Say what you will about Tom Clancy, but the man knew how to tell a story. People talk about how Tom Clancy made high-tech weaponry understandable to the layman, but that wasn't his ace; it was his ability to keep countless story threads going, all over the globe, without the reader ever getting lost or tangled up.
The Hunt for Red October would almost certainly have languished had not a copy found its way under the White House Christmas Tree. President Ronald Reagan lapped it up as “the perfect yarn”, while his Secretary of Defense Casper Weinberger went further, declaring: “The technical detail is vast and accurate, remarkably so for an author who originally had no background or experience.” When the Secretary of the Navy, John Lehman, read the book, he asked: “Who the hell cleared it?” Tom Clancy claimed that he had had no access to classified material, but had gleaned details of weapons systems simply by researching technical manuals, magazines and reference books.
Tom Clancy's Movies and Books
A couple of my favorite Tom Clancy quotes
“The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.” - Tom Clancy
"I've made up stuff that's turned out to be real, that's the spooky part." - Tom Clancy
Tom Clancy is going to be missed... newly widowed wife, Alexandra Clancy, is an impressive figure in her own right, and it is worth taking a moment to learn about her on this sad day