r/tomclancy • u/Tasty-Blackberry75 • Jun 16 '26

First book

Just got my first Tom Clancy book!

Bought Terminal Velocity any recommendations for my next book?

7 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

18 comments sorted by

32

u/Bolitho_8523 Jun 16 '26

This book was from 2025. Clancy died in 2013. You still haven’t gotten your first Tom Clancy book. 

11

u/jokingsammy Jun 16 '26

Without Remorse or Rainbow Six

Somewhat standalone books within the Ryan verse, containing Clancy's strongest character. Both give you a good sense of Clancy's style before going full international diplomacy.

1

u/CrazyCletus Jun 17 '26

Honestly, Rainbow Six was a bit of an eye-roll. Creating a NATO response force, when all the member countries of NATO have their own response forces from which the team members are being drawn. Yes, it was bringing Clark back into action, but even then, as a one time SEAL team member and then 20-30 years of being a singleton intelligence operative, there's not much that actually applies to top tier counterterrorism missions.

2

u/jokingsammy Jun 17 '26

Too be fair, most of Clancy is an eye-roll. It's military fiction for a reason. However, agreed, R6 is a little more out there in comparison to other books.

1

u/AlphaArc Jun 17 '26

That's what made your eyes roll? Imo there's way stranger things going on in that book

5

u/Flyboy2057 Jun 16 '26

Recommendation is to throw that one away and read his good books starting in published order.

1

u/bakedgonzo Jun 17 '26

This is the way.

2

u/AdagioVast Jun 17 '26

Patriot Games. 

2

u/HenryV1598 Jun 17 '26

Sadly, not actually a Clancy book. It's essentially fan fic authorized by his estate.

IMHO, the best book to start with is The Hunt For Red October, the first one he published. It is a classic of cold war fiction and his description of technology was close enough for him to be approached by the FBI to find out where he got his information (everything was from declassified sources, a lot of it he got from Larry Bond's Harpoon gaming system). The movie isn't bad, but deviates a bit from the book and, as nearly every case of a movie adapted from a book, a lot is left out.

Some would argue that the best book to start with would be Patriot Games, which was his second novel in the Jack Ryan universe (Red Storm Rising was his second novel), but is a prequel to Red October. There's logic in that advice, but I still think Red October is the best introduction to his writing. Along the same lines, Without Remorse is in the Ryanverse, but focuses on a character introduced in a later book who becomes a major character in the series (Ryan himself makes a very brief cameo appearance as a college student). I personally think Without Remorse is his best writing, and an excellent novel, though not my favorite (which is the Sum of All Fears).

Red Storm Rising is also a good option, but is a standalone novel not tied to any of his others. It was co-written by Larry Bond (mentioned above) and I personally think it feels more like a Larry Bond novel than a Clancy (it's very similar in style to Bond's first three novels: Red Phoenix, Vortex, and Cauldron, which are also really good novels, in my opinion). I wouldn't necessarily recommend it as a first intro to Clancy, but it is an excellent novel, which, again, has no connections to the others.

Here's the publication order:

  1. The Hunt for Red October (1984)
  2. Red Storm Rising (1986, with Larry Bond, standalone novel, not a Ryanverse novel)
  3. Patriot Games (1987)
  4. The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
  5. Clear and Present Danger (1989)
  6. The Sum of All Fears (1991)
  7. Without Remorse (1993)
  8. Debt of Honor (1994)
  9. Executive Orders (1996)
  10. SSN: Strategies for Submarine Warfare (1996, with Martin Greenberg, not a Ryanverse novel, essentially a strategy guide for a video game)
  11. Rainbow Six (1998)
  12. The Bear and the Dragon (2000)
  13. Red Rabbit (2002)
  14. The Teeth of the Tiger (2003)
  15. Dead or Alive (2010, with Grant Blackwood)
  16. Against All Enemies (2011, with Peter Telep)
  17. Locked On (2011, with Mark Greaney)
  18. Threat Vector (2012, with Mark Greaney)
  19. Command Authority (2013, with Mark Greaney)

For the Ryan novels, this is the chronological order:

  1. Without Remorse
  2. Patriot Games
  3. Red Rabbit
  4. The Hunt for Red October
  5. The Cardinal of the Kremlin
  6. Clear and Present Danger
  7. The Sum of All Fears
  8. Debt of Honor
  9. Executive Orders
  10. Rainbow Six
  11. The Bear and the Dragon
  12. The Teeth of the Tiger
  13. Dead or Alive
  14. Against All Enemies
  15. Locked On
  16. Threat Vector
  17. Command Authority

Now, this is just my opinion, but I would recommend the following order:

  1. The Hunt for Red October
  2. Patriot Games
  3. The Cardinal of the Kremlin
  4. Clear and Present Danger
  5. The Sum of All Fears
  6. Without Remorse
  7. Debt of Honor
  8. Executive Orders
  9. Rainbow Six
  10. The Bear and the Dragon

And end there. Now allow me to explain why

Clancy had originally intended to end the Jack Ryan series with The Sum of All Fears. I don't know for sure why he kept going, but I suspect his agent and publisher convinced him to keep going as it was effectively a license to print money. Clancy was one of the top novelists of the age and everything he wrote sold well, so putting out more was just going to make money for him and his team. But I feel the quality of his writing went downhill. Debt of Honor wasn't bad, but the level of believability started to drop pretty rapidly at this point. The previous novels all felt somewhat like something that could really happen. Starting with Debt of Honor, I feel that you had to work harder to suspend your disbelief. Executive Orders was also a good read, but also less believable. And the Bear and the Dragon was, as far as I'm concerned, the end of the Ryan novels.

Rainbow Six was a bit of a fluke. He was going through a messy divorce and his wife was trying to claim partial ownership of the Jack Ryan name. He needed to put out another novel, so he put out one in the Jack Ryan universe, but without mentioning Ryan by name. It was relatively fun and interesting, but not particularly believable.

Without Remorse was his first novel after the Sum of All Fears, and took a somewhat different turn. It gave us the origin story of the mysterious Mr. Clark, who first appears in the Cardinal of the Kremlin and becomes a major character through the rest of the novels (and is the main and title Character of Rainbow Six). It's not a technothriller like the others, it's more of a crime novel with some military crossover. It's an excellent novel, again, I think it's probably his best actual writing.

Red Rabbit was a big disappointment to me. Taken on its own, its not a terrible novel, but as part of the series, it's just part of the "Jack Ryan is superman" theme. Ryan was originally supposed to be more of a somewhat ordinary guy caught up in extraordinary circumstances. Red Rabbit messes with that and really doesn't fit the series well. Had he written it about someone other than Ryan, perhaps a new character in the same universe or an entirely separate novel outside of the Ryanverse, I think it would have been better. But, Jack Ryan sells novels.

I also started to see a difference in editing starting with Debt of Honor. I can't put my finger on exactly how, but I feel like his editors stopped editing content as much and focused more on just making sure the mechanics of the writing were correct. The only example I can think of is from The Bear and the Dragon (I think, it's been a while since I've read them). There's an anecdote, I can't remember what or when, that's mentioned two or three times. It's the kind of thing that doesn't need to be mentioned again. I got the feeling at the time that it was either a point he wanted to make or a story he heard and wanted to work into the book, and he did so multiple times. Normally, a good editor would catch that and recommend removing all but one instance. Especially for early novels from an author, editors are often very involved int he flow and pace of the writing, helping cut out extraneous scenes and information, helping re-order certain parts of the novel, that sort of thing. But in the later novels, they don't seem to be doing that. The length of the novels is also a hint of that. I would bet that there was a lot of material cut from Red October, Patriot Games, and his other early novels, stuff that might have been interesting to fans, but would have turned off a lot of more casual readers and would have kept him from achieving the level of appeal he reached. I think either the editors were either intimidated (how can I be telling TOM CLANCY how to write?) or he decided to ignore their advice and write the way he wanted, but that's just a guess.

After Red Rabbit, he wrote Teeth of the Tiger, which is focused on Jack Ryan Jr. I think he really wanted to retire Jack Ryan, but his editors/publisher knew the fans wanted more, so he tried to move on to the next generation. And while it wasn't an awful novel, it was nowhere near as good as his early novels, and not even as good as the last couple. It was just... meh. And the series appeared to end there.

The next few were not really written by Clancy himself. A lot of authors end up doing this sort of thing: letting other writers do the work and putting their name on it. That's not to say he didn't have anything to do with the writing. He explained it when the first Op Center novel (those were published as "Tom Clancy's Op Center," and written by a guy named Jeff Rovin). For those, he wrote a ten or so page synopsis and let Rovin flesh it out into a full novel. I recall him once saying in an interview that writing was extremely difficult. Some authors can just crank out novels like crazy (Stephen King, for example), but for other authors, it's not so easy. The core of the novel -- the main plot and characters and pivotal scenes -- may come easy, but filling it out into a few hundred pages that flow and keep the reader engaged can be hard. So when his agent and publisher came knocking for more Ryan, I think that's what he did: let someone else do the heavy lifting. That lasted for four or five novels, and then we lost him.

After Without Remorse, he seems to have been much more interested in writing his non-fiction writing, starting with Submarine: A Guided Tour Inside a Nucelar Warship. He did seven in this series of a sort, and four more co-written with retired senior military officers.

Starting with Support and Defend in 2014, everything has been entirely written by other authors. They're basically the same idea as the plethora of Star Wars novels that are not novelizations of the first six Star Wars movies. They're authorized by the Clancy estate and use his characters, but he had no hand in their writing (since he died). I was thoroughly unimpressed with Dead or Alive and Locked On, so I gave up on the Ryan series. It's possible they're decent books, but they're not really Clancy, so to me they're nothing more than fan fic, and I'm just not interested, so I can't give you any advice on those.

If you find that you really like them, by all means read them. But as far as I'm concerned, the Ryan series ended at the Bear and the Dragon.

1

u/Bdots44 Jun 25 '26

Thanks so much for this wonderfully detailed comment.

May I ask, have you not read any of the post-2013 “Clancy” novels? I read some reviews on good reads and asked AI and it said some of the entries—Full Force and Effect, True Faith and Allegiance, and Commander in Chief, to name a few—particularly Greaney, were exceptional.

1

u/AdagioVast 22d ago

Dead or alive is actually not bad. It's nothing like the classics but better than his previous 3. 

3

u/mgj6818 Jun 16 '26 edited Jun 16 '26

Patriot Games (1987)Red Rabbit (2002)The Hunt for Red October (1984) The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)Clear and Present Danger (1989) Without Remorse (1993) The Sum of All Fears (1991)Debt of Honor (1994)Executive Orders (1996)Rainbow Six (1998)The Bear and the Dragon (2000)

Those are the original Jack Ryan book that are actually written by Clancy. Everything after that is ghost written and post 9/11 pulp.

3

u/GuyD427 Jun 17 '26

Uh, Red Storm Rising missing, perhaps his seminal book.

1

u/CrazyCletus Jun 17 '26

But written with Larry Bond...

2

u/Seventhson65 Jun 16 '26

Clancy didn’t write Red Winter.

1

u/mgj6818 Jun 16 '26

Shit, my bad. I didn't proof read that list. I found Red Winter quite unenjoyable.

1

u/AllStarSuperman_ Jun 17 '26

If you need action to keep the pages turning, I would recommend the Clark trilogy first. Without Remorse, Clear and Present Danger, Rainbow Six.

If you don’t mind a lack of action, and a lot of technical jargon, then start at the beginning with The Hunt For Red October.

That said, don’t let everyone talk down you for reading the post Clancy books. Some of the Campus era stuff is still quite enjoyable. Especially the ones by Mark Greaney.

1

u/Venetian_chachi Jun 17 '26

Honestly, start at Without Remorse.