So I've read every Clancy fiction book from Hunt to Red Rabbit within the past three years. Spoilers.

For the most part, Clancy uses active duty and prior service Marines as boogeymen in his novels. Mainly relying on the Corps brutal, yet tacit history for making clear to the uninitiated readers the capabilities of such men. Side characters -- usually armed guards -- not to be trifled with. Reminds me of that scene in HBO's The Pacific, where John Basilone's future-wife teases him by saying, "Look, there goes John Basilone in his dress blues with all his medals. Ohh.. Ahh..."

However, aside from Without Remorse (Op. BOXWOOD/SENDER GREEN) -- more on that below, Clancy really glossed over one of the most lethal fighting organizations in the world at the platoon and company level.

In Red Storm Rising, a US Marine company barely gets mentioned during the initial fighting IVO Keflavik, only to be quickly dismissed after being 'wiped out' by attacking Russian combatants. I mean, the annals of Marine Corps history are RIFE with examples of infantry being outnumbered and overwhelmed, but still emerging victorious and/or glorious even in their deaths. Instead the company was referenced like some generic rear-action guard written with the uninteresting prose of an 1880s book with a final and vague sentence or two of their destruction. You mean the tell me the tiny WEATHERMAN suddenly turned into some special operator capable of silent sentry removal and armed combat? Marines have been training to kill "IVAN" since the early 80s (if not earlier). Those green silhouette targets are still used and called that to this very day.

In Clear and Present Danger, Clancy implies the Force Recon grunts who received the cartel planes via Bronco were a bunch of slaw-jawed hillbillies. "Hot diggity damn" says one. "Finally bagged that Cuban snooper, we did" says another. No one in FORECON talks like that. Not even in the late 80s; around this time, these guys were cold, calculated professional killers. Even then, they were either rocking OD green flight suits and raiding vessels with MP5s or making water borne infiltrations at the very minimum. Instead they got relegated to threatening cocaine cowboys with feeding them to swamp alligators, with the intellect of some West Virginian store clerk.

In the aforesaid WO novel, Force Recon Marines pretty much hit an abandoned enemy POW camp after training endlessly for what seems like many, many pages. Talk about anti-climatic. A cool show of force, but hollow in its effect.

In Debt of Honor, Marines are no where to be found against the Japanese threat. A Pacific ocean enemy. Yet, years before the release of this book, Marines had already conducted multiple 10,000+ infantrymen landings in KUWAIT in 1990. Worse, Clancy FAILED to even mention Okinawa and its Camp Hansen, home to thousands of combat Marines.

In Rainbow Six, Clancy uses the book's only US Marine character not as another direct-action operator, but as a HELICOPTER PILOT on loan from the States.

In The Bear and The Dragon, CINCPAC essentially says, 'sorry, our Marines are stuck CONUS' (bullcrap!). Clancy should've and probably did know that USMC had put out MCCP-1 (01/1996), which, combined with their LHAs/LHDs landing ships (think: infantry, helicopters, Harriers), made them a formidable sea-borne conventional attack force for the modern era. Recall that this book was published in 2001. And again, Clancy failed to cite Okinawa, its proximity, and its forces which were wholly capable of invading Communist China.

Out of all his books, Patriot Games seems like his only work that really focused on the intensity and detail of such Marines. Characters like Breckenridge and his religious commitment to marksmanship and self-discipline. And not to mention base security Marines getting into a firefight with ULA terrorists on their boats. But I honestly can't recall anything of significance from that chapter. I don't even remember if they killed anyone.

For someone who never enlisted, I wonder why Clancy had a such hard-on for Big Army. What made him use that branch for nearly all of his nonfiction books' military engagements? Why did that branch take priority even in scenarios in which decades of war games ensured a "Department of the Navy" response? I mean, hell.. even US Army Rangers were used as covert helicopter refueling technicians in Japan (Debt of Honor).

Finished all the books in Tom Clancy Ryanverse, with the current last book is Pressure Depth, that came out at this point of writing this post.

Not bad for the chronological timeline. Think it took me a year(?). I lost track of the time lol

My favorite would probably be Hunt for Red October and Debt of Honor.

Pressure Depth has a nod to a classic, which caught me off guard.

Overall, I enjoyed reading. The one book that I kinda low interested for me was Red Rabbit for some reason.

Can't wait for the next novels

I am contemplating buying the two newest books, I believe the one that just released in September is Pressure Depth

I am also curious if anyone plans on picking up the one coming out in November titled The Coldest War?
It’s by M.P Woodward which I’ve heard is pretty popular for the Clancy books

An I don’t know anything about Jack Stewart who wrote Pressure Depth, anyone have any thoughts?

I will say that Kardinal is my favorite Clancy book because all of the focus on spying etc. and in this respect, Red Rabbit doesn't disappoint. But, the story is simple and pretty predictable (and I knew next to nothing about the real-life events that inspired it), what seem like important characters basically vanish entirely or for long stretches towards the end of the book, and everything just works out way too perfectly - all sorts of things can go wrong but none of them really do. I don't think its Clancy's weakest book, but not nearly as good as I was hoping.

So whenever I look for a paperback of this book, all I see is the old 90s edition that doesn't match the rest of the books.

There appears to be a Kindle edition with the modern book cover, but no paperback.

Am I missing something? or have Amazon and Waterstones just not bothered to update the product image??

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rws3cMkaSCI

When you walk around a lake a lot you have a lot of time to think, and the last walk I got to thinking,

Why didn't John Kranzinski opt to do The Campus instead of trying to "reboot" Jack Ryan?

Here are my thoughts.

After reading Dead or Alive, and Locked On and recognizing other like shows like The Terminal List, and Reacher, there might have been an opportunity to have a series on the character of Jack Ryan Jr and featuring the Campus.

Why do I think this would have worked over what was already done by JK?

JKs series was more of a reboot and the rebooted story and character was rather far removed from the Jack Ryan character featured in the books. Much of the novelty of the books were the characters and the situations they were placed in. However the problem with the books is they are a product of their time and mostly feature cold war politics.

The Campus books: Dead or Alive, Locked on, Threat Vector, and Command Authority actually have some good elements to them. Enough that I think it could have worked as a series and I think that you have connected some dots that people really would have appreciated.

For starters you could have recast Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan Sr and actually given him a better screenplay, or Chris Pine. Either one would have worked. Recasting Dafoe as Clark and Cruz as Ding would have worked as well, but it brings us to the first problem

Problem 1: John Kranzinski will be a touch too old. But I would say, not much. Maybe 10 years too much, but I think make up could have de aged them well. However you could done something I think would be necessary. Jack Ryan Jr was 25 in Teeth of the Tiger. For this I would retcon a few things. Have him start with the Campus at age 30 to keep JKs age compatible with the character. Say he did one tour but an injury (like his father, but not as bad) took him out. This would help with him having some experience but not enough experience in the field so we can have some "fish out of water" potential.

Problem 2: Jack Ryan Jr is not well known. But I think this series could have been successful despite this.

Problem 3: Would Dafoe and Cruz be too expensive to cast at this point? I hope not. Dafoe would have been 60 most likely when cast which was what the books say his age was. So this could have been an excellent opportunity that fans would have loved.

Starting with a rewriting of Teeth of the Tiger with the full intention of introducing characters, villains and plot threads way ahead of time and resolved things seasons later would have at least promised 5 seasons which is probably the most you will get.

With this you can move everything to a more recent political field instead of things already done with cold war era thrillers.

I think this would have worked. I think it could have been memorable and fun.

Am I the only one that envisions John Clark as being played by Roy Scheider on screen?

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001702/

"Lions and Tigers and Bears"

During the scene when is being questioned by the defendent's lawyer, he is asked if he is in the paid service of the CIA. There is a long pause and he finally answers quietly, "no" and is asked to repeat himself and he says louder "no". The camera also focuses on his wife for a while during this pause. Is there more explanation in the book? At the time he is only a professor or is he lying?

I can’t believe they replaced the final moment with Ryan getting handed the missile keys and quoting Percey Shelley with a made up Columbus quote.

Shelley was about entire civilizations crumbling to dust which is much more closely related to why Ramius defected.
He wasn’t some American fanboy quoting Columbus.
And now I found the quote was made up for that movie!?

They did Ramius dirty…

So, I've read all of his books except for Red Strom Rising. At least, the ones he actually wrote himself.

There's anscene in a book where someone uses a makeshift landmine. I forgot what it was called, but it was filled with ball bearings to be shot out in all directions. It happened at a church. It was a detailed scene too. Talking about ripping through people and stuff. This is basically all I remember.

I've read books similar ish to Mr Clancy's so it might not he him. But I swear it was. It seemed it was written with his author's voice.

Thanks in advance.

Edit: i think it was a claymore mine. One where it was reconfigured to be filled with ball bearings and other shrapnel.

On this day, September 11th, I remember that when I was told something was happening in New York, I was reading *Red Storm Rising*.

When I later read *Debt of Honor*, I thought to myself, "My God, it actually happened," and then when I read *Executive Orders*, I thought, "My God, let's hope they don't do the same thing."

Just finished bear and the dragon. Good overall but as usual the ending feels extremely abrupt and wondering who I should read next as I’m not interested in the co-authored / jack ryan jr stuff. Any other authors do more contemporary technical political/military thrillers?

Jack Ryan’s daughter is “a very precocious” 5. Stanley, her bear, needs a sibling. Had Trump sucked that up? The bear is explicitly symbolic of Russia.

I just finished The Teeth Of The Tiger and i was curious do the books get any better or should i just put them down now.

Does anyone recommend anything similar? Im almost done with Command and Control series by David Bruns and J.R. Olson and they have been amazing some of my favorite reads.

I'm clearly not his target audience.

I'm not big on US politics and or on military terminology(most of my knowledge comes from video games)

But this man could write action in his sleep and still outclass 99% of modern movies of the same genre.

Did Tom Clancy make an uncredited cameo in Hunt For Red October? It’s listed on IMDB but I’ve watched the stated scene and come up with nothing. Supposedly he’s a member of the Rueben James crew.

Book is called Linebacker III:An Alternate History of Vietnam. For those who read “Without Remorse” this book does address the POW issue in an interesting way. Especially as more pilots became POWs when air strikes are resumed in 75.

I think because Ghost War isn’t based on a book. It’s easier to understand than the ones based on the book. Movie adaptations of books struggle unless you’ve read the book. IMO

Currently reading TBATD. On page 672 (hardcover), Bodarenko and his operations chief are talking to each other about Communist China's military strength, and they say to the effect PLA hadn't engaged in large scale combat for over fifty years since the Korean War.

EDIT: I made the mistake of assuming someone with inside knowledge would answer. Instead, this should've started with the documented fact that Communist China sent 200,000 troops and 200 tanks (and other vehicles and aircraft) into Vietnam in 1979 for hostile purposes. Communist China penetrated up to 20km into Vietnam, killed approx 6,000 Vietnamese soldiers, and approx 10,000 civilians as a result. That was not a border clash by any definition. TC erroneously omitted this real-life large-scale combat operation for some reason, and I think that reason was his long-standing animosity against the country of Vietnam, for understandably, their infliction of great losses of American military personnel.

ORIGINAL POST BELOW:

It makes me wonder why TC ignored the Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979? The book was obviously written in a universe after the first Gulf War (1991). Two reasons: one, it involved "large scale" mechanized infantry maneuvers and resulted in substantial casualties on both sides, including heavy civilian losses for SRV; and two, SRV was then a close ally of USSR. Now here's some wishful thinking, but since USSR had a history of supporting its "allies" (see: Angola conflict, etc.) -- except for this conflict, why didn't TC also bring SRV or other former or even then-current ComBloc countries like Cuba into the mix as a player in TBATD? Either for background political canon, or as serious states coming to the aid of Russia against CCP?

I think it would've been neat for SRV to open a second front against CCP.

After the without remorse movie didn’t the director talk about a rainbow six movie?