What's your favorite Tom Clancy book?

[bizkitgto]

You can find practically any Tom Clancy book at a used book store for around $2, and I have been on a binge lately. "Red Storm Rising" is my favorite, and with the recent current events it's also a little prophetic, and "Rainbow Six" is a solid runner up. I am thinking of getting into the Jack Ryan books as well. What are your favorites?

[davisgang90]

3 way tie among Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games and Without Remorse. Honorable mention is Cardinal of the Kremlin.

[Michael in ABQ]

Any of the early Jack Ryan novels are solid. My 13-year-old has started reading them from the library and a few we picked up at thrift stores. It's been years since I read them, mostly as a teenager and into college. Without Remorse is really good - especially comparing/contrasting it with the way the drug trade in Baltimore is portrayed about 30 years later in the tv show "The Wire".

The Hunt for Red October (1984)
Patriot Games (1987)
The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
Clear and Present Danger (1989)
The Sum of All Fears (1991)
Without Remorse (1993)
Debt of Honor (1994)
Executive Orders (1996)

[ATtiny85]

I read Without Remorse while on deployment years ago. It provided some of us with something to scheme about while sitting on security in the middle of the night. I read it again about a year ago and it was still entertaining.

[aasdfadsf]

I've only read Red Storm Rising and Debt of Honor. Both were good reads and were "page turners", which Clancy was very good at. You're never going to mistake them for great literature, but Red October, from what I understand, is the one that gets closest to being a true work of serious fiction. I could say something similar about other "hackneyed" writers like Dean Koontz or Michael Crichton.   

"Red Storm Rising" is my favorite, and with the recent current events it's also a little prophetic...

Well...it was set during the Cold War when the USSR tries to attack the West due to having screwed up their own economy, and the premise is just a wee bit contrived (in the end, it was probably overdetermined that the USSR would go away with a whimper rather than start WW3). It's basically Red Dawn but not quite as absurd, and I don't think it has much intersection with Putin's current awful war. That said, it's a fun read, and my take on literature or any other form of media is that at the very least, it has to make you enjoy experiencing it on some level. If it can't do that, what's the point?

[CowboyAndIndian]

Red storm rising. It was the first one of his books I read.

I find that he was pretty prescient. "The Flying frisbee" from Red storm rising was the F117. I believe he was investigated for this as it was highly classified information at the time.

In "Debt of honor", using a plane as a weapon to destroy the US Capitol, was pretty similar to the 9/11 attacks.

[Michael in ABQ]

Red storm rising. It was the first one of his books I read.

I find that he was pretty prescient. "The Flying frisbee" from Red storm rising was the F117. I believe he was investigated for this as it was highly classified information at the time.

In "Debt of honor", using a plane as a weapon to destroy the US Capitol, was pretty similar to the 9/11 attacks.

I read that he was also investigated after writing The Hunt for Red October as he was able to depict a lot of technical and operational details fairly accurately just based on unclassified open-source information.

https://news.usni.org/2012/09/06/secrets-open-publishing-uncle-sam-didnt

Tom Clancy’s first novel was so full of technical details that some members of the Reagan Administration suspected that he had had access to classified information. Secretary of the Navy John Lehman even confronted Clancy to ask if he had first cleared the material before the book was published. In actuality, Clancy had simply used a variety of unclassified material to piece together a story that turned out to be a remarkably accurate portrayal of U.S. Navy operations and technology.

[ChickenStash]

I've only read the series up to Bear and the Dragon so, of those, my fav is Hunt for Red October with Patriot Games a close second. I can't help but see and hear the Greer character in those as James Earl Jones and it makes them so much better. I'm currently rereading a few and am back up to Debt of Honor. My least fav is Cardinal in the Kremlin - it's not bad, just not that interesting of a plot.

I want to grab Without Remorse, next. I like the Clark character and think he'd be a good focus for a book. I didn't care for the Amazon series, but I'm hoping the book is decent. Even better is more of Clark and Chavez, they make a great pair.

 

[lutorm]

As a science geek, I like "Sum of all Fears" and "Executive Orders" for their WMD plot lines.

[bizkitgto]

I've only read the series up to Bear and the Dragon so, of those, my fav is Hunt for Red October with Patriot Games a close second. I can't help but see and hear the Greer character in those as James Earl Jones and it makes them so much better. I'm currently rereading a few and am back up to Debt of Honor. My least fav is Cardinal in the Kremlin - it's not bad, just not that interesting of a plot.

I want to grab Without Remorse, next. I like the Clark character and think he'd be a good focus for a book. I didn't care for the Amazon series, but I'm hoping the book is decent. Even better is more of Clark and Chavez, they make a great pair.

I love the Clark books. Without Remorse and Rainbow Six are awesome!

[Dicey]

Adding a vote for  Clear and Present Danger".

[Dicey]

Adding another point: when we set up our library book sales, we don't shelve the books we call, "Everybody who wants to read this already has." For very prolific and popular authors tend to focus on the most recent titles, because shelf space is always at a premium.

Same for the thrift shop where I volunteer. However, at either place, if someone reaches out to us, we will happily save books for them.

Of course, checking them out from the library is always free.

[Michael in ABQ]

Of course, checking them out from the library is always free.

The problem is when the library stops carrying the older books in the series. I recently purchased ebooks for a series from one of my favorite authors because of 10 books, our local library network only had the most recent few and a random assortment of earlier ones (i.e. #3, #4, #6 then 8, 9, and 10). They had audio books available for download, but I didn't want to spend 100+ hours listening to books when I can read 30-40 pages in a night before I go to bed.


I might start re-reading some of the books. My wife has never read any and my oldest boys are at the age where they're enjoying them. So far, we just bought Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games.

[Dicey]

Of course, checking them out from the library is always free.

The problem is when the library stops carrying the older books in the series. I recently purchased ebooks for a series from one of my favorite authors because of 10 books, our local library network only had the most recent few and a random assortment of earlier ones (i.e. #3, #4, #6 then 8, 9, and 10). They had audio books available for download, but I didn't want to spend 100+ hours listening to books when I can read 30-40 pages in a night before I go to bed.


I might start re-reading some of the books. My wife has never read any and my oldest boys are at the age where they're enjoying them. So far, we just bought Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games.

I totally get that. I wrote that last sentence because I knew if I didn't, someone would suggest getting them from the library, lol.

[RunningintoFI]

I've only read the series up to Bear and the Dragon so, of those, my fav is Hunt for Red October with Patriot Games a close second. I can't help but see and hear the Greer character in those as James Earl Jones and it makes them so much better. I'm currently rereading a few and am back up to Debt of Honor. My least fav is Cardinal in the Kremlin - it's not bad, just not that interesting of a plot.

James Earl Jones really did a great job at making that character even more exciting than he was in the books!

As for the Cardinal in the Kremlin, I loved the science and technical aspects of that book!  The mirror and laser focus was so fascinating to me because that is stuff the United States is STILL trying to figure out for ICBM interception capabilities.  I will say the 'torture' scene in that book is something beyond the realm of normal horror though.  Not for gore but for just how insanely twisted it actually is.