DVD Talk Forum - New Clancy novel

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New Clancy novel

The Teeth of the Tiger will be out August 11th. The premise will center around a secret govt group called the Campus whose job it is to spot terrorist activity. Mideast thugs and colombian drug lords join forces to cause problems for them and their newest member Jack Ryan Jr. Not sure how I feel about this plot line. Last I had heard was there was only a book or two left from Clancy on the Ryanverse theme, so bringing in the son for an obvious passing of the torch seems a waste of time. As long as Jack SR maintains a big part of the story I'm ok with it.

This book also came out pretty fast after the snore that was Red Rabbit. Maybe he felt bad about that and wanted to get something out there quickly, but hopefully he didn't put this out so quickly as to sacrifice quality.

Clancy lost me a long time ago. His first 4 or 5 books were great, and then I lost interest in Jack Ryan when he moved up to president of the United States. I didn't read Red Rabbit, I barely got through Bear and the Dragon. Rainbow Six was decent though

Chanster, if you haven't read Red Storm Rising as one of those early books you mentioned, then you should give that one a try. More action in that one than political intrigue and is mostly a stand alone novel, though Ryan may get a very brief mention. It has been awhile so I don't remember for sure. Also Without Remorse gives you some nice background on John Clarks character, though there is little about this book that resembles a typical Clancy novel. It's more about revenge and drug dealers than spying.

I haven't read The Bear and the Dragon or Red Rabbit yet. I tend to read things like Clancy while on vacation, so I will probably pick them (and the new one) to take with me this fall. BTW, anyone else think Without Remorse would make a great screenplay?

Oh yeah I have read all of the Clancy books, except for Red Rabbit. I hated Bear and the Dragon

And Red Storm Rising is not in the Ryan universe.

Yeah, I know Red Storm Rising isn't a Ryan book. I just thought I remembered a vague reference to him very briefly at one point, but wasn't sure since its been awhile.

Quote:

Originally posted by AGuyNamedMike
anyone else think Without Remorse would make a great screenplay?

I have been hearing rumors about it being made into a film for years. I'll believe it when I see it.

I thought Red Rabbit was good, just not anywhere on par w/ his previous work - it was really a slow, short story for Clancy.

I loved the first 3/4 of the Bear and the Dragon, but Clancy just pissed me off w/ the last 1/4 of the book w/ how quickly he resolved the conflict and ended the book. He spent all of this time building it up and then just ended it, like he was sick of writing it.

Clear and Present Danger was my first Clancy read in junior high and I think it still my be my fave, but I love all of his books, w/ the exception of his last two - as stated above. I will always give him a chance when he puts out a book, so I eagerly await his next release.

Still love the ending to Executive Decision.

Spoiler:

Now that would be fun as a movie!

"Red Rabbit" is so bad, it makes you sorry for Clancy... It has a stupid premise, distorted geography, formulaic characters, bad timing and it's thoroughly unconvincing.

Red Rabbit was truly horrid. Only Cardinal of the Kremlin was close to being more boring, and it at least ended well after a slow start and added to Ryans development.

I also probably liked Clear and Present Danger best, though the above two titles were the only ones I didn't consider at least very good over all.

Quote:

Originally posted by Cedar
Yeah, I know Red Storm Rising isn't a Ryan book. I just thought I remembered a vague reference to him very briefly at one point, but wasn't sure since its been awhile.

Nope, Ryan isn't mentioned anywhere. For those who enjoy RSR, also check out books by the co-author, Larry Bond. He writes some incredible military fiction titles, and has recently gone into political fiction as well.

And I agree with others: Red Rabbit was horrid. I've been reading Clancy since RSR was first published and this downward spiral is painful to see.

I actually liked Red Rabbit. My only gripe was that I wanted Clacy to focus more on the info Oleg was obviously privy to. The last chapter kind of lost me, though, since I could see the ending a mile away.

Spoiler:

The only other Clancy novels I've read are (in the order that I read them) The Sum Of All Fears, Rainbow Six and now Red Rabbitt. Just one question, though.

Spoiler:

In any case, I really want to read the other Clancy books and have actually pre-ordered The Teeth of the Tiger since I really like Ryan.

BTW, what other books that focus on Clark are there?

Rocshemp, the only other book that showcases only Clark is Without Remorse. It is mostly a background story on how Clark came to be, and is more about revenge on drug dealers than the usual military/spy flavor of most of Clancys work. A good read, but not representative of most of his work.

Too bad you already read Sum of all Fears, because there is a bargain hardback available that has Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and Sum all in one cover. Might still be a good deal vs buying them seperately, but I don't remember what it went for. Add Red Storm Rising, Hunt for Red October, Debt of Honor and Executive Orders, and you will be pretty set.

Quote:

Originally posted by RocShemp
Just one question, though. [spoiler]In Red Rabbit Ryan thinks about how he's never met a defector. Does this mean the ending of The Hunt For Red October was changed in the movie (as is obvious was done with the film version Patriot Games)ß

Forget the movies, they are a totally different world.

The chronological order of the books is
Without Remorse
Patriot Games
The Red Rabbit
The Hunt for Red October
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
Rainbow Six
The Bear and the Dragon

I prefer the publishing order though, which would be
The Hunt for Red October
Patriot Games
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Without Remorse
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
Rainbow Six
The Bear and the Dragon
The Red Rabbit

Quote:

Originally posted by ineluki
Forget the movies, they are a totally different world.

The chronological order of the books is
Without Remorse
Patriot Games
The Red Rabbit
The Hunt for Red October
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
Rainbow Six
The Bear and the Dragon

I prefer the publishing order though, which would be
The Hunt for Red October
Patriot Games
The Cardinal of the Kremlin
Clear and Present Danger
The Sum of All Fears
Without Remorse
Debt of Honor
Executive Orders
Rainbow Six
The Bear and the Dragon
The Red Rabbit

Thanks, ineluki.

I'm going to try to get them all and read them straight through in chronological order and then publishing order. :D

Quote:

Originally posted by Cedar
Rocshemp, the only other book that showcases only Clark is Without Remorse. It is mostly a background story on how Clark came to be, and is more about revenge on drug dealers than the usual military/spy flavor of most of Clancys work. A good read, but not representative of most of his work.

Too bad you already read Sum of all Fears, because there is a bargain hardback available that has Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and Sum all in one cover. Might still be a good deal vs buying them seperately, but I don't remember what it went for. Add Red Storm Rising, Hunt for Red October, Debt of Honor and Executive Orders, and you will be pretty set.

Thanks for the heads up, Cedar.
And I will look up that hardback that has Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and Sum of all Fears all in one cover. I only borrowed the last book (and have never read the first two) so it wont be like I'm purchasing it again.

Rocshemp, it looks like according to Amazon that trilogy is out of print. But they do list some places to get it used. I did a search on Amazon for Clancy and it will tell you there are 240 results. Search ahead until you get to selection number 64 and that is the book I was talking about. Good luck!

Thanks a bunch, Cedar. :)

Books out. Anyone else pick it up yet?

I'm about 30 pages in. I like it better than Red Rabbit so far (the weakest of the Ryan books, but I still liked it for what it was), but his character development seems to be getting worse....

Quote:

Originally posted by Blade
Books out. Anyone else pick it up yet?

I'm about 30 pages in. I like it better than Red Rabbit so far (the weakest of the Ryan books, but I still liked it for what it was), but his character development seems to be getting worse....

The character development is getting worse? Great. :( It's like he is taking less time in writing his books and putting a lot less into them. The new one and Red Rabbit were both about half the size (page-wise) of many of his previous books, too.

Quote:

Picked it up yesterday during a Peter Frampton concert/signing at Border's on Broadway & Wall St.

I went back today for the Clancy signing. I can't beleive the size of his PR / Security group.

Just started - 10 pages in.

Quote:

Originally posted by bahist17
The character development is getting worse? Great. :( It\'s like he is taking less time in writing his books and putting a lot less into them.

In the interest of accuracy, I think I should say I may have misspoke. What I notice is that the way he\'s introducing all these new characters makes them feel a little like caricatures. Which I think he\'s always done, it just seems more obvious in his last few books, and perhaps a little moreso in this one. At least so far.

Won\'t be able to get my copy for a couple days, damned kids football practices! I\'m hearing from those here that have picked it up that it is smaller than his typical book. Wonder if he is responding to critics who have felt his books are 200 pages longer than they need to be in many cases? I\'ve never shared that opinion as the shear number of characters he usually has in a story require more than the standard 400 pages most authors write.

Here\'s an interesting article with a Q&A w/ Clancy about his new novel:

http://www.msnbc.com/news/951624.asp?0cv=KB20&cp1=1

Quote:

CLANCY’S NEW NOVEL—released this week—seems just as tuned in to the current zeitgeist. “The Teeth of the Tiger” is premised upon an argument for pre-emptive action by a super-secret spy group—set up with the president’s blessing—outside the federal budget and away from prying Congressional eyes. As much a defense of the recent American war on Iraq as a precept for fighting terror, “Teeth” pits Clancy’s new generation spooks against a chilling alliance: a Colombian drug runner motivated by money teamed with an Islamic extremist inflamed by faith.

Clancy, however, remains adamant that he is just trying to tell a story—not making any political points. He spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Brian Braiker about how the United States might better fight terrorism, his experiences working with Hollywood and what he, a famously cantankerous novelist, really thinks of the media. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Thanks for your time today, I know you’re not a huge fan of interviews.

Tom Clancy: Nonsense. You guys have your job to do and it’s an important job. I sometimes wish you did it better—but then a lot of people wish I did my job better.

At one point your protagonists debate the legitimacy of the preemptive killing of potential murderers.

Would you prefer to have a hero without a conscience? Real people have them, including U.S. Marines.

But that particular debate seems especially relevant in light of our recent war on Iraq.

If people make war on us, we have the right to make war back. Actually, one of my characters says that in so many words. And in war you don’t knock on the guy’s door and say, “Can you come outside so I can shoot you in the face?” You just kill them. Because in war the rules are different. Well, we’re in a war now with terrorism; we should use different tactics, tactics that would be somewhat more effective than what we’re doing now.

That seems to be what you’re saying in your book.

No. I’m telling a story; I’m not making a political statement.

Fair enough. At one point in ‘Teeth of the Tiger’ you refer, from a terrorist’s point of view, to America’s “suicidal openness to strangers.”

A lot of people ask me about that. That’s how our adversaries think. I don’t like this label “Islamic terrorist” because it sounds religiously bigoted and I don’t approve of that. But a lot of these guys are people who are educated outside their countries in Europe or America, and I discuss that at some length in the new book. Essentially what happens is you have people who come out of fairly restrictive societies into what is a fairly open society and they don’t always make the transition terribly well.

Do you yourself see this openness as one of our bigger vulnerabilities?

Any free country has vulnerabilities and the reason is because we’re free. We don’t deny people the right to travel. I could drive if I want to from New York to LA, God forbid, and there’s no legal restriction preventing me from doing that. And that’s a good thing. Whatever dangers come to us as a result of our freedoms, I’ll take the freedoms and the dangers.

I’m curious about this group of spies operating outside the system in your book, the proverbial teeth of the tiger. What are they if not some sort of rogue organization?

No. Rogue organization is a bad choice of words. A rogue elephant is an animal that has gotten kind of out of control. A rogue agency is something that’s operating beyond its charter.

Well, these guys are not operating beyond their charter.

But they technically don’t exist. They don’t even have a charter.

Well, it’s not written down, but they have one.

With no set of checks or balances to —

That’s how you strangle. That’s how you prevent people from doing real things. The whole premise of the book is if the government wants to do something effectively it has to be outside the budget process. That’s why the original title for this novel was “Off the Books.”

But an agency like this could easily fall under the wrong leadership without those checks and balances.

That’s why you have to be very careful setting it up. But at some point you have to trust professionals to be professionals just like you trust doctors to be doctors. That’s what they do.

It’s interesting that you brought up red tape. Your books are known in part for their action, but —

Mainly what I do is try to portray reality, to show things the way they really are. And with all due modesty I think I’m pretty good at that. The way the world really works is that the world is not digital, it’s analog. Which means the world is an untidy place. And I portray it as an untidy place.

So is this spook group in “Teeth of the Tiger” your fantasy of cutting through the red tape?

Maybe so, but it would work if people gave it the chance. The CIA does not work that way, and because it’s part of the budget process and subject to political oversight, it’s hard for the government to be efficient. There’s a point where one of the characters asks another: “How is it you were able to do that?” And he says, “Well, private industry can be much more efficient in choosing civilian contractors,” and that’s just a fact. Private industry is more efficient than the government.

Are you suggesting that information-gathering agencies like the CIA and NSA—

I’m not suggesting anything. I’m just telling a story.

Can I ask you, then, is the CIA outdated? Are they configured to a Cold War world that doesn’t exist any more?

The CIA exists because it performs an important function. It gets information from another country to the decision-makers in our government. The problem is that the decision-makers can’t use the CIA efficiently to make use of the information which they provide. Now if we had solved that problem, I wouldn’t have to write a book like this.

There are critiques of the press throughout the book—one of your heroes even compares it to “women trading gossip.”

Really? Well whoever said that wasn’t me. The press has a very important function. You may be the principal guardians of our freedom. You guys have a vital function to our country. But unfortunately, I don’t think you always take the job seriously enough.

So you advocate a press that does act as a check, even though you were just complaining about too many checks and balances in government.

Unfortunately, in the last 20 years, the press has kind of put its own spin on things, and that’s not what you guys are paid to do.

With the homeland security alert bouncing from yellow to orange and back again, has the government done clumsy job of keeping the public calm and informed?

Yeah, I think that’s pretty stupid. And the trouble with you guys in the media is that someone does something stupid and you [attack] him. Why don’t you just say, “this is stupid” and just go on? Or better yet, don’t even talk about it. One of the problems I have with the news media is that you’d rather have a bad story than a good one. What you should ask is, “How do you fix it,” not, “Who got it wrong.” The first thing that people asked when the planes crashed into the twin towers was, “whose fault is this.” Well, it’s the fault of the idiots flying the airplanes for starters. But you can’t blame the intelligence community for not doing its job properly if you don’t give it proper support, and when was the last time the media supported the CIA? If you treat ‘em like dogs they’re going to urinate on the fire hydrant rather than get the burglar.

Speaking of finding fault, you have grumbled about the adaptations of some of your movies. Who would you like to see playing your protagonist Jack Ryan if another movie were to be made?

I think Ben Affleck [who played the role in “The Sum of All Fears”] is doing just fine. He’s a really good kid. He’s working really hard to be a good actor. And you can actually hold a conversation with him, which is not true of all actors. I’m delighted to be working with him. We talk a lot, we’re not working on anything specific, but we talk because we’re pals.

But some of the adaptations of your books take liberties with your plots.

Yeah, they do that. It’s like watching someone put tattoos on your baby. When you sell a book to Hollywood, they get rights. As long as I get the money I can’t complain too much, can I?

So you’ve done books, you’ve done movies, even video games. How did the games come about?

I started a company back in 1996 and it seemed like a fun thing to do. I sold the company a couple years ago, but guess what, it was really fun. I had a great bunch of kids working for me. I called them my perverse children. And they did superbly. The game that spun off of [the novel] “Rainbow Six” did very well indeed.

Do you play them yourself?

No. It’s a lot more fun for me to help design them than it is to play them. One thing I’m good at, the other I’m not.

Did you ever want to be a spy when you were growing up?

Dear God, no. I can’t lie worth a damn, so it’s the wrong business for me.

But it must be fun to write about it.

It’s fun to be a novelist because it’s kinda like being God. I decide whatever happens in my universe. And that can be kind of fun just so long as you don’t get carried away with it.

You have complained in the past that the 1991 gulf war ended prematurely. What do you make of what’s going on in Iraq now?

Well, we finally got the original job done and I think it’s going to work out. It’s going to be a sloppy process, but we’re going to get there.

You’ve said that you’re proud to be American. Do you ever worry about patriotism or national pride being mistaken abroad for hubris?

[Laughs] The people with the most hubris in America work at the New York Times and the Washington Post. The New York Times really thinks their pages are holy. They’re a newspaper—it’s not holy; they make mistakes. We all make mistakes. But hubris? That’s a Greek word from a long time ago. That’s really a disease of kings and princes.