Somehow, people like this book. Other people complain about the slow plot, or the level of detail, or the lack of action. I was perfectly fine with all of this, and in fact, I quite liked the idea that injuries were taken seriously and meant that people were out of action for a long time. The thing that makes this book truly bad is the lack of development of any of the characters, particularly Jack Ryan. He is possibly the worst Mary-Sue character I've read in such a widely published book. He is perfect in every way: he is incredibly smart, women find him attractive (but he's humble and doesn't think he's handsome), everybody loves him (but he feels uncomfortable around too many people and prefers just a few close friends). He is a tough ex-marine with great combat sense, reflexes, and a sense of honor to match, but he is also a history professor and a legitimate academic. All his students universally love him, even though he's a really hard teacher. He is super rich and has a beautiful house in a secluded location. He loves his perfect family. The Queen of England is his biggest fan. He manages to win the friendship of Prince Charles by telling him off. I could go on with so many more examples. None of his problems are internal, derive from personal flaws, or are even all that troubling. He's like that guy at a job interview who, when asked what his biggest weakness is, says something like "I guess I'm just too hard a worker," or something equally uninformative and boring. Everything he is challenged with in this story is external, and though clearly dangerous, it is only superficially so.One particularly bad section of the novel centers on Jack's plane flight home from England. Clancy waxes lyrical about the tragic events of Ryan's past having made him afraid of airplanes and flying. Many pages are devoted to this description, but we learn nothing fundamental about Jack, only some details about his history. This scene unfortunately draws a direct comparison with a particular James Bond novel (Live and Let Die, I believe) when Bond is flying from the United States to Jamaica and his plane is caught in a bad thunderstorm. With only a few short paragraphs of inner monologue, we see Bond, who we just saw handle himself calmly and cooly in multiple situations of extreme peril, become terrified of death in an airplane crash. He becomes almost insensible until the danger passes, and we learn that what Bond is truly afraid of is his own powerlessness in this situation. It speaks volumes about the character. Jack Ryan has no such moment, nor anything close. He is entirely content, unperturbed, and unmotivated. Jack Ryan is the very image of self-satisfied rich white American culture from the mid-1980s, and while that itself does not necessarily make him a bad character, the superficial way in which it is handled does.I will sum-up by saying that this book essentially reads like a bad British Monarchy fanfiction with an incredibly transparent main character.
Tom Clancy’s Patriot Games4.5 starstTom Clancy is known around the world for his fast paced action books. (Several of his books have been made into movies, and one has even been made into a video game series!) This is one of his earlier books, and I anticipated a book just like those who have made him famous with his writing style, such as Hunt for Red October, Red Storm Rising, and others. I wasn’t disappointed. This book, Patriot Games, is a great book, as most of his others were.tThe Theme of this book is of how terrorism is a problem that we all should stop. This book was centered on the time when the PIRA was a huge terrorist threat. The setting is mainly in either the United Kingdom or the United States of America. This book's emotion was very dark, but humorous too. The writer’s tone is whimsical (Tom Clancy is one of the few people who can do that in an action book).t In the beginning, Jack Ryan (the protagonist, who is a family man who has been trying to get away from his old past which becomes a plot twist) intervenes in an assassination attempt to kill the Prince of Wales while on a business trip to London, England, which was the beginning of the conflict as well as the exposition, and grabbed me in. After the intervening, in which he was injured and hospitalized for an injured shoulder, Jack was known as a hero to both England and the United States. While in the hospital, Jack gave a pep talk to the Prince of Wales, who was the one person he saved from assassination and later becomes a friend in the story, which proves the main character is nice but tough. Jack was then revealed as a Former CIA operative (this is the plot twist I was telling you about), and you thus learned more about the main character, although it was a tad early to reveal this. A surprise commenced in the story when Jack’s wife, Cathy, was found pregnant with her second child. In order to save England from the PIRA, Jack re-entered into CIA. All of a sudden, Jack’s wife and first child, Sally, were hurt severely, but not killed, by terrorists from the PIRA as a "message" which intends to tug at the heartstrings of the reader (it does its job well). I would reveal more to how the rest of the book goes, but that's for me to know and you to find out. ttWhat I think was good about the book was that it was humorous, fast paced, and full of action. It was similar to the Tom Clancy games, which was based off of books like these. However, there were some bad things about the book. For instance, you need to know history from this time period in order to fully grasp the idea of the book. Also, you need to have a basic idea for what guns are and types of them to find out what Tom Clancy is talking about in his book. Overall, I recommend this book for Tom Clancy fans, military fans, or just plain action fans.
What do You think about Patriot Games (1992)?
I read this one in elementary school, yes. I needed long books that I wouldn't accidentally finish in the middle of the Drop Everything And Read (DEAR) period, because we weren't allowed to leave our desks. Here's my review from that period (and yes the star rating is reflective of this review, not the benefit of hindsight):"The author is trying to create a lot of suspense and action/adventure. He does this by centring his story on a group of terrorists who try and kill the Prince and Princess with their newborn child. CIA analyst Jack Ryan stops the jerks but gets shot in the shoulder. Several months later, the enraged terrorists strike against Ryan by shooting his wife, Cathy, and daughter, Sally. Now Ryan is very annoyed [I had a talent for understatement:]. These terrorists aren't just mad, they want revenge. And that's why Ryan is so cheesed off. I sincerely love this book. It's 503 pages, so I won't have to worry about finishing it in the middle of DEAR. Second, it is so cool and full of action. And it is so... AWESOME! I would gladly recommend this book to anybody who likes action and adventure. I would give it a 9 on 10 because it has rather, um, adult language. But that doesn't spoil the story."I then commented that my next book would be The Hunt for Red October, "the first one Tom Clancy wrote".
—rabbitprincess
Tom Clancy's Patriot Games was an excellent book. What happens is that the main character Jack Ryan is living a normal life and taking a vacation to London and as his vacation seems to be going well he is trown in the middle of a attempted kiddnapping of the prince and princess of Wales.In the book he is shot, almost poisoned, and hospitilized. I thought that this book would be good especially with Tom Clancy being the author all of his books have never not interested me. It met all of my expectations because it's Tom clancy we're talking about here not some other guy. My favorite part is in the begining of the book when it all begins as a peaceful vacation to hunting a terrorist cell.I needed a book to read so that's why I picked this book and his books always seem to keep me entertained.
—Evan O'neill
OMG. So, so, so bad. I love a bit of schlock action (Lee Childs, Dick Francis etc) and thought I'd try a Tom Clancy/Jack Ryan. On the plus side, it IS a rip roaring action read that has our history PhD ex-Marine instinctively saving the heir to the British throne from terrorists - while on holiday. In chapter one. On the down side, much of my criticism is stylistic. Clancy switches between using first names, surnames and descriptions way too often. Several times I thought there were four people in a conversation, only to realise this wasn't the case. In addition, it hasn't aged well. The thought of terrorism on American soil is not unthinkable, there's no way you could regard the "Islamic Jihad" as less intimidating than the IRA and referring to an African-American character as "Blackie" at one point is just wrong (his companion is called Blondie, which is in no way equivalent). Totally mindless and lots of fun, but I like a little more meat on my plot and characters. Saved from one star only because I laughed at the absurdity of it several times.
—Neph
