Jack Ryan: Difference between revisions

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[[Tom Clancy]]'s most famous series of novels, featuring CIA analyst Jack Ryan. Four of them have been adapted into movies, and one is connected to a series of video games. Among fans, this continuity is often referred to as the "Ryanverse."

 

== The Jack Ryan series (arranged by event chronology, not order of publication) ==

* ''[[Patriot Games]]'' -- Ex-Marine Jack Ryan, an American tourist in London, rescues the Prince of Wales from [[The Troubles|Irish terrorists]] and comes to the attention of both the IRA and the CIA. This was the second book to be filmed, with [[Harrison Ford]] as Ryan.

* ''[[Red Rabbit]]'' -- Ryan, a new CIA analyst, must assist in locating a Soviet defector with information about a KGB plot to assassinate [[The Pope]].

* ''[[Clear and Present Danger]]'' -- A rogue adviser to the President launches a covert and illegal war on the Columbian narcotics industry, and Ryan must rescue the soldiers before they are abandoned to their fate. The third film from the series and the second to star [[Harrison Ford]].

* ''[[The Sum of All Fears]]'' -- Arab terrorists get their hands on a nuclear bomb and try to set it off within the United States, and a burned out Ryan is the [[Only Sane Man]] in a dangerously paranoid U.S. administration. Loosely adapted into the fourth film as a sort of reboot, featuring [[Ben Affleck]] as a newbie Ryan, with the Arabs swapped for Neo-Nazis.

* ''[[The Bear and the Dragon]]'' -- China, facing an economic and political crisis, [[China Takes Over the World|decides to invade Russia.]] The U.S. must cement a friendship with its once-greatest foe to fight off the aggressor. But what will Ryan do when the threat turns nuclear?

* ''[[The Teeth of the Tiger]]'' The U.S. is now engaged in a global war on terrorism, in response to the September 11th attacks which occurred in the Ryanverse as they did in the real world. The wars in [[Afghanistan]] and [[Iraq]] occurred in the Ryanverse continuity, and the Jerusalem treaty signed in ''The Sum of All Fears'' has failed, as Israelis and Palestinians went back to fighting each other.

* ''[[Locked On]]'' - Jack Ryan Sr. is running for president again., while the current president tries to find ways to discredit Ryan. In the process, John Clark becomes a fugitive while a thought defeated enemy tries to use these efforts for revenge against the Campus.

* ''[[Threat Vector]]'' - Ryan has been sworn in as President of the United States after having been elected the previous year. Meanwhile, the Chinese have recovered from their defeat in ''The Bear and the Dragon'', this time intent on taking out Taiwan, and this time, they are much better prepared, to the point the Campus finds itself facing a mirror image of itself when they try to interfere.

* ''[[Command Authority]]'' - Ryan Sr. finds himself enemy to a new Russia, now back to its role as antagonist to America as an anti-American strongman named Valeri Volodin now plans to restore Russia back to her former glory by force, even to the point of seizing the Ukraine. And old friend of Ryan Sr. leaves him a clue as he lays dying to how to stop Volodin, and it also ties into events from Ryan Sr. own past, all the way back before ''The Hunt For Red October'', event that have left Ryan's only hopes in a man from his past with a grudge against him, one his own son must nonetheless protect, as that same man can expose a deadly secret from Volodin's own past as well.

 

* [[Action Duo]]: Clark and Chavez.

* [[AKA-47]]: Completely and notably averted in the novels and games. In ''Rainbow Six'' however, "the new version of the venerable MP-5, chambered instead for the 10-mm Smith & Wesson cartridge" is erroneously referred to as the "MP-10" (actually the MP5/10); there has been [[Internet Backdraft|considerable debate]] regarding this given the usual amount of attention given to these kinds of details, with [[Word of God|Clancy himself saying at one point]] that he had personally seen and shot "the MP-10" (a submachine gun manufactured by an entirely different company, Special Weapons). In ''Dead or Alive'', Rainbow uses the more common MP5SD3 instead of the aforementioned MP5/10.

* [[Derelict Graveyard]]:

** Used as a drug dealer base in ''Without Remorse''.

* [[Did the Earth Move For You, Too?]]: A throwaway joke in ''The Sum of All Fears'', as terrorists are digging up an unexploded bomb... Though it's some time before they realize that it would have made the Earth move on [[Empty Quiver|a much, much bigger scale than they had first anticipated.]]

* [[Dirty Communists]]: Played more or less straight until ''The Cardinal of the Kremlin'', but completely turned on its head afterwards, to the point where the Russian Federation actually becomes a NATO member nation in ''The Bear and the Dragon''.

* [[History Marches On]]: Given the time between publications of his novels, "time" for the characters gets stretched out as events in [[Real Life]] occur. For instance, Ryan leaves government service around 1992 in ''The Sum of All Fears'', but somehow spends only two years on vacation until ''Debt of Honor'', which takes places in 1996, and {{spoiler|serves as President}} for another year or two up until 2001-ish between ''Executive Orders'' and ''The Bear and the Dragon''.

* [[Hoist by His Own Petard]]: Former Vice President Ed Kealty near the end of ''Executive Orders''. In order to counter President {{spoiler|Ryan}}'s executive order quarantining America in the face of an Ebola epidemic, he files a suit to have the order vacated due to violating the Constitution. Unfortunately for him, by having the court refer to the President by name and office, he effectively kills his own claim for the Presidency {{spoiler|until ''Teeth of the Tiger''}}.

* [[Hooker with a Heart of Gold]]: Pamela Madden in ''Without Remorse'', is a [[Deconstruction]] of this concept. After befriending John Kelly and getting clean from drugs, she is ruthlessly raped and murdered by her former pimps.

* [[Honest Corporate Executive]]: In ''Debt of Honor'', Founder/Chairman of the Columbus Group of mutual funds George Winston is practically a saint, as are most of the Wall Street executives in the story.

** Also from ''The Bear and the Dragon'' {{spoiler|As of the mid-2000s, the Chinese nuclear arsenal had grown hugely in sophistication, numbers and mobility (specifically solid-fuel road-mobile ICBM's that can fire on virtually no notice) from what Clancy describes as a viable special operations target.}}

* [[Scotireland]]: The tendency of people to do this is [[Lampshaded]] in ''Patriot Games''.

* [[Semper Fi]]: Jack Ryan is a former Marine.

* [[Shoot Out the Lock]]: Defied -- in several novels it's pointed out that this does ''not'' work in real life. In most cases, the shooter has to use several more bullets and messily destroy the lock mechanism to open the door.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Long Running Book Series]]

[[Category:Spy Literature]]

[[Category:Literature]]