Post by Remton Davis on Feb 28, 2009 12:32:02 GMT -5
I just got done with both of these massive pieces of literature and felt inspired to do a review. If you can sit through the whole writeup here without quitting, then thanks for reading my review, Bruce Willis.
Review – Debt of Honor/Executive Orders Both by Tom Clancy
When you sit down to read Clancy, you know exactly what you’re in for. You know to expect the pages-long cockstroking sessions describing every detail of the missile system on a nuclear sub, the loving descriptions of the crispness of the salutes and uniforms on those marines guarding the president’s chopper…and above all else, nonstop lambasting of president Carter whenever possible while lauding Reagan as a visionary to rival Christ himself.
Despite the above, he usually redeems himself by simply being a very talented writer, with a mind for every minute detail of the plots. I say plots because there is never just one plot to a Clancy book. Ohhh hell no. In many ways his books resemble Guy Ritchie movies: a series of seemingly unconnected single story arcs that miraculously collide with one another at the climax. How he does it I don’t know, but I am not ashamed to say it’s entertaining.
Debt of Honor is the continuation of the ‘Ryanverse’…the universe created around his ever present reluctant hero: the 100% straight Irish Catholic family man with a heart of gold… Jack Ryan. In Debt of Honor and its sequel Executive Orders, Clancy’s desire to build Ryan into a modern superhero one small deed at a time is finally realized. In DOH, Ryan is acting as the national security advisor to President Roger Durling. A series of events occur between Japan and the U.S., beginning with the death of an innocent, God-fearing southern family in a Japanese made car (that somehow results in national outrage against Japan). This creates a firestorm of import legislation that cripples the Japanese business structure. Meanwhile, evil Japanese tycoon Raizo Yamata (I imagine if this one had been made into a movie, every scene of Yamata and his cronies getting out of their black Mercedes automobiles would be accompanied by some particularly evil sounding power chords and synthesizers, with heavy emphasis on the removal of mirrored sunglasses) conspires with his business associates to cripple the U.S. economy, overthrow the Japanese government, and steal back U.S. possessions in the Pacific. ‘Merica with a capital M solves the first problem by not caring, and the third by launching tactical strikes against the Japanese forces, all against the backdrop of the reader being reminded every 3 pages that without a Republican in the Oval Office, the U.S. military is significantly drawn-down and unable to meet this crisis!
There’s a lotof intervening story and events, including a bizarre subplot where Willem Dafoe and Ding Chavez go to Japan to ‘rescue’ a young American woman who went to Japan of her own free will, and now serves as the mistress to a high ranking Japanese politician. This features the closest things to novelty deaths you’ll find in the book, wherein Chavez nearly kills a guy by shining a light in his face, and that same light is used to crash a Japanese spy plane. I should also mention that like in every other book of Clancy’s, the Russians figure heavily into the mix, because by God it wouldn’t be a good spy/government/international warfare book without them, and Clancy didn’t spend so many years learning every detail of how the KGB/RVS works to NOT write about it. Clancy’s favorite recurring ‘irony’ is Russia and the U.S. working together to solve problems, and nearly every conversation between a Russian and U.S. representative includes some mention of this fact. Also, see how many times you can notice the word ‘fieldcraft’ or ‘tradecraft’ (both are big hard-on-inducers for Tommy C).
I won’t go into TOO much detail but I gotta reveal the climax of the book because it sets up Executive Orders. A distraught Japanese airline pilot, infuriated after losing family members in the U.S. tactical strike to retake the Pacific islands, drives his airliner into the Capitol Building in Washington when Jack Ryan is about to be sworn in as vice-president, and the entirety of congress is present. This kills about 95% of congress, the entire Supreme Court, along with the president. Ryan is then sworn in as president of the U.S. as the book closes. It’s at this point that you realize Clancy had this all planned out all along. Ryan, the local boy who we’re told (time and again) went to Jesuit schools, a ‘Washington outsider’ has made it to the highest office in the land. And conveniently, the slate is basically wiped clean. There’s no real government. One man is in charge of rebuilding every single piece of Washington politically, and I can just see Clancy rubbing his hands together as he sat down to write the follow up.
Executive Orders continues the story arc exactly where it left off. Ryan becomes a hugely reluctant president, and much is made of his lack of political savvy.
Before I go on, here is my reenactment of Tom Clancy delivering this book to the publisher:
Editor: Well Tom it’s fucking dynamite, but we gotta do something about the title.
TC: Why?
Editor: Well, like I said, the content is good, but people might be turned off by a book called “Tom Clancy Overtly Espouses His Political Views for 872 Pages.”
By creating basically a ‘blank’ Washington, with his image of the ‘perfect’ American…excuse me, ‘Merican, as president, Clancy goes on an all-out assault. Ripping apart the political establishment, the tax code, democrats, the news media (oh does he tear that one apart), homosexuals (a bit), Muslims, Iran, Iraq, China, and India, among many many others. Long, eloquent essays occupy the pages, spoken ostensibly by Clancy’s characters like George Winston, the 100% honest stock broker turned Secretary of the Treasury. At every turn, Ryan tries to run the country as Clancy would if he were president, but is stymied by political opposition, the media, and a series of attacks on the nation so outlandish, they outdo anything Clancy had written previously. In as short a summary as I can do, Iran’s fanatical fundamentalist leader bands together with India and China to cripple the U.S. further as their government rebuilds. Iran uses a sleeper agent to assassinate Saddam Hussein, and then overtly conquers Iraq, forming a new mega-country bent on regional domination. China and India run interference on the U.S. Navy, while Iran/Iraq does their damndest to become a world power at the U.S.’s expense. They launch the Ebola virus into the U.S., try to shoot Ryan’s daughter, and try to assassinate Ryan with a sleeper agent of their own, who disguises his fundamentalism with a healthy knowledge of college basketball, because as we all know, Islamic fundamentalists hate basketball.
Topping off this soufflé of carnage is an anemic subplot of a group of small government/anarchists/survivalists who cook up a plan to drive a fertilizer bomb into the white house, but never actually make it to Washington. I kind of imagine Clancy had this great idea for a subplot but with all the other shit going on, he’d forget about it for a while and then every 100 pages or so there was an ‘oh shit’ moment where he scribbled something down using the word ‘bureaucrap.’
Again, the book is lengthy, complex, and entertaining, but it culminates with absolute confusion. About the last 40 pages are spent detailing every bit of minutia about how the final ground war is waged between the U.S. and Iran/Iraq on the Saudi border (the Saudis portrayed throughout the book as exemplars of honesty and righteousness worthy of our undying support). It’s a long, confusing, and really, boring look at how tank warfare is waged in the modern theater. Then, the book hurriedly ends with the assassination of the Iranian leader, which in a thoroughly absoludicrous turn, is actually televised live to the American public, picture-in-picture, as Ryan addresses the nation. It’s like the whole book was the gentle stroking of the provebial American penis, and THAT’s the money shot. Fundamentalist dictator gets 500 pound warhead to the FACE on national TV while the president says “God Bless America.”
The thing is, even with all this stuff, if you take it all with the knowledge of what Clancy’s agenda is, both books are rollercoasters of entertainment. Not for everyone, but ultimately, solid, excellent pieces of writing craft, with fully satisfying endings. I remember when I first read “Clear and Present Danger” in middle school, I really didn’t get it. Now, when I read his stuff, I get it, and say what you will, but Clancy isn’t a dumbass. He has a sharp mind for the way Washington works, and certainly, he’ll tell you, exactly how that newfangled Aegis missile system can drop a rag-head from 2 miles out.
Review – Debt of Honor/Executive Orders Both by Tom Clancy
When you sit down to read Clancy, you know exactly what you’re in for. You know to expect the pages-long cockstroking sessions describing every detail of the missile system on a nuclear sub, the loving descriptions of the crispness of the salutes and uniforms on those marines guarding the president’s chopper…and above all else, nonstop lambasting of president Carter whenever possible while lauding Reagan as a visionary to rival Christ himself.
Despite the above, he usually redeems himself by simply being a very talented writer, with a mind for every minute detail of the plots. I say plots because there is never just one plot to a Clancy book. Ohhh hell no. In many ways his books resemble Guy Ritchie movies: a series of seemingly unconnected single story arcs that miraculously collide with one another at the climax. How he does it I don’t know, but I am not ashamed to say it’s entertaining.
Debt of Honor is the continuation of the ‘Ryanverse’…the universe created around his ever present reluctant hero: the 100% straight Irish Catholic family man with a heart of gold… Jack Ryan. In Debt of Honor and its sequel Executive Orders, Clancy’s desire to build Ryan into a modern superhero one small deed at a time is finally realized. In DOH, Ryan is acting as the national security advisor to President Roger Durling. A series of events occur between Japan and the U.S., beginning with the death of an innocent, God-fearing southern family in a Japanese made car (that somehow results in national outrage against Japan). This creates a firestorm of import legislation that cripples the Japanese business structure. Meanwhile, evil Japanese tycoon Raizo Yamata (I imagine if this one had been made into a movie, every scene of Yamata and his cronies getting out of their black Mercedes automobiles would be accompanied by some particularly evil sounding power chords and synthesizers, with heavy emphasis on the removal of mirrored sunglasses) conspires with his business associates to cripple the U.S. economy, overthrow the Japanese government, and steal back U.S. possessions in the Pacific. ‘Merica with a capital M solves the first problem by not caring, and the third by launching tactical strikes against the Japanese forces, all against the backdrop of the reader being reminded every 3 pages that without a Republican in the Oval Office, the U.S. military is significantly drawn-down and unable to meet this crisis!
There’s a lotof intervening story and events, including a bizarre subplot where Willem Dafoe and Ding Chavez go to Japan to ‘rescue’ a young American woman who went to Japan of her own free will, and now serves as the mistress to a high ranking Japanese politician. This features the closest things to novelty deaths you’ll find in the book, wherein Chavez nearly kills a guy by shining a light in his face, and that same light is used to crash a Japanese spy plane. I should also mention that like in every other book of Clancy’s, the Russians figure heavily into the mix, because by God it wouldn’t be a good spy/government/international warfare book without them, and Clancy didn’t spend so many years learning every detail of how the KGB/RVS works to NOT write about it. Clancy’s favorite recurring ‘irony’ is Russia and the U.S. working together to solve problems, and nearly every conversation between a Russian and U.S. representative includes some mention of this fact. Also, see how many times you can notice the word ‘fieldcraft’ or ‘tradecraft’ (both are big hard-on-inducers for Tommy C).
I won’t go into TOO much detail but I gotta reveal the climax of the book because it sets up Executive Orders. A distraught Japanese airline pilot, infuriated after losing family members in the U.S. tactical strike to retake the Pacific islands, drives his airliner into the Capitol Building in Washington when Jack Ryan is about to be sworn in as vice-president, and the entirety of congress is present. This kills about 95% of congress, the entire Supreme Court, along with the president. Ryan is then sworn in as president of the U.S. as the book closes. It’s at this point that you realize Clancy had this all planned out all along. Ryan, the local boy who we’re told (time and again) went to Jesuit schools, a ‘Washington outsider’ has made it to the highest office in the land. And conveniently, the slate is basically wiped clean. There’s no real government. One man is in charge of rebuilding every single piece of Washington politically, and I can just see Clancy rubbing his hands together as he sat down to write the follow up.
Executive Orders continues the story arc exactly where it left off. Ryan becomes a hugely reluctant president, and much is made of his lack of political savvy.
Before I go on, here is my reenactment of Tom Clancy delivering this book to the publisher:
Editor: Well Tom it’s fucking dynamite, but we gotta do something about the title.
TC: Why?
Editor: Well, like I said, the content is good, but people might be turned off by a book called “Tom Clancy Overtly Espouses His Political Views for 872 Pages.”
By creating basically a ‘blank’ Washington, with his image of the ‘perfect’ American…excuse me, ‘Merican, as president, Clancy goes on an all-out assault. Ripping apart the political establishment, the tax code, democrats, the news media (oh does he tear that one apart), homosexuals (a bit), Muslims, Iran, Iraq, China, and India, among many many others. Long, eloquent essays occupy the pages, spoken ostensibly by Clancy’s characters like George Winston, the 100% honest stock broker turned Secretary of the Treasury. At every turn, Ryan tries to run the country as Clancy would if he were president, but is stymied by political opposition, the media, and a series of attacks on the nation so outlandish, they outdo anything Clancy had written previously. In as short a summary as I can do, Iran’s fanatical fundamentalist leader bands together with India and China to cripple the U.S. further as their government rebuilds. Iran uses a sleeper agent to assassinate Saddam Hussein, and then overtly conquers Iraq, forming a new mega-country bent on regional domination. China and India run interference on the U.S. Navy, while Iran/Iraq does their damndest to become a world power at the U.S.’s expense. They launch the Ebola virus into the U.S., try to shoot Ryan’s daughter, and try to assassinate Ryan with a sleeper agent of their own, who disguises his fundamentalism with a healthy knowledge of college basketball, because as we all know, Islamic fundamentalists hate basketball.
Topping off this soufflé of carnage is an anemic subplot of a group of small government/anarchists/survivalists who cook up a plan to drive a fertilizer bomb into the white house, but never actually make it to Washington. I kind of imagine Clancy had this great idea for a subplot but with all the other shit going on, he’d forget about it for a while and then every 100 pages or so there was an ‘oh shit’ moment where he scribbled something down using the word ‘bureaucrap.’
Again, the book is lengthy, complex, and entertaining, but it culminates with absolute confusion. About the last 40 pages are spent detailing every bit of minutia about how the final ground war is waged between the U.S. and Iran/Iraq on the Saudi border (the Saudis portrayed throughout the book as exemplars of honesty and righteousness worthy of our undying support). It’s a long, confusing, and really, boring look at how tank warfare is waged in the modern theater. Then, the book hurriedly ends with the assassination of the Iranian leader, which in a thoroughly absoludicrous turn, is actually televised live to the American public, picture-in-picture, as Ryan addresses the nation. It’s like the whole book was the gentle stroking of the provebial American penis, and THAT’s the money shot. Fundamentalist dictator gets 500 pound warhead to the FACE on national TV while the president says “God Bless America.”
The thing is, even with all this stuff, if you take it all with the knowledge of what Clancy’s agenda is, both books are rollercoasters of entertainment. Not for everyone, but ultimately, solid, excellent pieces of writing craft, with fully satisfying endings. I remember when I first read “Clear and Present Danger” in middle school, I really didn’t get it. Now, when I read his stuff, I get it, and say what you will, but Clancy isn’t a dumbass. He has a sharp mind for the way Washington works, and certainly, he’ll tell you, exactly how that newfangled Aegis missile system can drop a rag-head from 2 miles out.