who remembers Tom Clancy? - despite being dead, his name still pops up...

[MrTroll]

Fun fact: Ubisoft has Tom Clancy's embalmed corpse displayed under glass in their HQ, Lenin-style.

 

[Lone MacReady II]

A couple of his games have some really sweet music.

 

[William Murderface]

The thing about Clancy that irks me is almost all of his military characters are super upstanding people who give 110% all the time and a practically perfect in every way. He doesn't have the shitbags or the spotlight rangers who stab everyone in the back to get ahead, or the guys ripping off .mil every single way they can or the gal making up sexual assault accusations because she's pissed her sergeant told her to do her job or the guy who is Retired On Active Duty and doing absolutely nothing until he gets his DD-214 or the gal who keeps getting pregnant and having family issues and has almost 30 years in and never deployed or the officer who is completely inept but somehow manages to keep getting promoted or the politicians in uniform who are making no waves or rocking the boat depsite seeing problems because they just want that next star on their collar.

 

[ToroidalBoat]

Since the '00s seem recent because of the 2010s being a blur, Tom Clancy books are still seem like a recent sight.

 

[Grub]

I've never read any of his books and I don't think I've even seen any of the movies but I liked the original Rainbow Six. I wasn't that great at it because I was a kid when I played it and didn't really understand how to be good at it but I remember having fun playing it. Every time I see Tom Clancy's name it makes me think of that game.

 

[Jason Wynn]

I mean, he was hardly an obscure author. Standard airport fiction right up there with Stephen King and John Grisham. Read a few of his novels way back in the day but never got really invested in his stuff.

 

[Iron Jaguar]

My favourite ever author. Red Rabbit was great, and Rainbow: Six was a fantastic novel.
The Sum of All Fears was one of his best ones; (((Hollywood))) managed to turn that into a real turd.

I remember Without Remorse was such a shitty book that it was the first and last Clancy novel I read. Even 19 year old me was able to recognize it as a bunch of Mary-Sue crap.

John Kelly was a SEAL, you absolute imbecile. Nothing he does in that book is implausible for a man who is a literal trained killer.

 

[Mayor Cody Travers]

9/11 ruined Clancy.

Up to that point, remember, he wrote just in time for the Cold War to end and thus America needed new enemies to fight in fiction. He provided that, but also got wacky with all sorts of stuff like a rogue Japanese imperialist kamikaze bomber crashing into the Capitol, or Russia joining NATO, or Iran n' Iraq joining into some uber-Islamic Republic. It was the 90s, when "the end of history" happened and American culture and liberal democracy seemed truly poised to take over the world.

Then 9/11 happened, we got a taste of terrorism in good ole' New York City, in real life.

Suddenly all the above scenarios felt trite and conceived. We suddenly saw what REALLY happened geopolitical-wise, and the idea we could shrug off that kamikaze attack and hunt down just his rogue imperialist faction felt absurd - it'd look like we'd be occupying the islands all over again considering the incredible amount of blood and treasure into the Middle East. At the same time, as those wars dragged on, we saw firsthand how even America at the peak of its game couldn't just effortlessly remake countries in its own image (as it did in the 40s with Germany and Japan). Suddenly Clancy's Peak 'Murrica and 100% Heroic Military Men in a world of crazy geopolitical stunts felt.... well, like fiction.

It's fun to look back on those novels and be reminded of 90s America's self-image of complete confidence as top dog, though.

 

[skykiii]

I've never read any of his books and I don't think I've even seen any of the movies but I liked the original Rainbow Six. I wasn't that great at it because I was a kid when I played it and didn't really understand how to be good at it but I remember having fun playing it. Every time I see Tom Clancy's name it makes me think of that game.

One thing I quickly realized last time I played the game was that it has a bunch of lies in its design.

Most notably, the idea that the "planning" phase where you're putting waypoints on a map needs to be well thought out. A better idea is to just make every other step a waypoint but never have them go through a door--past that point, do manual control. (The reason for making waypoints "every other step" is because at that point the AI will check to see if an enemy is visible and thus shootable--the AI prioritizes getting to the waypoint above self-defense, so doing it this way ensures they will fire back and likely clear the area).

It tries to pressure you with permadeath but then has nameless "Reserves" that you have an unlimited supply of and its actually probably better to just use those anyway.

A tactic I quickly discovered was flashbang a room, run inside.. then hit the keyboard hotkey that switches your direct control to a different team. The one AI guy you left in the nest of baddies will quickly take them down without your help. When you switch back to him, you'll have your man and three dead bogies.

...... This reminds me I need to get the sequels. I've been told that Rainbow Six 3 is the best game in the series.

 

[Grub]

One thing I quickly realized last time I played the game was that it has a bunch of lies in its design.

Most notably, the idea that the "planning" phase where you're putting waypoints on a map needs to be well thought out. A better idea is to just make every other step a waypoint but never have them go through a door--past that point, do manual control. (The reason for making waypoints "every other step" is because at that point the AI will check to see if an enemy is visible and thus shootable--the AI prioritizes getting to the waypoint above self-defense, so doing it this way ensures they will fire back and likely clear the area).

It tries to pressure you with permadeath but then has nameless "Reserves" that you have an unlimited supply of and its actually probably better to just use those anyway.

A tactic I quickly discovered was flashbang a room, run inside.. then hit the keyboard hotkey that switches your direct control to a different team. The one AI guy you left in the nest of baddies will quickly take them down without your help. When you switch back to him, you'll have your man and three dead bogies.

...... This reminds me I need to get the sequels. I've been told that Rainbow Six 3 is the best game in the series.

Shows how long it's been since I've played it. The only parts out of anything you mentioned I remember is the flashbangs. I just remember flashbanging any room I went into because I don't think I'd played another game with flashbangs at that point and it was pretty cool flashbanging enemies.

 

[TenMilesWide]

I liked his mathematical thriller phase, Fear of all Sums was a real page turner.

 

[Zero MK 2]

The Splinter cell games were fun. Was like MGS but if it was made by actual game designers. Not a wannabe film director.

 

[ChampFantana]

I can't remember reading anything of his outside of Rainbow Six roughly 20 years ago. I DID like the first two Splinter Cell games though.

 

[skykiii]

I do love how this topic is evenly split between people who know Clancy as a novelist and people who know him from video games.

The Splinter cell games were fun. Was like MGS but if it was made by actual game designers. Not a wannabe film director.

Let's not throw shade on MGS now! Not the first two, at least.

Splinter Cell I've considered revisiting especially hearing the game runs better on PC (I always had the PS2 version). That said I recall having issues with it, like I recall it not always clearly indicating where you're supposed to go--in one room a vent opens up, but I didn't see it at first and wound up wandering for hours before I finally noticed it.

That particular first level was exclusive to the PS2 version tho so maybe other levels are up to a higher standard?

 

[Outer Space Traveller]

Tom Clancy brings some nostalgia to me, right there with Frederick Forsyth, maybe Daniel Silva too.

Spoiler: Some miscellaneous information

I have not read both proper, and I hate myself for it, because the genre that both wrote about seem to be quite interesting. I believe it is a espionage/action/thriller, which is mostly enjoyed by folks around the age in their 40s to their 80s and I don't know, seems like a very good entertainment. Why did I say nostalgia, now? Because my grandfather did read Tom Clancy's novels - especially Frederick Forsyth ones. Now, I may be wrong to lump all together, and apologies if so. Yet... even if he was a hard person to deal with often, this thread brings back memories of the times I used to check up on him and he was reading some of these novels. I miss him, now.

If you folks have any good recommendations of which are the best novels (Tom Clancy, of course) and what authors are like him (Frederick Forsyth, maybe?) and their respective best works, I would be grateful. I really need some good literature.

 

[Syaoran Li]

I used to read Tom Clancy back in high school and in my early twenties and I liked a lot of his books.

The first book of his I ever read was The Bear and The Dragon, which IMHO, was a very entertaining read but man did it age poorly in retrospect. It's very much a product of the late 90's, in that hazy period after the collapse of the Soviet Union but before 9/11 and the rise of Putin.

 

[mindlessobserver]

Tom Clancey was definitely a product of his time. A time when Americans still believed their country was a force for good, being a glow nigger was a noble profession, and the media could be trusted.

Honestly I am glad he's dead. If he'd survived to the current year I guarantee he would have a terminal case of TDS like Stephen King. Since he passed I can still look back on his books fondly.

 

[skykiii]

Tom Clancey was definitely a product of his time. A time when Americans still believed their country was a force for good, being a glow nigger was a noble profession, and the media could be trusted.

Honestly I am glad he's dead. If he'd survived to the current year I guarantee he would have a terminal case of TDS like Stephen King. Since he passed I can still look back on his books fondly.

There's another thing I'm happy for:

So, apparently there was an attempt to turn Tom Clancy's character Jack Ryan into a franchise, first with a movie (Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit) and then a TV series (Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan). While the latter is still running, the fact that I never hear anyone talk about them makes me think they're failures and won't be remembered in five years.

I consider that a good thing.

I've never watched either one, but consider two factors:

One, even the 80s and 90s movies were marred by being liberal adaptations of primarily conservative material, as discussed earlier in this thread.

Two, attempts to make a franchise after the author dies tend to irrevocably go poorly, especially nowadays--look at how Middle-earth is being raped by the likes of Amazon, and so many people have allowed the dreadful Peter Jackson movies to permanently color their interpretation of Tolkien.

It's gladdening to know that Tom Clancy will be spared this fate. Though personally if I could change one thing about the world I would reverse the positions--have Clancy be the guy who gets raped by Hollywood and Tolkien be the guy who remains pure.

 

[Michael Wade]

I liked rainbow six. It's pretty weird how I thought the villians were ridclous but a lot more realistic now. Also very surpising to me he only ever did one book of it.

Remember liking one of the splinter cell novels, but it was rather weird in that my hazy memory remembers sam not really doing much of note. He was just kinda there while all this background shit went down.

 

[Quarterback Rex Grossman]

The Jack Ryan series recently ended. As for the changes to Sum of all Fears, I recall that was all on Harrison Ford back in the '90s. Apparently they were also developing The Cardinal and the Kremlin, which is an odd choice but would have been cool. There's also a '90s Net Force movie with Scott Bakula that everyone forgets about.

I read all of Clancy when I was young, but checked out partway through Teeth of the Tiger when Jack Jr. became the lead character. It felt so forced and silly.