A Certain Point of View: Writing, Film and Stuff

(C) 1996 G.P. Putnam's Sons In the horrific climax of Debt of Honor, former intelligence official and National Security Advisor (and briefly, Vice-President) Jack Ryan finds himself elevated to the Presidency...and in the sights of foreign and domestic adversaries. Even as the Capitol building smolders and the late President Roger Durling is laid to rest, unfriendly eyes are watching the new and untried President Ryan for signs of weakness...and begin plotting his -- and America's -- downfall.  In Iran, Ayatollah Mahmoud Haji Daryaei (one of the opponents of the Fowler Peace Plan in The Sum of All Fears ) broods in his office and begins to set in motion a series of crises that will tie up America's already over-extended military and intelligence services. Daryaei enlists not only his own operatives in Iran and abroad, but also the leaders of two other nations with global ambitions of their own. By creating a series of seemingly unrelated crises all at once, including ...

(C) 1989 G.P. Putnam's Sons  Reviewer's Note: I originally wrote this review in November of 1989 for Catalyst, the student newspaper of Miami-Dade Community College's South Campus. Clancy's new novel clearly a success Alex Diaz-Granados Managing Editor What would happen if a U.S. President were to approve a covert military operation against the Medellin Cartel in the mountains and jungles of Colombia? In Clear and Present Danger, Tom Clancy, author of the best-selling novels The Hunt for Red October and Cardinal of the Kremlin, creates a scenario pitting the U.S. military's special operations assets and the CIA's stalwart Jack Ryan against the ruthless Colombian drug barons. After a seemingly routine arrest at sea of two cartel hit men who have killed a wealthy yacht owner and his family, the FBI stumbles onto a complex money-laundering scheme linked to the drug lords. When the U.S, government begins freezing the cartel's financial assets, t...

(C) 1994 Warner Books The end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a blessing in disguise not only for the Pentagon but for writers of military fiction. Just as the armed services have had to develop new doctrines, strategies, tactics, and weapons systems to contend with new enemies (potential and real), authors such as Tom Clancy, Stephen Coonts, Harold Coyle, and Larry Bond have had to look at the world situation, read the proverbial "tea leaves," and write plausible scenarios pitting American soldiers against foes that are very different from the by-now all-too-familiar Soviet "Ivan." The writing team of Bond and Patrick Larkin ( Red Phoenix, Vortex ) was one of the earliest practitioners of "the-Cold-War-is-ending, let's-look-at-other-story-possibilities" idea. Although the Soviet Union was still in existence when their first two novels were published in the early 1990s, its role in Red Phoenix (about a second ...