Just curious if you guys have read any of the books post Clancy writing them and which is your favorite?

My dad is a HUGE Splintercell fan, and his birthday is coming up. I remembered seeing my friend reading Tom Clancy’s “The Hunt for Red October”, and thought that or another Tom Clancy book would be a good gift. Would that be good, and are there any other Tom Clancy books that might be better?

Obviously the big one is the F-19 Stealth Fighter in Red Storm Rising is the big "wrong" thing but I think the Alfa's in Red October deserve special attention.

First the size of the Alfa. You never get the impression it is much smaller than the Los Angeles-class. 81ft vs 362 ft. We know it is fast with a noisy reactor and a single screw. That is about all we know about the Alfas in Red October and Red Storm Rising.

The crew of the Alfa is 31. In Red October, when the Politovskiy has its reactor accident it says half the crew was killed before it settled on the ocean floor. 40 men were still alive after it crashed to the ocean floor. So 80ish crew in the books. Also all the crew are either officers or warrant officers no enlisted personnel. I assume the cook would be an enlisted crew member but I couldn't find any direct info other than the original crew complement was to be 13 officers and 1 cook. That just makes the Politovskiy survivor being a cook and the sole enlisted sailor pretty interesting.

Alfas only have one crew compartment. In Red October, during the Politovskiy reactor accident it reads like a regular boat no real difference from the Dallas or Red October when describing the various compartments on the boat, an engine room, reactor space, torpedo room, etc. On Alfa's, everything was controlled from the same compartment thanks to automation. If the book was accurate the reactor mass that melts through the hull wouldn't have been in an area where it could have killed the Chief Engineer and not the rest of the crew.

Oh and the Alfa's have an eject-able rescue capsule. That just would have been cool to see in Red Storm Rising.

The Sub Brief Youtube channel has a great video on the Alfa. I highly recommend.

****Edits. its 81 meters not 81 feet. quite a difference thank you Ferret for pointing that.

**** It is just things I found interesting. Obviously I love the books and read them all the time. I just have no life.

The literary world of the late 20th century was dominated by two titans who turned technical manuals into page-turners: Michael Crichton and Tom Clancy. If Crichton was the master of the biological and speculative, Clancy was his absolute military counterpart.

The Cult of the Supercomputer

Both authors shared a near-religious fascination with what we now call "Deep Tech." Long before the term became a venture capital buzzword, Clancy and Crichton were obsessed with the bleeding edge.

• The Cray Connection: Both men held a specific "cult-like" reverence for Cray Computer. Whether it was the processing power needed to sequence dinosaur DNA in Jurassic Park or the strategic simulations required for the SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative) in The Cardinal of the Kremlin, the supercomputer was the silent protagonist of their best work.
• Technical Realism: They didn't just write stories; they wrote systems. They explored the intersection of high-stakes geopolitics and complex engineering, making the hardware as compelling as the humans.

The Weight of Age and Repetition

However, revisiting Clancy’s bibliography today reveals a sharp decline. While his early hits remain foundational, the later works—starting roughly around Rainbow Six and extending through Debt of Honor—have begun to show their age.

The stretch of novels from Rainbow Six to The Bear and the Dragon, and ultimately NetForce (Cybermenace), suffers from a specific set of flaws:

• Ad Nauseam Repetition: The technical descriptions that once felt immersive began to feel like "filler." The prose became bloated, percussed by repetitive themes that lost the lean, muscular pace of The Hunt for Red October.
• Recycled Plots: The Bear and the Dragon often feels like a simple chronological update of previous geopolitical tensions, lacking the prophetic spark that made his Reagan-era novels feel like classified briefings.

The Empty Throne

The most striking realization for any techno-thriller fan today is that Clancy has no true literary heir.

While many writers can describe a rifle or a jet, few can weave the systemic complexity of infrastructure, sovereign technology, and military doctrine into a cohesive narrative. We see plenty of military procedurals, but the "Sovereign Tech-Thriller"—where the technology itself dictates the fate of nations—seems to have died with the original masters.

We are left with a vacuum: a world where technology is more dominant than ever, yet we lack a writer with the "polyglot" technical soul to explain it through fiction.

After about 100 pages I'm really starting to think the book was heavily ghost written. The introduction of Jack Ryan Jr was really sloppy compared to the opening chapter of Patriot Games when we are introduced to Jack Sr. Patriot Games open us to Jack Ryan through a series of events which work beautifully to illustrate Jack's background, personality, friends, and idiosyncrasies. Tom doesn't give everything away. He introduces us to this character each chapter highlighting a few characteristics here and there through family and friends. It's a slow burn but its an excellent slow burn.

The Teeth of Tiger introduces Jack Jr in about 10 pages of boring dialogue between him and a senator where all of his traits and wisdom are just "explained", never explored. There is a MAJOR spoiler alert in this chapter, and those who read the book know when I say, that was a cold off camera kill for absolutely zero reason for a character that should have never been done dirty like that (unless it pays off later).

In light of this juxtaposition of books and the example given, I am thinking Teeth was ghost written. But I am sure there are Tom Clancy super fans who know the full history of this book. 😃