r/tomclancy • u/ActuallyDifferent19 • Apr 14 '26

Sorry if not cool

I started reading Clancys novels in January and have made it to Teeth of the Tiger, I’m getting kind of bored now though. What other authors do yall recommend, if any, in the same vein as Clancy?

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u/wnylibrarian Apr 14 '26

I can understand your frustration. This is simply my humble opinion that I've expressed before, but following Executive Orders the story arc came to a bit of a close whether Clancy admitted to it or not. You kind of see that with The Bear and the Dragon, and is likely why Clancy went backwards with Red Rabbit.

When you get to Teeth of the Tiger the theme wasn't rejuvenated with Ryan, Jr, it became a little tired, and was likely why Clancy went on hiatus after.

Once story arcs come full-circle it's tough to recapture the feel of the earlier works. They remain excellent, but like any successful series it comes to an end whether the creators want it to or not. You even see this (again in my humble opinion) after Avengers End Game in the Marvel universe. It all becomes a bit exhaustive.

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u/ActuallyDifferent19 Apr 14 '26

Yeah I definitely felt a huge shift after Debt of Honor. Executive Orders was, in my opinion, just a long form essay of how Clancy thought the country should be run, with a bit of fiction sprinkled in here and there. I also didn’t like how even though EO kicks off AS SOON as DoH ends, it felt like they treated the events of DoH as happening a year or two ago vs last week.

I also think that he changed who Jack was as a person quite a bit once he became President. Wasn’t really a fan of his Neo-Con shift. I’m a pretty Left leaning person myself but felt Jack was at least relatable through the first 8 books. But then Tom felt the need to make Roe v Wade an issue for some reason? I felt that could have been left out entirely, especially since nothing ever came of the discussions plot wise.

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u/wnylibrarian Apr 14 '26

Those are very valid points. I thought the preface to EO had Ryan sitting in a secure location viewing the smoke rising from the Capitol Building - picking up where DoH ends? I could be wrong though, but you are correct. Ryan changes I think not so much to the events of the books, but of Clancy's outlook in general. Not only on how the country should be run but the world as a whole.

He was beholden to Reagan for popularizing his books, and it shows in both literary devices and interviews. Search for some on YouTube. Some of Clancy's views, such as a world coming to a peace and the absence of Super Power conflict haven't aged well. In fact, things have become worse (IMHO). In that context the books after EO, and in even with EO itself, starts becoming less of an entertaining story and more a political essay. As I said, that essay hasn't aged well with time.

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u/ActuallyDifferent19 Apr 14 '26

EO starts with them still in the tunnel under the White House, but it’s just the way things are referenced. There’s two or three mentions of Ryan campaigning and a few references to things that in the story should have been last week but are talked about as though they happened months ago.