I was looking over some Tom Clancy websites recently and discovered some interesting info on one called www.clancyfaq.com. Here he says that Red Rabbit and another one yet to be written will be his last in the Jack Ryan series. Probable release for the final one will be in 2004, and according to Clancy will be a departure from what he has done before. Of course he reserves the right to change his mind on this, but I would bet he sticks to this plan. With Jack in the White House there isn't much more he can do with him. It will be interesting to see if he creates a whole new hero or maybe devotes his next novels to the Rainbow Six series and John Clark.

its about time- Clancys books have hit the skids since Jack Ryan became President. I always thought that whole concept was improbable to begin with

i am a few books behind but i really enjoyed executive orders.

I haven't read Red Rabbit yet, but I agree that Clancy's books have been going down in quality since Ryan became president. Rainbow Six is kind of the exception because it doesn't really deal with the Ryan storyline that much. Clancy should definitly continue writing about Clark and Chavez though.

And on a somewhat related topic, am I the only one getting angry about all the "Tom Clancy Presents" offshoot books popping up left and right? I mean, in the beginning, I read the first few Op-Center books, and even a couple of the Power Plays, which were written or at least co-written by Clancy. Now, I see an Op-Center book and it says in BIG BOLD TYPE, created by Tom Clancy, an in teeny tiny type, it says, written by some other Joe Schmoe. Plus, the books have gotten much smaller in size.

To me at least, that just makes Clancy out too look like he's just trying to make $$$ off of his fans.

Concerning the Opcenter books, Clancy and another author (his name escapes me now but is listed on the early books) both came up with the idea for the series. As time went on they turned the writing chores over to Jeff Rovin, but Clancy has never actually written any of the Opcenter books. He merely takes credit for the concept. Same goes for all the other off shoot books like Net Force and such. The fact the books arn't 900 pages long should be a hint he has little to do with the written content. He isn't the first to do this or will he be the last.

I'd also ignore Red Rabbit, or at least wait until it comes out in paperback. VERY dull reading, Jack doing little more than brainstorming with his British counterpart. I had high hopes for this book because it was going back in time to when Jack wasn't President and he could have had an active role.

I'd like to see the series shift over to Clark, but not present-day Clark. SOG Clark would be something to read....

"Red Rabbit" was probably the worst Tom Clancy book I've ever read. Not only that it's overlong, and implausible (the Russian defector has a conscience crisis) , it also makes a mess out of geography - a train going from the USSR to Yugoslavia and only afterwards to Hungary? umm... can you please look at a map?

Clancy has also become a staunch Republican, and Ryan has ossified as his alter-ego. There's a bunch of criticism against social protection and healthcare - which is totally unwarranted and detracts from the main story. Lame... and sad.

Clancy's conservative ideology has been creeping into his books for a while now, but really appeared fullforce in The Bear & The Dragon. Half of Jack's comments concern blasting the anti-cigarette lobby. I don't really mind that sort of stuff, but the overall quality of his writing has been going downhill quite a lot over the past few books.

For those interested in fantastically-written Clancy-esque books, check out Larry Bond, who was the co-author of Red Storm Rising.

Clancy has seriously lost his **** in the last few years.

His earliest books were mildly entertaining trash (which isn't a bad thing -- most genre novels are little more than that), but lately his books have turned into military fetish porn peppered with wildly out-of-place political ranting and raving. And he takes a thousand pages to do it.

The only interesting -- and possibly logical -- end to his Jack Ryan saga would be for Jack Ryan to turn into an insane fascist dictator and declare himself Fuhrer of America.

I mean, President Ryan? Jesus Christ, that's lame and self-indulgent. Anne Rice couldn't even come up with that kind of ****.