
Tom Clancy has died - BruceM
http://www.businessinsider.com/tom-clancy-dead-celebrated-thriller-author-dies-at-age-66-2013-10
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JunkDNA
If you've never read it, this is as good a time as any to pick up a copy of
The Hunt for Red October. I had never actually read it until three or four
years ago (though I had seen the movie as a teen). It has held up remarkably
well.

~~~
jedberg
I actually read the book before I saw the movie and it was great! I think
partly it holds up because he wrote it before anyone was making any media out
of his books.

All the other books clearly are written with (movie/video game) in the back of
his mind, but that one was just straight prose.

Can't agree with you more, folks should definitely read it if they haven't.
Then watch the movie again with a much greater appreciation for the story.

~~~
tnorthcutt
_All the other books clearly are written with (movie /video game) in the back
of his mind, but that one was just straight prose._

His next four books were written before The Hunt for Red October came out in
film form.

~~~
FireBeyond
Maybe so, but HFRO was optioned for feature film production within two months
of its publication, and planning began near immediately, so film adaptation
would have been pretty heavy on Clancy’s mind at the time.

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spindritf
I devoured his books as a kid and I credit that with having a somewhat
realistic view of politics and military. Most of it came from meticulously
investigated details but even plots that seemed fantastic (a plane crushing
into the Capitol) almost happened later.

~~~
colomon
I remember people after 9/11 saying "Who would ever have thought a plane could
be used as a weapon?" and thinking that it _had_ been a key plot point in a
bestselling Tom Clancy book...

~~~
VLM
A lot of rally around the flag was going on around that time.

There was also a lot of talking up the amazing organizational skills of the
hijackers. Meanwhile I'm thinking, um, let me get this straight... the amazing
skill some stuffed suit is referring to is ... buying airline tickets?

All part of the big lie security theater.

~~~
mattzito
Well, (this is a phrase that has never popped out of my mouth) in fairness to
the hijackers, they planned for over a year. They flew enough to be top-tier
elite frequent flyers, planned out which flights would have the fewest people
and the most fuel, arranged their seats such that they could properly control
the most real estate, and so on.

So, while I agree that security theater is everywhere, in the case of the
hijackers, they actually planned and developed their process very carefully.

~~~
ISL
To say little of getting the training necessary to fly an airliner. It may not
be the hardest thing in the world, but it's hardly easy.

~~~
WalterBright
Flying an airplane straight & level in good weather that's already up in the
air is fairly easy - and from what I've read about it, they still did a poor
job of that. Airliners are designed to be easy to fly, with minimal input.
I.e. they are stable, and if you just take your hands off the controls they'll
fly straight & level.

What's hard are takeoffs, landings (especially landings), flying in bad
weather, emergency conditions, etc.

There are many cases of people with no flight training whatsoever being able
to successfully take off and fly, but are unable to land.

~~~
VLM
"There are many cases of people with no flight training whatsoever being able
to successfully take off and fly, but are unable to land."

I would agree with that and this strikes me as the kind of thing that isn't
resolved by anecdotes but via someones first five minutes with a PC flight
simulator. Anything beyond arcade level.

Some of the more outlandish claims I've read about flying pretty obviously
come from people who's shadow has never darkened a keyboard of a PC running MS
FS or X-Plane, or even talked to someone who has flown a plane or even played
a PC flight sim. I did a ton of PC sim work to wrap my brain around navigation
concepts (like the to/from VOR flag, and how approaches "feel" at speed while
under cognitive load) and PC flight sims help a lot with nav, but latency
combined with lack of feedback and weird controls made it not so useful to
replace actual flight time.

As for straight and level that depends on having been properly trimmed, but
its really not all that much harder than driving. I don't think an aircraft
can be FAA certified if its not stable in at least some axes. I know several
exotic research x-planes were not stable in some axes at some parts of the
flight envelope and some .mil planes were (are?) not. If a plane is stable,
hands off it'll more or less smoothly point to some velocity vector and nose
direction (first noob pilot discovery is those two need not be pointed the
same way, and almost never are... planes are in an eternal skid, sorta, unlike
a car). That 3-d velocity vector might not be where you want, not at all, but
it'll smoothly stabilize there unless you adjust the trim tabs.

~~~
dTal
Um, your _ground vector_ won't match your nose direction if there's a
crosswind, but I can't quite make that fit into "planes are in an eternal
skid, sorta, unlike a car". Any stable aircraft in a genuine skid will quickly
weathercock until the nose is pointing forwards again, and if you hold it in a
skid with the rudder it'll eventually raise a wing to bank in the direction
the nose is pointing (and if you hold that wing down with aileron you'll
gradually change course as your engine(s) pull(s) you around until you've
flown in a large and stomach-churning flat circle).

Incidentally, do they teach that you should crab into a crosswind for your
entire final approach nowadays?

~~~
VLM
Bad word choice on my part as I was thinking of "skid" like a car as in
aircraft spend about zero time at zero angle of attack on the airfoil, not
skid as in poor rudder use during turns.

I donno about crabbing all the way into the ground now a days but if you're
crabbing when you hit the ground I suspect thats very hard on non-castering
gear and/or its ground loop time.

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protomyth
Dammit

The first book by Clancy I read was "Red Storm Rising", I picked it up at 6pm
and read until 3am. Some of the titles of chapters would have made great band
names such as "Frisbees in Dreamland".

I wish they had actually made a movie of one of his books instead of just
using the title.

~~~
larrydag
One of my all time favorite books. I'm not sure if the newer generations would
appreciate the nature of this book as it basically takes place in the Cold
War. Yet as a story it is one of the most comprehensive and riveting.

~~~
VLM
"basically takes place in the Cold War."

What has fundamentally changed WRT the situation on the ground and the plot in
the book?

Doesn't Russia and former USSR still burn oil? Doesn't the middle east still
have oil? Wouldn't you need to distract the western powers somehow if they
planned to sieze a country in the middle east, Imperial American style?

The main plot hole I see is invading the west is not going to help much with
natgas exports which is a good source of incoming money. So they'd have some
interesting economic issues. Then again eventually you'll be exporting natgas
to "someone" in the long run and you need oil now, so no problemo.

Another plot issue would be it would be harder to frame the Germans precisely
as described in the book. Well, adapt and overcome, something could be thought
up pretty similar with the same outcome.

It is true, politicans now make smiley faces at each other, but when the
rubber meets the road, and they need oil, and someone else has oil, and
they've got the power to take it and believe theres no alternative, you do the
math...

The other problem is the "newer generations" not appreciating something from
the past, unless its a sequel of a sequel of a FPS WWII game, in which case
they love it.

I don't think its a problem.

~~~
protomyth
Well, growing up with the NATO vs Warsaw Pact is a pretty big change along
with Germany which you noted. Stealth was still black when it came out.

I'm not sure how the plot would work given the ultimate goal of the USSR in
the book was to capture a chunk of the Persian Gulf oil.

~~~
VLM
I was thinking of rolling the natgas and german problem together, such that
red storm rising 2015 (as opposed to 1985) would look a lot like they threaten
to cut off natgas exports to europe (knowing the upcoming war is going to
temporarily cut off exports anyway) then things escalate until it appears some
(fill in the blank nationality) blows up a .ru pipeline outta spite therefore
its time to retaliate against Germany.

Probably the biggest plot hole would be since the book was written both sides
learned from Afghanistan (and the US from Iraq) that simply rolling tanks in
works WRT militarily controlling the territory the tanks sit on, but not at
controlling the rest of the territory or the economy or pretty much anything
else. In the very long run, a tank is pretty good at controlling the sand
shaded underneath it, not much beyond.

You'd need a new strategy for controlling the oil. Probably indirect WRT govt
coup / support in the M.E. Maybe use conventional WWIII in europe to lure as
many US forces as possible out of the middle east then coup time and install
puppets in charge of Saudi Arabia and Iraq and maybe some others.

If I were playing a cardboard or silicon wargame as the USSR in a RSR
scenario, that's pretty much how I'd play it. I think I'd have reasonably good
chance as long as it stays conventional. In the long run I'd worry about
natgas exports in the future, the west is not going to be amused at buying gas
from their recent enemies, so how are you going to fix your massive trade
imbalance? Maybe sell the excess natgas to China for A.N. fertilizer
production, they always want more food... Yeah, I could win it, I think. The
USA/NATO player would be fighting a logistics war to keep the M.E. and .eu
under control at the same time. Leading to unrestrained submarine warfare by
.ru? Crazier things have happened.

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tomjen3
Damn, that was unexpected. I must say that his books were pretty awesome.

I especially liked his "Red dawn rising" which is one of the only WWIII books
that doesn't go to a nuclear holocaust right away - if you a like to watch
politics and have a military interest I recommend you check it out.

~~~
ianstallings
It's Red Storm Rising, and there was a board game. I dug out mine just the
other day: [http://imgur.com/KEh3Y95](http://imgur.com/KEh3Y95)

I really loved the whole scenario. It's the only time I've read a book with a
ton of characters, outside of LOTR, that I wasn't incredibly confused.

~~~
acheron
There was also a (fantastic) computer game, designed by Sid Meier.
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Storm_Rising_%28video_game%...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Storm_Rising_%28video_game%29)

~~~
josephlord
Yes although you only played the (attack) submarine thread of the story your
success or failure was reflected in the balance of the war shown on a world
map if I remember correctly.

~~~
acheron
Right. You would get a mission as the attack sub to, say, sink a Russian ship
transporting Marines to Norway. If you failed, then the Russians would start
occupying Norway on the map. Was a very cool dynamic campaign for the time.

------
jedberg
In my high school you had to do a senior English thesis by reading three books
of one author and then writing a thesis tying together the themes and
characters.

I chose Tom Clancy. My English teacher said I was crazy and "would never find
anything in those books writing about".

Somehow I pulled it off and got an A on that project.

So basically, I got to read Clancy books for school. :)

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United857
Thanks for all the memories, TC. My first shipped game title was Tom Clancy's
Splinter Cell: Double Agent, and throughout high school, I read all his Jack
Ryan novels.

Even though his later novels devolved into ghost-written, right-wing political
soapboxes, still sad to see him go.

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ghc
I'm terribly sad to hear this. Tom Clancy's "Into the Storm: A Study in
Command" was one of the first books outside of the fantasy genre to inspire me
as a child. It led to years of creating RTS total conversions based on his
work; activity that laid the foundation for the broad range of programming and
design skills I have today.

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acheron
He would have liked to have seen Montana.

(RIP)

~~~
enraged_camel
:(

------
Tloewald
I was never a big fan of his writing or politics, but the original Harpoon
computer game (based on the tabletop game he was partially responsible for)
stands as one of the best computer wargames I've ever played.

~~~
fredsanford
IIRC, it wasn't Clancy that had anything to do with the creation of Harpoon.

It was Larry Bond, who was an uncredited (I think) co-author on the early
Clancy books. Bond and Clancy used Harpoon to help visualize the naval battles
in the first few books.

A side note... I was chosen as the developer to port Harpoon to OS/2 in the
early '90s but the company I worked for backed out. It pissed me off enough
that I changed jobs. Anyway, I still have a few unopened boxes of the Harpoon
software floating around here, which were handed to me by Gordon Walton
himself.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpoon_(series)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harpoon_\(series\))

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Bond](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Bond)

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rplacd
"Red Rabbit" woke up the inner foreign policy wonk in me, despite how
transparent Clancy's imperatives were - it's a pity he could never end up
working his same genuine interest with China; I all recall is supposed Chinese
naivety being dredged up - corporate espionage ("Chinese secretary has sex
with supposed Japanese computer salesman in the name of her company"); "China:
We Kill Priests and Babies".

They'd nevertheless invoked a great deal of meaningful machinery, though -
certainly compared to the sheer suppository of machismatic agency that was
Chavez-verse (credit probably required yet again, though: he was probably
first to tread within the grounds of "contemporary tacticool".)

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ChuckMcM
I will miss his books, "Red Storm Rising" and "Clear and Present Danger" are
both in my library. Some of his later books [1] suffered from too much detail,
where I would have appreciated an editor with the guts to say "Tom, its great
that this character has a full life history and several motivating events in
their past, but we don't actually need all of that in the book to tell this
story ...".

It's also sad to see a talented writer die at such a young age. Goodbye Tom,
thanks for the great books.

[1] I am specifically referring to "The Bear and the Dragon" in this example.

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stephenhuey
A friend's dad loaned me The Sum of All Fears when I was 11, and that was the
first Clancy novel I read (Having seen the movie of The Hunt for Red October,
I figured I'd enjoy it). Those 914 pages took me a couple weeks to read while
relaxing in a recliner, especially since I was kind of OCD at that age about
looking up every word I didn't understand in a massive dictionary that sat on
my lap. After hearing about nukes throughout the 80s, the story felt to my
young mind like it could happen any moment in real life.

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chiph
Sorry to hear this. I enjoyed his novels, and wished Hollywood could have
produced better movies from them.

~~~
chadwickthebold
I thought the Harrison Ford films were pretty good, and The Hunt for the Red
October is absolutely a classic.

~~~
erbo
I agree with you on _Red October,_ which is one of my two favorite naval
movies. The plot is fairly compressed and "amped up" compared to the book, but
it still holds up pretty well. I suppose the only thing one could wish for is
that Harrison Ford, rather than Alec Baldwin, had been playing Jack Ryan.

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thehodge
I'm a big fan of the Ryanverse and I am really sad to hear about his passing..
I've read and listened to the books countless times and it makes me sad to
think that there is now an end once the next book comes out.

(I know that he has had ghostwriters for the last x books but the characters
and stories are now finite)

~~~
contextual
Perhaps Tom Clancy books will continue to be written and published by a cadre
of ghostwriters, much like VC Andrews.

~~~
VLM
The problem with ghostwriters is as a wargamer (both cardboard and silicon) I
always read his books as Very accurate realistic wargamer fanfic with lots of
background material for those outside of the hobby. Oh and he tried to add a
little color to his counters ... err I mean characters ... by making up little
stories about this guy always wanted to visit the state of Montana after he
defected or whatever.

A real "Tom Clancy" style book would be take an exciting game of, say, Steel
Wolves or Hornet Commander and remove all the dice rolling and turn it into
fan fiction by adding a little imagination to the characters and tons of
background for people outside .mil and outside the wargaming hobby.

Unfortunately what we'll get is a ghostwriter who will probably steal the plot
of an ancient WWII era submarine movie and make it Clancy-style by adding a
dude who wants to defect to visit Montana and the main character would be
named Ryan and the tech details and "wargaming" would be completely butchered
into laugh ability by anyone actually in the .mil or into wargaming.

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mathiasben
66 seems young.

~~~
null_ptr
66 _is_ young.

~~~
astrodust
Even Asimov, who was 72 when he died, went way too soon.

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ZanderEarth32
I never read any of his books but I spent many hours playing the original
Rainbow 6 on PC as a kid.

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hawkharris
At the exact moment I read this headline, I was cropping a picture of Sam
Fisher, one of Clancy's characters, for a fan website. (I'm a nerd, I know.)
Terrible news. I'll definitely miss his knack for portraying action and
suspense.

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nutate
New 'Tom Clancy' brand books will be released for the next 100 years.

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eCa
Sad. I really liked the earlier Ryan-verse books (I've not read anything by
him after Bear and the Dragon).

My favourite remains Without Remorse. I miss a film adaption; Jim Caviezel
would be perfect as Kelly.

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Tycho
I especially remember the first chapter of Red Storm Rising being absolutely
gripping. Wonder if they'll ever make a film from that one (the plot is
basically WW3 in the late 80s).

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theorique
It's a shame. He was a smart detail man and he got the right balance of human
interest and technical correctness in his novels.

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barkingcat
Spent many hours with his books. Sad that he's left. A drink.

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tlear
Really sad to see him pass. Some of his books were absolutely superb: Rid
Storm Rising, Hunt for the Red October, Patriot Games, Without remorse. RIP :(

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ISL
"If you don't write it down, it never happened."

Thanks, Tom.

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zerooneinfinity
Tango down :O(

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fgwood
America needs a real Jack Ryan!

~~~
ceejayoz
Given the frequency with which he attracts world-changing trouble... no, thank
you!

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jpgvm
A very sad day. R.I.P ...

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qoo
Rest In Peace

