all in the Jack Ryan) series, up to and including Cardinal of the Kremlin, were excellent, as was Red Storm Rising and some of his non-fiction books were excellent. Well-written, tightly-plotted, thrillers with interesting characters. I think Sum of All Fears was the start of the slide (Clear and Present was borderline...)
I was first introduced to his books when reading a copy of Hunt for Red October in my high-school library. In retrospect, I should have stolen it, as it was a first-edition copy from the Naval Institute Press. (His jacket photo was of him as a dorky clerk in his Father-in-law's insurance office.)
I think his later books suffered from his success, as they were written like he no longer paid any attention to his editor (I once saw the same sentence repeated on consecutive pages), and his books become overlong, sloppy, and too packed with rambling polemic. (Although I suppose you can argue that for the audience that enjoys polemic, they were too mild.)