Executive Orders
ISBN: 978-0-399-14218-5

Longtime readers of thebooklight might remember the review of Net Force. After reviewing that specific work which claimed to be Tom Clancy, the reviewer, remembering many Tom Clancy movies and works from the 90's, had a general feeling that Net Force, to put it bluntly, sucked. It was not a bad work on its own, to be sure. However, if you slap Tom Clancy's name on a book, one expects Tom Clancy-level quality. Net Force did not have the quality and rich attention to detail for which Tom Clancy was known. After some digging around, it turned out that Tom Clancy, like some character in one of his books, died under some mysterious circumstances. After his death, the publisher just went ahead, took his name, and slapped it on books that ghost writers are writing within the Tom Clancy universe since the name has brand recognition. A cynical person, or suspicious one, would say that someone wanted Tom Clancy's brand.

Just to put an exclamation point on that claim, however, comes Clancy's Executive Orders. Maybe it was possible, thought the reviewer, that Clancy was not as good as remembered. It had been some time since seeing any of his movies or works, which is why Net Force felt so, well, flaccid. Executive Orders, then, is like a book that took Viagra and steroids at the same time and got into a tank while lifting some kettlebells and pops the hatch occasionally to burn the surroundings with a flame thrower. If anything, Tom Clancy was better than the author remembered. One of those reasons is because, if you slightly change the script of Executive Orders, you have almost a word-for-word plotline that jets a person through thirty years of US political history.

The book was published in 1996, but in it, we find some issues with China which are happening today in the political landscape. We see the term "weapons of mass destruction". We see planes crashing into Federal buildings, which causes a political re-alignment culminating in a president who does not play the Washington political game but instead has integrity. We see the gutting of the status quo of the political "swamp", and oh yeah, a lockdown because of a pandemic by a foreign country. We see the old system try to fight back, and challenge whether Jack Ryan (the President) has the authority to do the things he does. We see legal drama. Eventually, we see Jack Ryan's solution to all these interferences which culminates in the Middle East which concerns Iran.

Since we are in the 90's, of course, we have large helpings of AIDS and Ebola showing up to the party to give us a feeling of our imminent biological vulnerability and planned doom by nefarious forces. We get so much military terminology, it is almost impossible to keep up with the acronyms. Then, as we are reading along, we have to remind ourselves that this technology is thirty years old at least! In case we forget though, we are reminded that the internet is a "new thing" that nobody really knows how to use, but of course the enemies of the country are very quick to adopt and weaponize.

We have Civil War allusions, a tank battle in a desert, simulated attacks that become actual, and Abraham Lincoln aphorisms and speeches! In the back of the work sits an Oliver Wendell Holmes quote that makes the reader want to slam the book down on the table, buy a shotgun, purchase or hot wire a Ford, and sing the National Anthem while drinking some f'ing Sam Adams and listen to Lee Greenwood. We are talking full Team America here, and THIS, THIS is the Tom Clancy of recollection.

In its time, one might have accused Clancy of being overly patriotic, but at least he did the research so hard Martha Washington sat up in bed next to George and exclaimed she had a nighttime dream of a sometime future person in the new country of America whose name was Tom Clancy and HOLY SHIT!

Because of this, and not in spite of it, this makes the other books that are written as Tom Clancy novels a terrible mockery. Some writers ARE the brand, and nobody else will EVER, EVER be that brand because they are not that kind of writer. Whether Tom Clancy was clairvoyant, well connected to the intelligence community, a gifted writer, or something else is hard to say. Maybe he was some weird combination of all of it. Maybe he was one of those people put on the Earth to do a specific thing for a specific time. What is apparent is that everyone read this book in the 90's and must have forgotten it, because we are still living it.

The ending of this work will not be mentioned here. However, do you think that the evil-doers are gonna just screw the whole country up and get away with it? One might be forgiven for thinking so after Net Force. After all, there is a franchise someone is trying to continue there. Let it be said that the book concludes with a conclusion, then kicks the reader right in the teeth with the founding fathers of the United States and of course, slams your face into the Supreme Court Justice previously mentioned as a last, poignant pull quote in case you wonder what the limit of Executive Orders and/or Powers are.

Clancy died, it seems, of a heart attack at 66. While heart attacks can happen at any age, this seems early. The above linked information gets into some odd things that happened after his death. There are more odds things that people noted before his death, but that's not the purpose of this specific review to tackle. It is like Clancy is some avatar of America and a foreshadowing of the problems about to come into the country in and round 2013. It can only be said that the effort to replace him only makes his greatness as an author the more apparent. Take the guy's name off in bold print of the ghost written books, and make it small and say "in the Tom Clancy universe". Really, that's an exaggeration, because those works are not even on the same planet.

You will not read Executive Orders if you are over the age of thirty. You will have been too busy living it. You have not seen the conclusion yet. Maybe Clancy has some of that magic left that apparently circulated around his ink pen.

Original review over at thebooklight!