 |
Tom Clancy had some difficutly finding
a publisher for "The Hunt for Red October". It was finally published
by the Naval Institute Press in Annapolis. G.P. Putnam and Sons,
Inc. picked up publication of all the later books. Red October was
published in 1984 with only 387 pages. "Only" compared to the subsequent
efforts. "Red Storm Rising" is the only of the major novels that
is not part of the Jack Ryan story, but it's a good tale anyhow.
Red Storm came out in 1986, 652 pages. |
 |
 |
"Patriot Games" was published in 1987 and is
540 pages in length. Clancy doesn't identify the exact period in
which each story takes place, but there are numerous hints in each book
to enable the anal fan to reconstruct the proper order. We quickly
learned that "Patriot Games" preceeded "The Hunt for Red October" in Clancy
and Ryan's universe. "The Cardinal in the Kremlin" appeared in 1988
and almost exactly matched "Patriot Games" in length with 538 pages. |
 |
 |
"Cardinal" may not be especially memorable for
some reason. At least it was passed over in the movie sequence for
"Clear and Present Danger", Clancy's 1989 offering in his book-a-year spurt.
The title reflects the phrase used by the National Command Authority (President)
to justify and authorize actions by the CIA. Danger came to press
with 656 pages followed by "The Sum of All Fears" in 1991 with 798 pages.
"The Sum of All Fears" appears to be the next movie offering in 2001. |
 |
 |
"Without Remorse" is way out of sequence taking
place years before the rest of the story. Jack Ryan earns a brief
mention,
as a college student, near the end of the book. This story has some
expecially brutal scenes. This was a 1993 publication at 637 pages.
"Debt of Honor" was one of my favorites and made its appearance in 1994.
Clancy's writing style continued to grow in details and the scope of the
stories expaned. The book seemed as though Clancy and the editors
worked hard to hold it to 766 pages. |
 |
 |
"Debt of Honor" left fans on the edge of a true
cliff-hanger until "Executive Orders" appeared in 1996 to continue the
Jack Ryan story. The complexity and numerous sub-plots of this book
stretched it to 874 pages and it seemed as though there were stories left
untold. "Rainbow Six" continued the two-year interval pattern appearing
in 1998 at 740 pages. This story line appeared to have been written
a bit "tighter" than the previous few books. It was a good read,
but aren't they all? |
 |
 |
"The Bear and the Dragon" was an August, 2000
release. It is a hefty story. The 1028 pages of this one led
me to believe we might get our Clancy fixes taked care of. It took
Clancy over 750 pages, about his normal book, to setup the China - Russia
war in this one. The plot lines for the execution of the war and
for its ending required all of those 750 pages or we'd have been well lost
at the end. We probably have a wait until the summer of 2002 if the
current pattern continues. Seems like a long time. |
?
Get to work, Big Guy. |
