Like most things, the books >>>> movies.
I could hardly even recognize the movie version of "Clear and Present Danger"
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"The problem with any ideology is that it gives the answer before you look at the evidence."
—Bill Clinton
"The greatest obstacle to discovery is not ignorance--it is the illusion of knowledge."
—Daniel J. Boorstin, historian, former Librarian of Congress
"But the Senator, while insisting he was not intoxicated, could not explain his nudity"
—WKRP in Cincinatti
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RIP Tom, I was a big fan of his books, both fiction and non fiction. Red Storm Rising with Larry Bond was probably his best work of fiction.
It was almost like he ran out of gas once he hit the Bear and the Rabbit (I think that's the name). I also thought the Campus series was pretty bad too.
His non fiction books based around a MAU, Fighter Wing, and he wrote a book on Submarine operations that were exceptionally well done.
He was right on the ball with some pretty wacky predictions. An airplane being used in a terrorist attack on Washington, The Cardinal of the Kremlin was a great look at the Russian Missile defense program.
Red October was actually based on an attempted defection of a Russian Missile Destroyer who's skipper decided that the government wasn't communist enough and he was going to attack Vladivostok to force the government to reform itself.
His books for the most part were well researched and rich in detail, his character development especially around John Clark and Jack Ryan and Robby Jackson was exceptionally good, though it killed him in later books with Jack Ryan jr and the Caruso twins who were terrible.
RIP Tom you bought me hours of joyfull reading. Not bad for an insurance salesman.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
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He was right on the ball with some pretty wacky predictions. An airplane being used in a terrorist attack on Washington, The Cardinal of the Kremlin was a great look at the Russian Missile defense program.
I remember telling people in 2001 that this was a plot of a Tom Clancy book, and always made me wonder how likely an Ebola plague attack was.
I think he did a ton of research on that Ebola attack scenario. He actually made you believe that a terrorist group with the right breaks could unleash something like that using shaving cans and trade shows.
But the more horrifying scenario was the rainbow 6 scenario where environmental extremists decided that the only way for the planet to heal itself was to depopulate it using a genetically enhanced version of the Ebola and a tainted super bug vaccine.
The two books focusing around John Clark were very strong books. His origin story in Without Remorse really set the stage for him as he was basically a vengence based serial killer. His turn in Rainbow was really well written as well.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
The opening battle at the DMZ was so well written from the perspective of an inexperienced officer being hit with massive artillery and massive infantry is a must read for anyone. But especially for a younger me when that was the type of warfare that we expected to fight was an emotional eye opener.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
For a while he had a real video game empire going.
Red Storm rising was a great game for its time as you took command of a 688 attack submarine and fought the war in the Atlantic. If you were successful in your missions the battle slowly turned in favor of the west, if you failed the Soviets started winning.
There was nothing better then taking an hour to sneak your submarine into the middle of a Soviet fleet, you would almost yell "Match Bearings and Shoot" as you fired a torpedo spread and then realized that everyone in the Atlantic knew where you were and you had to find a way to escape.
SSN was another submarine game a big leap forward as you fought the Chinese over the Spratley islands. You would have to hunt subs. Or fleets. Or sneak past ships and fleets to launch cruise missiles. The game had a great atmosphere, but was dumbed down in a lot of ways. It wasn't quit as good as the 688 attack sub game where you actually had to figure out how the waterfall sonar worked, and worry about things like reserve air pressure if you launched your torpedos too deep.
The rainbow 6 games were great, but you really had to be patient to do anything in them.
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
I spent way too many hours playing 688 Attack Sub. It's abandonware right now I believe.
Why are there no good sub games right now?
Back on track I'll have to go with Red Storm Rising as his best, followed by Cardinal of the Kremlin. RSR is probably the only book I've ever actually physically broke the spine of reading so many times. (paperback)
The last one was the ww2 based one, which was very real feeling right down to manually calculating your torpedo shots and having most of your torpedoes failing because you didn't arm them properly. Or trying to escape a depth charge attack while nervously watching your battery power draining.
The other great game that was inspired by Clancy was Harpoon which was an exceptional naval command simulator in its day.
I remember having control of an American carrier battle group and I was launching an attack on a Soviet Air field. I was just getting ready to launch my first strike group when a red dot appeared right in the middle of my formation and launched a spread of missiles at my carrier the Nimitz.
My missile frigates and my CIWS managed to knock the missiles down. I sent my frigates in to hunt the sub which had vanished when a whole bunch of Soviet bombers popped up on the horizon and launched about 50 missiles at my ships. Because it was in real time you had to watch those missiles crawling towards your fleet while praying that your anti missile defense worked and that asw frigate could find that sub in time.
It was the ultimate time management game
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My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
RIP Tom Clancy
