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You can read the Jack Ryan books in the order they came out, and most
people do. I read them that way the first time. The second time through, I
read them in the order the story happens, and I recommend it, because you
watch Ryan grow up from a young history teacher into the man he becomes, and
you watch John Clark do the same thing from the other direction. Here is that
order. One line each, a grade, and no endings given away.
Grades are on the Army scale I learned from my first platoon sergeant:
GO, NO GO, and in between whatever he felt like that day. I've converted to
letters for the civilians.
| # |
Book (year it came out) |
Grade |
| 1 |
Without Remorse (1993)
Set in the Vietnam years, before Ryan's story, and it's how a Navy veteran named John Kelly becomes John Clark. The darkest of them by a long way, and the Vietnam parts ring truer to me than I'd like. |
A- |
| 2 |
Patriot Games (1987)
Ryan is a history teacher on vacation in London who steps into the middle of a terrorist attack, and pays for it. The best-paced of them all, and the one where you come to like him. |
A |
| 3 |
The Hunt for Red October (1984)
The one that started it all. A submarine book that an old tanker who's never been under water in his life could not put down. That tells you something. |
A |
| 4 |
The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988)
Spies, lasers and an old Soviet colonel with a secret. The slowest start in the bunch and one of the best endings. Stick with it. |
B+ |
| 5 |
Clear and Present Danger (1989)
Soldiers sent into the jungle on a secret mission by men in Washington who then decide they'd rather forget about them. Every soldier should read it. Every politician should have to. My favorite of the Ryan books, and it's where you meet Ding Chavez. |
A+ |
| 6 |
The Sum of All Fears (1991)
A lost bomb and a world sliding toward the edge. The scariest of them, and there's a fight in Berlin that any man who served in Germany will read twice. Long, and worth it. |
A- |
| 7 |
Debt of Honor (1994)
Japan, the stock market, and an ending everybody talks about. Too much about money for my taste and the last fifty pages make up for all of it. |
B |
| 8 |
Executive Orders (1996)
Ryan has to put a government back together, and you could stun an ox with it. But near the end he sends the Blackhorse from its home in the California desert to fight in another one, and I read those chapters standing up. My old regiment finally got its war, on paper, where wars belong. |
B+ |
| 9 |
Rainbow Six (1998)
Clark and Chavez run an international counterterrorist team out of England. Ryan's barely in it and I didn't miss him. Good, fast and a little too pleased with its own gadgets. My grandson plays the computer game. |
B |
RED STORM RISING (1986, with Larry Bond) GRADE: A+
No Jack Ryan, no CIA, just the war in Europe we all trained for, told from the
tanks, the planes, the ships and the submarines, and from both sides. It isn't
his best-written book. It's the one that matters most to men like me. I've
read it five times and given away four copies. If you served in Germany any
time between 1950 and 1990, this is your book. More on
the main page.
|
The rest of the shelf:
His guided tours. Nonfiction books that walk you through one
part of the military at a time: a submarine, a fighter wing, the Marines,
the airborne, a carrier, and one I read with my red pen uncapped, Armored
Cav (1994), on an armored cavalry regiment. I found very little to circle.
It's the book I'd hand a young man thinking about joining up. Into the Storm (1997), with General Fred Franks, who commanded VII
Corps in the Gulf War. The ground war from the corps commander's chair, and
it makes you understand why it went so fast: we'd been rehearsing that kind of
fight in Germany for forty years. The paperbacks with his name on top. There's a whole rack of
them now at the grocery store that say "Tom Clancy's" over the title. Read the
inside cover: other fellows write them. Some are fine for a plane trip. None of
them are Clancy.
Next one, whenever it comes: I'll buy it the week it's out, and the red pen
will be ready.
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