Talk:Tom Clancy
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Referenced by a website: http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/reviews/review2.php?id=116 - Ta bu shi da yu 22:01, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
The second mention of his failed attempt to buy the Minnesota Vikings seems redundant and makes the article seem less than professional. If anyone else agrees with me, then let's see what we can do about that. On the other hand, the mention of partial-ownership of the Orioles simply expands upon what is said earlier. Still, if we eliminate the second reference to the Vikings, then the second Orioles mention might seem a little out of place. Thoughts? --Arathon 04:12, 6 May 2005 (UTC)
What I really wanted to say was that Clancy is a whore like the publishing world has rarely seen, but NPOV and all that.--JJ
- William Faulkner -- "Whenever I receive a letter, I shake it to see if there is a check inside."
- All those books and series titles should be italicized, a la Wikipedia:Manual of Style. Ortolan88
- I think Steven King can give them both a run for their money. -- Zoe
Why were all of the titles piped to the exact same names? -- Zoe
Whatever you think of Mr. Clancy, he does capture the 'sound and feel' of late 20th / early 21st century American government and military affairs in prose in a unique and revealing manner... which, it could be argued, is an important contribution to English literature
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buone
I read with pleasure all tom's books, i wonder if clancy were in fact a member of us army or navy or just a writer?
According to http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0002007/bio, for what it's worth:
- He has never had any military or government experience
RickK 04:09, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)
I must commend this article for being the only one to have the facts straight regarding the Rainbow Six game and novel (i.e., the book was "written to tie-in with the computer game" and not the other way around).
--Furrykef 13:34, 18 May 2004 (UTC)
Clancy co-writes book with General Anthony Zini, "Battle Ready"
From: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/05/21/60minutes/main618896.shtml
Following his retirement from the Marine Corps, the Bush administration thought so highly of Zinni that it appointed him to one of its highest diplomatic posts -- special envoy to the Middle East.
But Zinni broke ranks with the administration over the war in Iraq, and now, in his harshest criticism yet, he says senior officials at the Pentagon are guilty of dereliction of duty -- and that the time has come for heads to roll. Correspondent Steve Kroft reports.
“There has been poor strategic thinking in this,” says Zinni. “There has been poor operational planning and execution on the ground. And to think that we are going to ‘stay the course,’ the course is headed over Niagara Falls. I think it's time to change course a little bit, or at least hold somebody responsible for putting you on this course. Because it's been a failure.”
Zinni spent more than 40 years serving his country as a warrior and diplomat, rising from a young lieutenant in Vietnam to four-star general with a reputation for candor.
Now, in a new book about his career, co-written with Tom Clancy, called "Battle Ready," Zinni has handed up a scathing indictment of the Pentagon and its conduct of the war in Iraq.
I have removed the NPOV statement "It should be said that his books contain some astonishing false ideas about the functioning of capitalist economies." by 21:33, Jun 1, 2004 193.24.32.36. There is no evidence given to support this statement.
Ppe42 09:38, Jun 21, 2004 (UTC)
Sources?
To which source is the following attributed? However, the real accuracy of the technical details given in the books is also disputed.
So far as I was aware, Clancy's technical accuracy was just about as much as any civilian without a security clearance was able to achieve. This is especially true in terms of the novels he wrote in the 1980s which featured Soviet equipment. Impi 14:39, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- You should ask that about User:David.Monniaux who added that part in revision as of 12:51, 22 Apr 2004 (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Tom_Clancy&diff=3292576&oldid=3292463). --ZeroOne 18:12, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Ok, I've removed it following a lack of any answer from User:David.Monniaux thus far. Impi 13:14, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- Not a big TC reader, and the military stuff is outside my ken, but 'Rainbow Six' has a couple of computer-related stinkers.
- First one is his treatment of quantum computing. As of 2001 (a year *after* R6 was set), the publicly-known state of the art was a seven-qubit machine whose greatest achievement in codebreaking was being able to factorise the number 15. The gulf between that and being able to break 128-bit encryption this way, quickly (which he has happening in 2000) is a vast one; at this point we're well into the realms of science fiction. (Yeah, the NSA *might* have something better than the systems that are public knowledge, but if they do they're unlikely to have shared that knowledge with TC.)
- IIRC, he also suggests that the NSA are using 'quantum computing' on a machine they'd acquired previously. In fact, QC starts with the hardware; it's not just a program you can load into any old supercomputer.
- Second one, the kidnap investigation. The moment any competent law-enforcement agency got hold of that email message, they'd have looked at the message headers and tried to trace the message. It takes TC about fifty pages to very reluctantly acknowledge this line of inquiry, and then he handwaves it away with talk of an anonymous remailer (which makes little sense, in the context of that particular computer). I won't say it's *impossible* for things to have happened this way, but it's certainly implausible.
- A lot of the biology, both in R6 and in 'Executive Orders', smelled suspect to me, but I'll leave that argument to people who are a little surer of their facts.
- IIRC, one of Frederick Forsyth's books ('Icon', or 'Negotiator', maybe?) involved a bad guy who claims to be a CIA agent and ex-Army. Forsyth makes a very pointed comment to the effect of "if he'd done his homework, he'd know the CIA doesn't recruit field agents from the Army", which I took to be a not-very-subtle swipe at Tom Clancy. (Caveat: it's been a while since I read that one, so I may not have the meaning exactly right; even if I do, whether Forsyth's right about that rule is of course another question.) --Calair 04:59, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Right, nice summary. When I read that line, I took it to be a comment on the technical accuracy of his descriptions of military hardware, which are in general better than just about anybody else. As for the CIA comment, I'm not so sure. I have immense respect for Forsyth, and he does a helluva lot of research, but then again Clancy's somewhat more into the CIA community that Forsyth is, and he has delivered lectures at the CIA before. So I think that one would best remain an open question. As for the quantum computing thing, I agree that is a rather significant oversight, so perhaps a caveat should be included in the article along the lines of noting his accuracy with military equipment, but acknowledging his errors in terms of quantum computing, biology, and kidnap investigation. It does feel somewhat like nitpicking though, to hold authors of fiction accountable for factual inaccuracies in their work. Even so, I wouldn't object to a balanced caveat. I took exception to the comment I removed, because it seemed a sweeping indictment of his knowledge of military hardware and tactics as well. Impi 10:41, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- As long as the article's pointing out his strengths, I don't think it's nitpicking to acknowledge weaknesses as well. I've seen people who believe the NSA has QCs that can crack 128-bit solely because Tom Clancy said so (IIRC, one company even called on that claim as a selling point for their own encryption), so a dose of reality may be in order. --Calair 12:13, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Right, nice summary. When I read that line, I took it to be a comment on the technical accuracy of his descriptions of military hardware, which are in general better than just about anybody else. As for the CIA comment, I'm not so sure. I have immense respect for Forsyth, and he does a helluva lot of research, but then again Clancy's somewhat more into the CIA community that Forsyth is, and he has delivered lectures at the CIA before. So I think that one would best remain an open question. As for the quantum computing thing, I agree that is a rather significant oversight, so perhaps a caveat should be included in the article along the lines of noting his accuracy with military equipment, but acknowledging his errors in terms of quantum computing, biology, and kidnap investigation. It does feel somewhat like nitpicking though, to hold authors of fiction accountable for factual inaccuracies in their work. Even so, I wouldn't object to a balanced caveat. I took exception to the comment I removed, because it seemed a sweeping indictment of his knowledge of military hardware and tactics as well. Impi 10:41, 13 Sep 2004 (UTC)
- Ok, I've removed it following a lack of any answer from User:David.Monniaux thus far. Impi 13:14, 28 Aug 2004 (UTC)
- To expand further, he makes use, in BatD, among other places, of the idea that the connect warble of a 56Kbps modem could in fact be a secondary modem channel, moving 56KBps (8 times as fast) data, from a specially prepared modem in a laptop (which is barely plausible) to a random modem at a random ISP somewhere, which is completely impossible. This is not the only place he proves that he needs a tech editor as desperately as he needs a regular editor. -- Baylink 02:49, 28 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Homophobic
An anon removed "homophobic" from the description of Clancy's beliefs. I'm just wondering if it should be there or not. I don't really know anything about Clancy myself.
- Unless it can be substantiated, it should not be there. - Ta bu shi da yu 22:06, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)
Chronology: Red Rabbit / Patriot Games
I don't agree with the series chronology. I would change it to:
- 1st Red Rabbit
- 2nd Patriot Games
Why?
- Assassination of the Pope was 1981.
- In the plot of Patriot Games the Royal Highness' drive in their car together with their baby boy. Since most people think it is Charles and Diana, the boy must be William. He was born 1982. So, Red Rabbit must have been before Patriot Games
--Eddie2 13:03, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A Short Critical Dissertaion
"Whatever you think of Mr. Clancy, he does capture the 'sound and feel' of late 20th / early 21st century American government and military affairs in prose in a unique and revealing manner... which, it could be argued, is an important contribution to English literature."
Possibly, from a certain point of view. However, I think in time his books will be mainly looked upon in the same manner as we now percieve Kipling's pro-Empire works and poems. The underlying assumption in all of his books is that American exceptionalism is both correct and good. This belief, which is merely an updated version of The White Man's Burden, allows him to both disreguard and deginerate contrary yet valid cultures and beliefs; one example that springs to mind is his really offensive depiction of a Native American religious ceremony in The Sum of All Fears. He also appears to have a streak of misogyny as quite a number of male charecters in his book mouth sexist, and sometimes grossly insulting, remarks about women. In fairness this could be simply Clancy giveing the actual charecters point of view, but it is nonetheless jarring. Against this must be set his frequent depiction of strong (if idealised) women. And by and large he is a very uncritical proponent of American policy. Sure, there are American bad guys in his books, but they always get their just desserts in the end, which validates the American way. Real life is never so neat. But the main problem I have with Clancy's books is that he seems to forget he is (supposed to be) writing fiction. The feeling I get from reading his books (and I have read them all) is that this is the way the world should and will be. He suffers from a fundamental lack of imagination in that he cannot concieve of a world where the USA is not the world's ultimate good guy or the indespensible nation. All his work depends of this worldview, and its implications, being sustained. He is a good, dynamic storyteller, but almost more than that an uncritical probagandast for an USA according to his views. Fergananim