Life choices, krellz. He wrote some damn good thrillers though.

In his day he was fantastic.

A great American

bo - I totally agree. It is from a selfish standpoint that I lament his choices.

Hear, hear.

Clancy will be remembered as one of the best authors of all time.

I particularly liked "Red Storm Rising" and "The Hunt for Red October". They were fast and punchy. The later stuff read like he'd suddenly discovered that if he wrote a paragraph instead of a sentence or a page instead of a paragraph, he'd still make 10c per word and people would still buy them. The books became a chore to read instead of a joy.

He was also involved in the computer game "Harpoon" and used it to game out the tactics for the navel battles fought in Red Storm Rising.

Didn't write my kind of book, but at least he was enthusiastic about his craft, and sounds like he was a pretty solid guy.

"Clancy will be remembered as one of the best authors of all time."

While this is neither the time or place--no.

I could see him going down the same way an Edgar Rice Burroughs did...

Maybe Jack Ryan and that (definitely inventive) alternate America will be remembered the same way as Burrough's Tarzan...

Both have had enough film adaptations, and are both thrillers.

But while I haven't read much of his, he always came across as a very sort of pulp-thriller kind of writer--which is totally awesome in its own way.

That's arguably what Dumas' Three Musketeers and a lot of the Robin Hood adaptations are or trace back to.

So I'm NOT saying he's a bad writer. I can't make that claim about him.

I'm just saying I don't seeing him cracking the Top 10 with Dante and Homer and Dickens and our old buddy Willy Shakes.

So, a Top 10 Pulp Writer?
Sure, I think that's fair.
But Top 10 All-Time?
No way.
Top 10 in American Lit?
No way.

Sorry, Obi, if you didn't like what he wrote. That doesn't mean it wasn't worthy.

I didn't say it wasn't worthy--I said he comes across as a pulp writer.

So, not an Oscar-winning (or seeking) director, but an action film maker.

And hey...his books became action movies and FPS.

I actually agree with obi? Don't be flattered, this is Botox we are talking about.

That being said, red storm rising was awesome.

My favorite was Red Storm Rising. Unbelievably accurate as to the soviet tactics and attitudes ... a subject I once knew far too much about.

Want to elaborate? I was in Germany studying the Stasi over the winter; it'd be cool to compare.

Or once, obiwanobiwan's opinion makes sense. Clancy was a good and successful writer but he didn't write the kind of literature English departments practice vivisection on. That's probably why he was successful; he wrote things people wanted to read. I don't read much fiction so I can't say much more about his merits as an author, but it's always sad when someone dies so young.

Oh no, a draft dodger who made a kajillion dollars off of war porn died after writing one book worthy of being read on a transcontinental flight.

Which was the worthy book Bobbo?

I can think of more than one movie based on his books worthy of watching on a transatlantic flight. Surely the source material couldn't have been that bad.

The USA's Ilya Ehrenburg. The King of trashy late Cold War agitprop.

Clancy, Ludlum, Follett, and Fleming. Great fun to read, but not exactly great literature.

Those who can't write, write fiction.

Red October was pretty good. Red Storm Rising was basically "LOOK AT THIS COOL GAME WE PLAYED.". Patriot Games strained my credulity, and by Clear and Present Danger and Cardinal of the Kremlin, I was basically just reading out of hope that he could recapture Red October's form and saying "Bullshit" an awful lot.

Yeah that Kafka, what a hack. And Hemingway? Phoney. Dante and Milton may as well have written in crayons. Shakespeare couldn't write his way out of a paper bag.

As usual, you're talking complete nonsense, Putin33.

Um, would you say that of Ivan Tolstoi's Doc Z.? How about Victor Hugo's Les Mis?

Gravity's Rainbow? Huck Finn? To Kill a Mockingbird?

A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield, Great Expectations?

Catcher in the Rye? In Search of Lost Time? Stretching a bit, but Mother Courage and Her Children? Ulysses?

The Time Machine, War of the Worlds, The Invisible Man, Food of the Gods?

The Lord of the Rings?

Everything written by Asimov or Heinlein or Bradbury or Clarke?

Think we are making a point, Invictus? Of course, I can predict his response...

See my PM for a Putin BackPedalin' Prediction (tm) Draugnar Productions.

I'm making the point. Letting in the science fiction wasn't the best decision.

I honestly have no idea what his response could be. That was just such an outlandishly broad statement.