firing point

Take a look at this book cover. Do you know who DIDN'T write this book?

That's right Tom Clancy didn't write this book. He "slipped the surly bonds of Earth" nearly 10 years ago. it means he's dead

So is this a "Tom Clancy Brand" book or something? Has anyone Penguin Random House come out and said what this is about? My wife bought this book, thinking it was written by Tom Clancy. The publishers must know that is going to be the case, and I'm sure they feel confident that adding the real author's name on there covers them in the legal department, but is that the right way to do business? Lying to customers? I don't think so. its not the smallest font on the cover I guess

For a while, books like this said something like "Tom Clancy's: super bad-ass character," which claimed some ownership, either of the story, or the characters, or something. When you look at the Tom Clancy page at Penguin Random House the 's books way outnumber the books Clancy actually wrote. Penguin Random House has them listed as books Tom Clancy "contributed to." That sounds a lot like the co-authorship attributed to James Patterson on approximately 30% of the books published in America, based on my extensive sarcastic research project. After reviewing 3 or 4 Wikpedia articles on Clancy, it looks like he started to work with co-authors a few years before he died. He also appears to have collaborated with Steve Pieczenik on the creation of the Op-Center and Net Force novel series, of which he wrote nothing. So he an Steve came up with these ideas, and then some authors got assigned to it like cub reporters in a publishing newsroom or something. 

Its like the Agribusiness of writing.

So I finished it. Jack Ryan Jr. is in the same vein as Son of Frankenstein, as far as I can see. They'd like to keep writing Jack Ryan stories but the haven't figured out how to disengage him from a normal human life span like they've managed to do with James Bond. So Jack Jr. does the same kind of word saving things his dad did, just not as well written.

If you're into the whole Tom Clancy brand, and you assume that the publishers are only working with authors who have Clancy's raw talent, and would otherwise be writing bestsellers on their own, if they weren't so interested in keeping Clancy's characters going, then you'll probably enjoy this. Mike Maden asked me to suspend disbelieve a few times too far.

I wouldn't bother. In fact I'd say we skip the book mill fake authors like the Clancy brand and James Patterson and anyone like them. We don't need publishers and marketing executives clogging up the bookshelves with curated crap and formulaic plot points designed to drive sales and make money. We want quality authors, working hard at what they do, and we want room for them on the shelves. 

Organic, farm-to-table writing, please.