posted 10-02-2013 12:12 PM               

In 1997, Microsoft recruited Clancy to file dispatches from the launch of STS-81 for its now long-gone "Mungo Park" online adventure magazine. Unfortunately, it appears that Clancy's account of space shuttle Atlantis lifting off on the program's fifth mission to the Russian space station Mir are no longer accessible (not even through the Wayback Machine).

Orlando Sentinel photographer Red Huber today shared this snapshot of Clancy at work at Kennedy Space Center:

posted 10-02-2013 10:41 PM               

I haven't read all Clancy's novels, and those that I did varied widely in plausibility and credible characterization...but were never anything less than entertaining. Combining a pulp adventure author's sense of narrative energy with a techno-geek's sensibility and attention to detail, Clancy was a master of his genre. Godspeed.

posted 10-03-2013 08:52 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by cspg:
let's skip the movies which were all awful

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posted 10-03-2013 10:21 PM               

First of all, if you didn't like the "Hunt for Red October" movie, I have no idea what to say to you because that movie kicked ass.

I also thought "Patriot Games" was solid and entertaining, and that "Clear and Present Danger" was underrated. The latter was an intelligent, focused thriller that conveyed well the the moral conflict faced by Jack Ryan at the center of the novel (It also helped that the movie was made before Harrison Ford started phoning in every performance.)

I don't expect to meet much resistance when I say that "The Sum of All Fears" was the worst movie of the lot...and I'm not anti-Ben Affleck. I actually thought he did a serviceable job, in a poorly written role, in a bastardized screenplay. Fears was one of my favorite Clancy novels, but the story that reached the screen was so PC-neutered and sanitized that it bore no meaningful resemblance to the book. Also, in the novel, it was Denver that got nuked. I hated losing that distinction.

posted 10-04-2013 01:07 AM               

There was one, "SSN" that was only a two tape volume that was really great. His grasp on modern military strategy, tactics and hardware was excellent coming from someone with no military service. The unabridged version of "Sum of All Fears" was without doubt classic.

posted 10-04-2013 04:49 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by GoesTo11:
First of all, if you didn't like the "Hunt for Red October" movie, I have no idea what to say to you because that movie kicked ass.

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It's books or movies, the two do not match in quality. And it has nothing to do with Tom Clancy. I preferred David Lynch's "Dune" to Frank Herbert's novel, ditto for "2001: A Space Odyssey." So read the book or watch the movie, and don't compare the two.

posted 10-05-2013 03:17 AM               

I loved "Red Storm Rising," "Hunt for Red October" had been published six months before and I had read it two to three times, but this was way before the movies had come out.

A bunch of us were staying at the Mirage for bachelor party at the Olympic Gardens. Las Vegas was rocked by a 6.9 earthquake centered in Big Bear at 5 a.m. The lights went out in Las Vegas, the place was rocking, the girls are screaming and I turned to my buddy and asked if the Earth was moving for him also.

We taxi back to the Mirage, as we're walking through the lobby there are dozens of scared guests in various states of undress running out of the hotel because of the earthquake. I pass a tall guy with a shorter guy in tow and he's wearing thick dark glasses but he looks familiar. As they passed me I thought the smaller guy was Tom Clancy, so I spin around and gave chase.

I touch the shorter guy's arm and when he stops I asked his name and he says "Tom." The taller guy looks at me and says "we're late for the airport," I look at the tall guy and say "I'm not talking to you" (it was Tom Selleck). I turn back to the smaller guy and ask "Tom what?" He says "Tom Clancy."

I let out a scream and yell "OMG... You're my favorite author, I love your two books, you're the greatest military writer I've read and can I please get an autograph?" He says "thank you, I'm glad you enjoyed my books and I'm happy to sign an autograph."

Tom Selleck says "we have to catch a plane and don't have time." Now I'm three sheets in the wind, I turned to Selleck and kinda yell "I'm not talking to you, I'm talking to him" and with that I ask the gathering group of people around Selleck if anyone has a pen. Someone hands me a pen but I don't have any paper, so after 30 seconds of no paper, I asked Clancy to sign my hand. He laughed, then he signed my hand and I took a photo of it.

I wrote Tom Clancy a letter a month later apologizing for stopping him in the lobby, explaining I had been drinking. He wrote back saying it was the funniest autograph incident that happened to him. Clancy's son wrote about this incident and posted it somewhere. Tom was so gracious, he sent me an early Naval Press edition of "Red Storm Rising" and "Hunt For Red October," both autographed.