Tom Clancy Biography

Writer

Novelist Tom Clancy popularized the genre of "techno-thrillers," political intrigues mixed with details of modern military technology. A former insurance broker, Clancy became one of the best-selling authors in the United States with novels including The Hunt For Red October (1984), Patriot Games (1988), Clear and Present Danger (1989) and The Sum of All Fears (1991). All featured Clancy's frequent protagonist, Jack Ryan, and all were made into movies. (Ryan was first played by Alec Baldwin, then portrayed twice by Harrison Ford, then by Ben Affleck in the 2002 film of The Sum of All Fears.) Clancy's early novels focused on the Cold War and took a grim view of the Soviet Union, making Clancy doubly popular with politically conservative readers. Clancy is sometimes kidded for his extreme wordiness -- The Sum of All Fears ran 798 pages in hardcover -- but fans stuck with him in the 1990s as the Soviet Union fell apart in real life and Clancy shifted his focus to terrorism and other hot topics. In 1996 he started Red Storm Entertainment, a multimedia company specializing in computer games.

Other super-selling novelists of Clancy's era included horror specialist Stephen King and vampire fan Anne Rice. Another novelist known for massive tomes was Charles Dickens.