What was Tom Clancy's "REAL JOB" b4 he became a writer? Was he infact a real estate salesman? Or did he infact work as a spook?

Yet Tom Clancy is neither a former intelligence officer nor naval officer. Rather, he is an insurance broker from a small town in Maryland whose only previously published writing was a letter to the editor and a three-page article about the MX missile

Anyway, to go back to the question, I do not like "hollywood" type writers whose only aim is to make movies out of what they wrote, I am more into "literary" and "realistic works.

Cheap entertainment for the sake of entertainment is not my cup ot tea, only because it, by nature, has no value.

We have to deal with a "prefab" society with no substance everyday, I find my substance and reality through writings that have nothing to do with today's artificial "mass produced" populist brain killers...

It's a bit like having a table made out of a solid piece of curly maple when you can go to Home Depo and get the "same look" for a hell of a lot less because the only curly maple you get is the thin strip covering the table... "for a hell of a lot less"

That just isn't good enough for me.

You have me intrigued, what writers give you "substance and reality" but still spin a good yarn?

Frankly, it's more the formulaic approach applied to most popular novels that irks me, Clancy's included. I mean, how many more "intro, verse, chorus... " routines can one take?

This is especialy prevalent in American popular lit where one has to follow a certain pattern to get published, and thus sell... the ugly word.

Since you asked, my approach to reading and thus choosing my authors, stems from my background...French where, being a bit esoteric and often times, weird (unpredictable ), we smell a literary corporate endeavour when we read one , Clancy anyone

While Clancy does exhibit certain qualities, (sorry, they escape at the moment ), he certainly cannot be accused of great writing and even less of being imaginative.

He is a mass appeal scribbler who got lucky.

Clancy's best works were the Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising. Cardinal of the Kremlim was ok, too. But I found the others to be lame. Especially that last one, Executive Orders. What a propaganda piece!

Did anyone read "SSN", where one US Los-Angeles class sub sinks the entire Chinese navy single-handed?

I think Clancy does best when he sticks to non-fiction research books like "Marine" and "Submarine".

...If the Captain is very good, has a lot of luck, and gets some good support units in the mix.

I'm talking Flight-II here... SSN-751 (my boat) and above.

But Dale Brown is even worse than Clancy!

Has Larry Bond put out any books in recent years? I seem to recall his last one was about South Africa (and it was terrible).

This is where TC falls down: realism in actual operations/weapon employment. Realise that he has not spent any time in the forces himself, and while that should not be a factor, I feel that for him, it is. He has learned EVERYTHING out of the textbook, at least in his earlier work.

This begs the question, how did he become popular? I am told that he was considered very well read by junior USNavy officers in the mid-80's at the Pentagon and their schools, and that it snowballed from there. Great stuff for getting junior officers interested and learning about their chosen career, but maybe he should have stuck to that subject matter. Even my mother read RedStorm and Hunt for RedOctober, so it can't be that detailed or hard to grasp.In the book Clear P Danger, while it's a cool story, there are too many instances of extraordinary coincindence for the story to resolve itself.

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Originally posted by Ceebee:

I think Tom Clancy is a well researched/informed guy, I can remember reading Red Storm Rising (his best book IMO) while at sea on SSBN02 where he mentioned the spearfish, fired from HMS turbulant (I think)...The funny thing was the spearfish hadn't hit the fleet at that time and was still under trials!

Ceebee

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Yep, I think he is. He was co-author (with Bond) on the Harpoon board game. I think you need to be well-informed enough to do that.

As for the later short novels (i.e. Rainbow Six, etc.), they were merely "experiments" by Clancy, not really major, CAPD stuff. Did you know some sequences in the book, Rainbow Six, were actually based on some test games of Rainbow Six (the game) beta-testers? Yep, while the game was being tested, Clancy observed how some guys played the game out, and wrote that for the book.

-RODION

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Originally posted by Juan_rodion:
Yep, I think he is. He was co-author (with Bond) on the Harpoon board game. I think you need to be well-informed enough to do that.

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No he wasn't. In the author's note of 'Red Storm Rising' Tom Clancy writes that he bought Larry Bonds Harpoon game. After meeting Larry Bond they co-authored Red Storm Rising using the "Convoy-84" wargame from Larry to model a modern battle for the North Atlantic.

I agree with mbaxter about the Clancy books after Red Storm Rising the quality went down fast. After Dept of Honour I stoped reading his books.

Raver: Larry wrote Cauldron after Vortex and its even worse! (basic plot: Franco - German alliance attacks Poland US to the rescue)

Any opinions about the books by Harold Coyle and Ralph Peters?

Ralpha Peters???? never heard of him....what has he had published?

Eric L Harry wrote a good one called "Arc Light" (ISBN 0 340 61773 X) which is in the same vein as Red Storm, so I highly recommend it.

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Originally posted by boshar:
No he wasn't. ...

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Ack,

Sorry about that.

Anyway, it seems that Clancy made some of his stories from gaming sessions (comp based or pen&paper). I wonder who else (famous author, pref. techno-thriller) does that.

Ralph Peters wrote "Red Army". The RB's here would love it. It did, too. He also wrote "The War in 2014" (not sure I got the date right). Out-frigging-standing. He writes with a bit more depth and pathos than our usual technoo-thriller guys. He also wrote another about the last days of communist russia. For the life of me I can't remember it.

Dale Brown. "Tin Man". Nuff said.