I once chose to read a Tom Clancy book over the summer for a book report in the following semester (I enjoyed those Rainbow Six games from the 90’s, so the books would probably be cool too right?). I stood up there in class and was like “I’m gonna be honest, I couldn’t bring myself to read more than half of this.” And the teacher was like, “I don’t blame you.”

I think it was mostly meant as military nerd porn.

Like, the guys who blow up the refinery are only important in asmuch as they create the need for a conflict with the West. Some oppressed group pulls off something wild but doesn’t have the men/material to do anything major afterwards (which is how a lot of terrorism goes.)

It’s not a great classical literature, for sure. The characters are almost entirely flat and forgettable, and even the handful that do grow (the young Soviet commander, the US destroyer captain) barely do so. Their experiences never almost never inform their later actions.

But among the techno-thriller/war-simulator genre, I found it more compelling than several more recent attempts (Ghost Fleet, Nuclear War: A Scenario, etc). Many of those seem to go out of their way to bend the plot to produce the author’s intended point, and while RSR wasn’t exactly innocent in that regard, I found it far less guilty than others - largely because Clancy was holding to the known or theorized-near-future capabilities.

Where I actually find it fascinating is how, in retrospect, we can see the biases of the era influencing how Clancy makes certain predictions:

• The Soviets place immense importance on taking Iceland to permit a “second Battle of the Atlantic” against US carrier groups. In retrospect, we know the Soviet Navy had no interest in this and intended to act as a cordon around northern Europe; specifically the Soviet SSBN bastions.

• While Clancy did loosely predict the nature, role, and value of Stealth aircraft, the design and air-to-air role he describes them in is actually too advanced for the 1980s setting. Essentially, Clancy bought the rumors, which were wrong.

• Land attack helicopters with ATGMs play relatively little role in the ground fighting. This was because the current generation (namely the AH-64) had just been introduced; their full capabilities and impact were not yet publicly available.

These mistakes, although understandable, provide an interesting insight into what the American defense establishment was thinking about in the early 80s.

Have also read it, I found most of it quite forgettable. Maybe when it was written ('86) it seemed much more connected to a real world possibility so early readers filled in the gaps with real life happenings / politicians etc. I was reading it in the early 2000’s when you had Hillary Clinton presenting Russia with a “reset” button and it almost seemed like we might be on the same side. Maybe that undermined it a bit?

I also didn’t find its handing of nuclear threat particularly convincing.

I’ve not thought about it for years, but perhaps these happenings in Ukraine have shown the whole dynamic wasn’t (isn’t) as implausible as I thought.

Instead of reading Clancy read Matthew Reilly. I suggest you start with Ice Station. It’s got everything you need, French Baddies, Spaceships, Hovercraft, and even killer Killer whales!

I read it in my 20s and liked it well enough. It isn’t great literature but it was a fun read.

I read it again in the last few years, I’m now in my fifties, and I had to skip the Iceland parts with the Air Force Lieutenant and the woman. My god, Clancy must have been an insufferable misogynist.

Someone should rewrite the book and remove or change that part.

I read it a long time ago and enjoyed it. Read it again last year and was kind of disappointed. The ending is so incredibly blunt.

I can’t say I remember that one particularly well, I just remember I didn’t much enjoy it. Tom Clancy has a few books that are pretty fun to read and even more books that are just blah at best.