RIP Tom Clancy

Thriller writer Tom Clancy has died at 66. For me, Clancy will always be the author of one strange but fabulous book, The Hunt for Red October (1984). Unable to find a major publisher, novice writer Clancy turned to the Naval Institute Press to bring this out. Presumably the professional literary people couldn't get past the leaden writing, which makes parts of the book seem like extracts from naval operations manuals. Only people who had spent enough years reading Defense Department prose to become inured to it could see past it to the amazing story, and to the sense it created of young men in control of awesome weapons and just dying to use them. I have tried to read a few other Clancy books in moments of boredom, but I have never finished one. His writing actually improved, but none of the others had the atmosphere that sucked me into Red October. There's some sort of lesson in that.