"Patriot Games"

[CMichael]

I am reading this Clancy book.

I am surprised by the gun knowledge in the book.

Jack Ryan is being targetd by Irish terrorists. He is being advised By Sergeant Major Breckenridge. He tells him to get a shotgun for home defense and helps him train with a 9 mm for CCW.

He even talks about the Weaver technique. I thought that was pretty good.

The only thing is if terrorists are trying to kill him I would image that they most likely would use a bomb or a long range shot from a rifle.

 

[Baba Louie]

A good yarn.

But if they used a bomb or long range rifle, how could you develop the climactic ending?

If you like PG wait till you read Without Remorse.

Adios

 

[Dannyboy]

If you like PG wait till you read Without Remorse.

Not including Red Storm Rising , Patriot Games was my favorite Clancy book...until Without Remorse.

 

[cslinger]

Patiot Games was Ok but my favorite by far is Without Remorse. Spectacular book one of my favorite books period.

Red Storm Rising was also excellent. I also liked Rainbow Six.

Chris

 

[CMichael]

LOL Good point Baba.

Red Storm Rising was my favorite.

I started reading the Sum Of All Fears but I got bored in the beginning and didn't continue.

 

[CMichael]

And of course the Hunt For Red October was pretty good too.

 

[Preacherman]

I loved Clancy's books, up to and including "The Cardinal Of The Kremlin". After that, something changed... much messier/more evil/more in-your-face, violence that was almost pornographic in its sadism and blood-and-guts depiction, if you know what I mean. I'm afraid I stopped reading his books after that...

 

[TheFrontRange]

I think I've read just about all of Clancy's novels. I thought "Rainbow Six" was great, and have subsequently gotten hooked on the PC-game version of "Rainbow Six - Covert Ops Essentials"...lots of good firearms detail there.

Funny thing...I was reading "Rainbow Six" over my lunch hours back in 2001. I was pretty near the end of the book when
11 September rolled around...suddenly Clancy's wild plots didn't seem nearly so spectacular or far-fetched.

 

[blades67]

I read Red Storm Rising while serving with the 1st BN/7th INF, 3rd ID. I'm sure somebody showed him the battle plans for defending the Fulda Gap before he wrote the book because he had most of it correct.

 

[DonP]

Without Remorse

If I recall correctly, WR has a very detailed section on "Clark" building his own suppressor in his home machine shop for his raid to get even.

My memory is pretty shabby but I do remember thinking that, it sounded pretty complete but with out the final details to put Clancy in deep Ka-Ka with the BATF folks.

Don P.

 

[othermarc]

Sum of all Fears details a modern nuke... assuming you have nuke material and millions of dollars to buy the equipment... and trained personnel on how to use said equipment. Then again, I'm not a nuke engineer, so maybe Clancy was all wrong.

Without Remorse was my favorite. Sneaking around in complete stealth. Maybe that's why I like Splinter Cell on Xbox.

Clear and Present Danger had many firearms details as well.

 

[Jeeper]

Without remorse is one of my all time favorites. The way that he goes after those people is great. Clark is a bad ***....I mean Kelly

 

[Gordon]

Did you notice in the movie version of the Sum of all Fears the terrorists were Russian not Muslim? what a PC sellout , how unreal!

 

[nygunguy]

Clancy Nut

I'm a Clancy nut.

If you haven't read any Clancey read Without Remorse first. Mr Clark (Kelly) actually is being chased by Jack Ryan's father.

I enjoyed Executive Order. Sometimes I think we need to start over just like Clancy did in that book. Read Debt of Honor first because it sets up EO.

My favorite has to be Red Storm Rising.

 

[BerettaNut92]

You guys should also check out Stephen Coonts. Coonts is a rifle shooter and his characters perform tactically correct chamber checks.

 

[dude]

The books are great with my favorite being The Cardinal of the Kremlin................too bad the Clancy movies all suck so bad.


'cept for Red October of course!!


I'd rather read a good spy book than see a spy movie anyways.




IMHO the only movies I've seen that were as good as the books they came from were the Silence of the Lambs and it's follow up. And I assume it's pre-quel Red Dragon ( that I think is upcomming out soon??) will also be quite good.

 

[benEzra]

Sum of all Fears details a modern nuke... assuming you have nuke material and millions of dollars to buy the equipment... and trained personnel on how to use said equipment. Then again, I'm not a nuke engineer, so maybe Clancy was all wrong.

Clancy deliberately gave some of the details completely wrong, for just that reason. Probably overkill--thermonuclear weapons are conceptually extremly simple but require an amazing degree of skill and precision to actually manufacture. Simple fission bombs can be relatively crude (if the calculations are done right), but fusion bombs are notoriously difficult to get right. We had our share of fizzles during the nuclear testing era.

I would say that no other device created by man involves such extreme physics. For example, the force compressing the secondary (fusion stage) in a W-80 is 500 million tons per square inch, accelerating the tamper from 0 to 1 million mph within just a few inches.

Getting the secondary to implode symmetrically before your bomb tears itself apart is probably as much a fine art as a science.

bE

 

[10-Ring]

I became a Clancy fan last year. I read Rainbow Six while on jury duty. Since then, I've read Sum of all Fears and I'm currently working on Without Remorse.
How are the other books...the ones inspired by him but written by someone else?

 

[DadOfThree]

I'm a huge Clancy fan. Prior to publishing Red Storm Rising, he had to submit all of his research to the Feds. He got so much of it right on, including some new tactics, that the Feds thought he had access to classified info. He is also the only civilian I know of that was invited to speak at the National Security Agency concerning intel gathering. I have never been able to get into the books inspired by Clancy but not written by him. The characters never seemed real believable to me. I also didn't care much for his last two books. The story lines didn't seem up to par with his other writings so he just added a lot of profanity and sex to make up for it. It didn't.

 

[BerettaNut92]

10-ring the last two: Bear and the Dragon (don't get me started on the Japanese sausage bit...) and Red Rabbit were disappointingly lacking.

They are all good through Rainbow Six.

The first two or three Marcinko books are also good. All the Coonts books are excellent except the two Intruder ones which made him famous.

 

[hops]

'Without Remorse' is very dark. John T. Kelly is one bad dude. Kelly, who with the help of a few admirals became Mr. Clark, violates a few laws in that book.

I'll second Preachman's observation, although it does no bother me too much.

 

[9mmepiphany]

i must be one of the few folks who liked bear and the dragon...it just rang very real for me. of course i really liked sum of all fears too and many folks find it slow...i really liked the twists in the plot

 

[priv8ter]

Not so good

10-ring...I assume you mean the Op Center books...the ones inspired by Clancy, and written by a Ghost on his outline. If that's what you mean...about as good as you would expect, which is not so good, in my opinion. You would think I would have learned...

After Alistair MacLean died, several other books were written in his name, based on story ideas he had...six of them I think. I bet he was rolling over in his grave.

 

[TheLastBoyScout]

Read 'em all except for Cardinal and the Kremlin, and Red Rabbit, starting in the 5th or 6th grade (that must have looked weird lol). Out of them all, my favorites are Executive Orders and Without Remorse.
I haven't read the 2 I mentioned earlier because I prefer straight combat, or close to it, to spy stories (I also disagree with whoever talked about The Intruders earlier for that reason, but to each his own).
Rainbow Six and Red Storm Rising were great stories, but I would've liked em more if R6 had included Jack Ryan and if Red Storm had been set in the same universe as the rest of the books.

 

[Dannyboy]

All you guys who liked Red Storm Rising should read Larry Bond's stuff. He collaborated with Clancy on RSR. Vortex and Red Phoenix were incredible.