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Ima Trooper
Chilldog Extraordinaire



Registered: 02/21/08
Posts: 13,533
Loc: United States
Last seen: 3 days, 4 hours
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Tom Clancy is dead
#18921807 - 10/02/13 03:09 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Although I haven't read his books in while, when I was younger I loved reading them. Sad to see another author I like is dead. 
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/obituaries/bs-md-ob-tom-clancy-20131002,0,2435189.story
Tom Clancy, the Baltimore-born author whose novels "The Hunt for Red October" and "Patriot Games" subsequently inspired blockbuster movies and action-packed video games, died Tuesday after a brief illness at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
He was 66. His lawyer, Thompson "Topper" Webb, of the Baltimore law firm of Miles & Stockbridge, confirmed his death.
"When he published 'The Hunt for Red October' he redefined and expanded the genre and as a consequence of that, a lot of people were able to publish such books who had previously been unable to do so," said Stephen C. Hunter, an author and former Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic for The Washington Post. "He valued technical precision and on-target writing that became the form of the modern thriller."
Related Best-selling author Tom Clancy's ties to Orioles date to 1993 Tom Clancy's ties to Orioles date to 1993 Tom Clancy dies: Celebrities react on Twitter Tom Clancy dies: Celebrities react on Twitter [Pictures] Share your memories of Tom Clancy and his work Share your memories of Tom Clancy and his work Read Street: Clancy, author of techno-thriller, dead at 66 Tom Clancy books turned into movies [Pictures] See more stories ยป Mr. Clancy was the author of numerous best-selling novels, most of which featured the character Jack Ryan. He has a new Jack Ryan book, "Command Authority," written with Mark Greaney due out in December.
"I've been lucky," Mr. Clancy said in a 1992 interview with The Sun, between sucks on an omnipresent Merit menthol.
Growing up in Baltimore's middle-class Northwood neighborhood, Thomas Leo Clancy Jr., the son of a mail carrier and an insurance agency manager and eye surgeon, spent fall afternoons as a youth rooting for the Baltimore Colts, a team whose in-your-muddy-face style helped make football a national passion.
"I was a little nerdy but a completely normal kid. Mom and Dad loved each other. It was like 'Leave it to Beaver,'" he said in the 1992 interview.
His education was all-Catholic, beginning with St. Matthew's grade school. He went on to Loyola High School in Towson, an all-boys school with an all-male faculty and a rigorous, Jesuit curriculum. Students took four years of Latin, wore jackets and ties and began each class with a prayer.
"He was kind of his own man. He was quiet and toward the shy side," Father Thomas McDonnell, a Loyola faculty member who taught Mr. Clancy religion, Latin and history in his sophomore year, once recalled in an interview. He described Mr. Clancy as a straight-A student from the standout class of 1965, but unremarkable as a leader or athlete.
"I knew he was in class, but if you had told me he would be where he is today I would have said, 'No way,'" Father McDonnell said.
One former classmate, Towson dentist John Aumiller, said, "He had a vocabulary and skill with the language of an older person. He didn't speak with high school slang."
While some of Mr. Clancy's classmates went on to spend the late 1960s on campuses rife with anti-war activism, he moved a few miles south to Baltimore's Loyola College, where the ruling Jesuits had little tolerance for demonstrations. Mr. Clancy took ROTC classes.
"Loyola was a working class college. You had to be rich to be radical," Mr. Clancy said. "I was more of a Peter, Paul and Mary kind of guy."
He graduated in 1969 with an English degree and moved to Connecticut to work for an insurance company. Two years later he returned to Maryland, joining his in-law's insurance agency in the Calvert County community of Owings.
Despite his fascination with the military, Mr. Clancy never served in uniform. His ROTC classes were the sort that prepared students for military careers, but a serious case of near-sightedness kept him out of the service. (It's also the reason for his trademark dark glasses; the tinting kept the thick lenses from making him "look like a chipmunk," he once said).
But his insurance office had a number of military clients, which kept him around epaulets and brass buttons. He wrote an article in 1982 on the MX missile system for Proceedings, a publication of the Naval Institute in Annapolis.
His first publisher, Jim Barber, a retired Navy captain and former executive director of the Naval Institute, once remembered Mr. Clancy as "a very bright guy who knows clearly what he thinks and doesn't hesitate to let you know what he thinks."
"He's very direct. You don't have any problem understanding where you stand with him," he said.
Bored with the insurance business, Mr. Clancy began working on a novel in his spare time, basing it loosely on a real-life, 1975 mutiny aboard a Soviet frigate. The result, published in 1984, was "The Hunt for Red October," a tale of superpower conflict centered on a renegade Soviet nuclear submarine.
The rest, as they say, is history. The book took off like a heat-seeking, surface-to-air missile, selling 300,000 hardbacks and 2 million paperbacks in the first two years. The hardcover version spent 31 weeks on Publishers Weekly's bestseller list; the paperback, 37 weeks.
-------------------- "Its moving of its own accord...and I like that in a shirt!" - Me, tripping. deCypher said: Schizophrenia beats dining alone, you know.
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Synthe
Gatorade me, bitch!



Registered: 11/10/12
Posts: 7,961
Loc: Three bags of Funyuns
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I think he was for the war on drugs... not sure though. Anyways, he did inspire some great games and write some good books.
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fapjack
Title



Registered: 07/26/07
Posts: 16,574
Loc: Central New Jersey
Last seen: 3 years, 10 months
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Who?
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mpd
Lammen Gorthaur



Registered: 10/22/12
Posts: 9,660
Loc: Mostly at home... Mostly....
Last seen: 8 years, 7 months
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Re: Tom Clancy is dead [Re: fapjack]
#18923293 - 10/02/13 08:38 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Great storyteller. He will be missed.
Shift colors, Tom.
-------------------- There is no truer calling for mankind than that of true conservatism.
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Nimpo
Big Black


Registered: 05/10/12
Posts: 2,375
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Re: Tom Clancy is dead [Re: mpd]
#18923298 - 10/02/13 08:39 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Never read any of his books, but I loved the Splinter Cell games
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Magicman69
All About the Benjamins



Registered: 05/29/13
Posts: 6,876
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Re: Tom Clancy is dead [Re: Nimpo]
#18923315 - 10/02/13 08:42 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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He was a great writer and will live on through his timeless novels. I played Rainbow six: Rouge spear competitively for years.
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mpd
Lammen Gorthaur



Registered: 10/22/12
Posts: 9,660
Loc: Mostly at home... Mostly....
Last seen: 8 years, 7 months
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If you ever want to get the bejesus scared out of you read The Sum Of All Fears or Red Storm Rising. Awesome literary works that are so realistic you can see it all in your mind's eye.
-------------------- There is no truer calling for mankind than that of true conservatism.
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plektheplek



Registered: 06/18/11
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Last seen: 6 years, 9 months
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Re: Tom Clancy is dead [Re: Nimpo]
#18931394 - 10/04/13 02:14 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
Nimpo said: Never read any of his books, but I loved the Splinter Cell games
Yeah, what a great series of games. I'm currently reading the Splinter Cell books that are created by Tom Clancy but written by David Michaels.
I'm sure Tom will be missed
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