Post #3870920

2026-07-16 23:00 UTC

- It was interesting to note that Robert Ritter (one of the CIA antagonists in Clear & Present Danger) appears in this as someone helping Ryan. Makes me want to keep reading the series. If he features heavily in Cardinal of the Kremlin before turncoating in Clear & Present Danger, that'd make it an extra sad development. In the film he's slimy and villainous from the start. - Clancy's conservative Republican (in the '80s sense) politics sometimes shine through in funny ways. Some of his characters like Jonesy gush about Cal Tech and California as 'the place to live', but the author insert characters like Ryan explicitly talk about west coasters (or, Californians at least) being 'odd' (by inference, the crazy bastards are progressive!) - The details about Skip Tyler designing a program to calculate the performance of the Red October to give to the commanders in the field was entertaining - remembering just how different doing large scale simulations was in the early '80s. When Compute meant huge cathedral-sized Crays you had to book time on. - The fapping over Apple Computer and Jobs/Wozniak fits perfectly with Clancy's Capitalism fetish. They're not even mentioned by name, but are mentioned as exemplars of Why America is Great(tm).

Replies (1)

@vampiress@eigenmagic.net 2026-07-16 23:04

- By far the weakest characters in the book are the Soviets. They're not BAD but they very much fit the "American imagines that Soviets are brain-washed and not very smart". - There's a bit where the Soviets are shocked that one of the American sailors is African-American. Clancy's characters are surprised by this, and America being free and not "caring" about skin colour is a point of pride for them. Fascinating seeing how even for a conservative Republican in the '80s, this was a thing they could believe and take pride in. Right wing Republicans now sure don't seem to... - There's a lot more detail about the submarine ops than even I remembered. In the time since I first read it I learned a LOT about submarine operations, and in the novel there are quite a few instances of fairly technically complex things like sound speed profiles and thermoclines being mentioned without explanation, though I don't think NOT understanding what they are would hinder readers' enjoyment. But it's still interesting WHICH things he decides to explain to the reader and which things he just mentions and passing and moves on from.

Open ##3870919