Rest In Peace, Tom Clancy

The difference between fiction and reality? Fiction has to make sense.

– Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy, one of America's most successful espionage and military novel authors, died on Tuesday October 1 in a hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. He was 66.

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Tom Clancy is best known for his complex and detailed spy and military novels, 17 of which have made it to No. 1 on the New York Times best-seller list. He is the creator of the Jack Ryan series, which has been adapted into four films – The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of All Fears – with a fifth one on the way. Actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck appeared as the titular character Jack Ryan, a CIA analyst, in the films. The upcoming film is titled Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit and features Chris Pine (Captain Kirk from Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness) as Jack Ryan.

Tom Clancy also co-founded Red Storm Entertainment, a video game development company that was later purchased by Ubisoft Entertainment. His next book Command Authority is set to be published in December this year.

According to the New York Times, when Tom Clancy was growing up, he didn't read much children's literature (like we are doing in our classes). Instead, he was obsessed with naval history, reading lots and lots of military and engineering books about submarine warfare, espionage, missile systems and secret plans between countries. He aspired to join the military but found his eyesight wasn't good enough. Besides looking all cool and military-esque with his aviators in the photo below, he did end up doing what he loved despite not joining the military, because he believed that...

The only way to do all the things you'd like to do is to read.

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