Books: Executive Orders, Stars and Stripe in Peril
I read books too! LOL. Last week was spent mainly re-reading Tom Clancy’s 1996 Jack Ryan novel, all 1362 pages of it. Clancy actually uses all these pages, running many subplots against a larger theme, and doesn’t spend page-long paragraphs explaining military hardware, history, or the color of the snow. In this book, Khomeini’s fictional successor as Ayatollah/leader of Iran is determined to destroy America as a world power and make his own into a major player. Ryan, suddenly thrust in an unwanted role as U.S. President, takes it on the chin (Ebola bio-war, a kidnapping attempt on his youngest child, and an assasination attempt) before fighting back and saving the day; the ending is never in doubt but Clancy makes the reader want to get there nonetheless. John Clark and his soon-to-be son-in-law sidekick Ding play large supporting roles. The site linked above is a little out of date but has some good bio/character information on Jack Ryan, Clancy himself, and a couple of good essays about Clancy and his writing. The only official Clancy site is dedicated to his computer games company, Red Storm Entertainment; his publisher, Putnam, doesn’t have a coherent Tom Clancy section but you can do a good search.
Stars and Stripes in Peril is the second book of a trilogy, an alternative history series by Harry Harrison, whose best-known work are the Stainless Steel Rat and Bill, the Galactic Hero series. Most middle of trilogy books (or movies) leave the reader hanging and unfulfilled but Harrison has written quite a few extended series in his fifty year career and avoids that trap here. Honestly, I thought this was the concluding volume of a two-parter and didn’t even realize it was second of three until I was exploring his website while writing this paragraph. The closest comparison to this series is Harry Turtledove’s How Few Remain/Great War/American Empire but while Turtledove matches Tom Clancy in driving a large number of subplots concurrently, Harrison prefers to tell the story through a (mainly) single set of characters in sequence. No matter, as both are good reads. in Peril continues the story from Stars and Stripes Forever, where the American Civil War is disrupted in 1862 by a mistaken British invasion of the South, allowing the North and South to team up against the common foe and (uneasily) reunite to kick the Brits out of the U.S., and Canada for good measure. This book takes the fight to the British Isles, after a feint into Mexico, so the Americans can free the Irish; President Lincoln is enamored of the economic and political theories of John Stuart Mills (an interesting contrast to Turtledove’s Lincoln, who becomes enamored of the works of Karl Marx and splits a Socialist party off of the Republicans). A good story and the Harrison website includes an interview with the author on this trilogy.
BillSaysThis 
