Blogcritics Comments on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Comment by lokjoret on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Tue, 23 Jan 2007 10:21:52 EST

Hi very nice blog i reed this blog

Comment by William on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 20:52:35 EDT

Re: the JFK assassination. I remember very well what I was doing. I was playing tag football in an empty lot next to my house, when someone yelled that the President had been killed. My response? "Tom, you go deep and turn right, John, block Ray until I can pass." I was not all that interested in the long, boring blah-blah-blah of Walter Cronkite and the rest of the media. It seems that they did nothing but re-hash what had happened. I watched PART of the funeral, but, to my apolitical mind, I had more important things to do.

Comment by DE on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Tue, 22 Aug 2006 16:08:33 EDT

It's a shame the editors of this blog fail to protect the author in question from personal attacks (e.g., V M and Mike Thro.) Comments like these are pure personal and political diatribe -- they have no place in a literary discussion. Moving on, I can excuse deliberately "adjusting" the timeline of historical events to fill in insignificant plot details -- for example, Jack Ryan owns stock in Starbucks which did not IPO until 1992 -- but "forgetting" the age of a character between books is glaring error. Eddie Foley (son of Mary Pat and Ed) does not age in the 5 years between Red Rabbit and Cardinal of the Kremlin. In both novels, he is age 7, attending elementary school, and playing youth hockey in Moscow. Oops.

Comment by kenneth on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Thu, 13 Apr 2006 05:07:29 EDT

This is the first Clancy I have read and it will be the last.What a load of superficial, atrociously written, far right ranting trash. Jack Ryan is a totally unbelievable cardboard cut-out of a character. He wouldn't even make it as a minor player in a Marvel comic. We get page after page of every character's inner musings mostly used as a platform for the author's odious political views and patronising attitudes to the British. The plot such as it is, moves along at a glacial pace, half the much trumpeted detail is wrong and the historical timeline is a complete cock-up, as pointed out in earlier postings here. That Penguin can publish such unutterable tripe is an indictment of the whole publishing industry.

Comment by cris blackmore on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Tue, 6 Dec 2005 11:59:39 EST

i realy enjoyed this book of all it agents and misapreating characters.

Comment by John on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Fri, 2 Dec 2005 21:43:39 EST

I'm glad so many others picked up on much of the negative I saw, and I learned some I did not find. Listening to the book on tape was a benefit because I did not have to pay for it. The book was fairly interesting, but a real let down for all the profanity. Maybe he will read these comments and write some better books.

Comment by V M on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Thu, 24 Jun 2004 10:26:02 EDT

tom clancy has proved his shittiness by writing this book. all he uses this book for is an opportunity to have a go at the Russians and the British. In one scene, he whines about how the British have two different handles for hot and cold water in their faucets. what the hell is he talking about? If i remember correctly, half the people I know have bathroom taps like that. And they live in MARYLAND, the same place that Jack Ryan is from. I don't know what he was playing at either by saying that the british were "somewhat civilized" because they printed baseball scores in the newspaper. He uses erroneous information in his writing, and obviously has not done his research upon the inner workings of the KGB. If anything, he has written a book that serves not as an adventure novel, but for the first half of the book, as a premise on which to insult Russians and Brits, and for the rest of the book, use his pathetic writing skills to try and create an aura of suspense. He fails miserably. Him and his stupid conservative ideals can go and shit themselves. not only did he make rude and stupid comments about people like JFK , for god's sake, he blatantly put IN NARRATION in that book insulting comments about everyone who wasn't American. If the one i had rented wasn't a library book, i would have burned it. But now i'm thinking i should have done so and paid the fines. even my english teachers once said to refrain from reading clancy books for my research papers, since they had no meaning except for conservative bitching. dear god...and this man lives in my home state. and "Jim S", if JFK hadn't handled the cuban missile crisis, he wouldn't be philandering or womanizing because he would be dead, and you would be reduced to cinders. if you people could ever have the slightest shred of respect for a great man like him (and this is saying something, because i opposed many of his political views) then i wouldn't mind writing critiques, but writing insulting crap like "his death interrupted the Colts game" is just plain rude. Clancy writes smack using smack language, and he deserves to be hated.

Comment by Mike Thro on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Sun, 13 Jun 2004 13:36:28 EDT

I recently came across Clancy's comments regarding JFK, and I thought, "No one could be this much of a jerk, even in junior high." And I voted for Goldwater in 1964! The point of view of the short piece was obviously that of the "mature" Clancy, or else "This is the way the events of that day looked to me in 1963," or some such, was somehow omitted. I would also have expected more political insight: Johnson was able to push through civil rights legislation (something Kennedy himself could never have done) only by appealing to the supposed martyrdom of JFK.

Comment by Luis Syphur on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Thu, 25 Mar 2004 00:51:18 EST

A 930 page book about a defection and trying to stop the killing of the Pope. The killing isn't mentioned until page 450 (half the book gone). The defection doesn't happen until page 750. To me the book is nothing but 930 pages of having a go at the Russian's (mainly), the English (a bit less) and yelling aren't we, America, great. And as someone who is neither of these nationalities it really is hard work reading all the American hoo har. Trust me, as an outsider I can say that things don't look that rosey in the US from this side of the fence. Stephen King said that he has been accused of writers diarrhoea, well I think this novel has set a new benchmark, pages and pages of nothing. As this is the first Tom Clancy novel I have read I must admit it will be the last, and I only read it because it was an Xmas present. Yes I know I could have put the book down but I at least like to finish to see if there are any redeeming features and there are, it is well written, it's also just very booring.

Comment by Jim S on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Tue, 9 Mar 2004 10:31:15 EST

I happen to agree with Clancy... Kennedy was NOT a great president. He was a semi-adequate president who happened to stare down the Russians. Other than that one thing, what DID he accomplish? Escalation in Vietnam, in direct contradiction to the historical lessons of the region. Yup. Philanderering and womanizing, building the model for a more recent president. Yup. there are more, but the point isn't was Kennedy great. The point is you are most definately taking Clancy's comments out of context and judging him personally based on how he felt as a middle-schooler...

Comment by Gary Southern on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Mon, 8 Mar 2004 20:43:10 EST

My comments are not about Tom Clancy's books but about Tom Clancy the person. While arranging some articles that I wanted to save from my old Smithsonian magazines I came across his comments about how he felt when JFK was assassinated. His comments were unbelievable. For instance, he said he was in junior high when Kennedy got whacked, then followed four days of nothing but a dead president, they didn't even show the Colts play. He goes on to say he didn't want him murdered but to lose the next election, but then goes on to ask what did he accomplish? Maybe he forgot about the way Kennedy handled the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, the closest we ever came to turning this planet into a cinder. This alone would make him a great president and it seems that someone who is constantly writing about events on the brink could appreciate this. His comments just smacked of arrogance and not giving a damn.

Comment by Fred on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Mon, 16 Feb 2004 10:10:56 EST

A couple more errors in Red Rabbit 1) The base at 'Greenham Commons' is mentioned several times. The correct name is 'Greenham Common', singular not plural 2) The people who discovered the cosmic microwave background were Penzias and Wilson _not_ Penzias and Miller (I may have got that last name wrong - I was skipping a lot when I read that section), see www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1978/

Comment by smeddy on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Sat, 3 Jan 2004 04:31:12 EST

i have to say that this was, without a doubt, the absolute worst clancy novel ever written and rates in the top 10 of worst novels i have ever read. had i not been trapped on an airplane for 13 hours straight with a faulty headphone jack and no other reading material I doubtless would have thrown it away. As it was, it was a close match between this "novel" and the duty free shopping magazine. The novel could have been cut down to under 200 pages. that leaves 400 pages of fluff. We are treated to cliches and hackneyed aphorisms over and over again. Subjected to clancy's far right political leanings again and again and when you have just about had enough, they pop up again. and come on... ryan at 32 years old (this point is only emphasized about 2 dozen times) has: gone to college, joined the marines, been injured in a helicopter crash, made a fortune on wall street, went to grad school, got his PhD in history, wrote a book and got a position teaching at the naval academy. oh and he has a wife he has "never slept away from" and a daughter too... come on. his prose is turgid beyond belief, the dialogue invariably devolves into sermons and jack's americanisms are forced and obnoxious. none of the above, however, is unique to this novel--they are all present throughout clancy's works (which is why it had been many years since i stopped reading him and why i will never read him again). however usually he has a strong plot that pulls you through and we arent reading him for poetry lessons. but clancy without a plot--for this novel certainly did not have one--was more painful than root canal. getting off the plane i dumped this book right into the trash can. and i never throw away books...

Comment by sam on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Sun, 30 Nov 2003 20:50:12 EST

Red Rabbit was at best, the worst of Tom Clancy's novels. It has more holes that a Moscow pavement. I felt the author was just trying to fill in the spaces with huge amounts of irrelevant sub-plots like what the SOPs of English surgeons have to do with the main story? Or why didn't the KGB every check the blood sample of the burnt corpses (you know, just to make sure). In the 90s, a similar novel on the attempted assisination of the Pope came out. But the setting of that book was on what the Vatican did in response to that failed attempt which was to take out Andropov before another mission could be launched. Now that was a page turner, while Red Rabbit should have been where it should be in the firts place, the hutch.

Comment by GERRY on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Wed, 29 Oct 2003 18:09:08 EST

As mentioned by others above, this book lacks the page turning excitement of Clancy's earlier works. One major issue I have with the plot relates to the bodies of the three fire victims that were used to fool the KGB. Although all exterior signs of recognition were removed wouldn't it have been logical on the part of the KGB to test the blood of these victims. Surely the bodies still contained sufficient blood to allow for testing which would then be matched against the blood types of the defectors. No mention is made in the book regarding this point. What am I missing here? Comments appreciated.

Comment by Jayson on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Tue, 16 Sep 2003 01:09:25 EDT

It bears mention that Clancy started without remorse and patriot games before the hunt for red october, but didnt comlete them until later. bearing that in mind it strikes me that John Kelly (Clark) may have been well developed already, possibly before he had a plan for who Jack Ryan was going to be.

Comment by John Durbin on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Fri, 5 Sep 2003 21:57:16 EDT

In Red Rabbit(early 1981) Ryan is already "Sir John," having rescued the Prince & Princess of Wales some months earlier. Charles & Diana weren't married until Jul,81 two months after the attempt on Pope John Paul II.

Comment by Chris on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 13:07:26 EDT

Kenny -- If you haven't read any of the Jack Ryans books already, read them in chronological order. Here is the list.

Comment by ohugla on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Mon, 18 Aug 2003 09:09:54 EDT

The Red Rabbit is a book about deception where the deceived is the... reader. This one is not only a shame, it's a scam ! How to sell 1000 pages of hot air ? Well the trick seems to have done some real good stuff in the past and now, totally left blank with no idea, expect the client to have trust in your name But spread the word around, unless you need to fall quickly asleep don't lose time and money with the most verbose and tiresome, empty of any plot, production of the year. This is to the extent that reviewers are limited to exciting comments on dates and timing errors...

Comment by r spenger on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Wed, 13 Aug 2003 18:47:12 EDT

a British pint is 20 ounces. this one he should have known

Comment by r spenger on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Wed, 13 Aug 2003 18:47:06 EDT

a British pint is 20 ounces. this one he should have known

Comment by Jim on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Thu, 15 May 2003 11:44:29 EDT

2. Ryan is interested in his Oriol's run for and victory ovrt Philadelphia in the World Series. The World series is played in October. That WS took place in 1983. Also, Suslov died in Jan 1982, 8 months after the assasination attempt.

Comment by kenny on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Tue, 22 Oct 2002 04:31:34 EDT

I am just wondering if you recommend reading the tom clancy jack ryan series books in the order they were published, or in chronological order? thanks kenny

Comment by Alan Fleming on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Sun, 6 Oct 2002 19:16:03 EDT

Beginning of chapter 27 where Zaitzev awakes in Budapest as the sun is rising and the story says it is two hours earlier then in Moscow and he would still be asleep if he were there. Seems to be a contradiction there. While it would be two hours earlier in Budapest I don't believe he would still be asleep in Moscow as the sun is well up in the sky by that time. He would most likely be already at work.

Comment by Dan Schroeder on Red Rabbit by Tom Clancy

Sat, 5 Oct 2002 23:41:27 EDT

Two serious historical errors in Red Rabbit. Fortunately, neither is material to the story. The attempted assaination of the Pope was in May 1981. 1. Clancy refers to Ryan's disappointment that his Baltimore Colts left for Indianapolis. That did not happen until 1984. 2. Ryan is interested in his Oriol's run for and victory ovrt Philadelphia in the World Series. The World series is played in October.