News came out today that Tom Clancy had passed away at the age of 66.  He was probably best known for "inventing" the Techno-Thriller genre of writing in books such as The Hunt For Red October, Red Storm Rising, The Sum of All Fears, and many, many more.  He was also a part-owner of the Baltimore Orioles baseball team.  The books in the so-called "Ryanverse", based on the adventures of Jack Ryan, all hit #1 on the bestseller lists, and here at The Pond, he has a couple of shelves all to himself in the library.  It's safe to say that once his books began to be ghostwritten, their quality dropped, but until that point he was clearly one of the giants of the literary world.  I remember when the book Rainbow Six came out... I was running a Waldenbooks here in Duckford, and I bought the first copy out of the box.  I then took it home and put it in a difficult-to-reach location for three weeks, just so I wouldn't read it.  See, I was about to take a week's vacation, and I wanted it to be my vacation read...

I just looked back at the release history of his books...arguably, he hasn't released a good book since 2002's Red Rabbit or 2003's Teeth of the Tiger.  I don't think it matters, though.  Even if you stop right there and include his non-fiction titles (mostly co-authored with "researcher" John Gresham), he has an enviable back catalog to say the least.  Not too shabby for an insurance salesman who sold his first title to a history press for $5000...

I'll have to put him up there with Heinlein on the short list of my favorite authors.  Now, where is my copy of Red Storm Rising anyway...?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 08:36 PM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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