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> Other pop novelists, like John le Carré and Tom Clancy, may flavor their work with a few real-world scenarios and some spy lingo... This seems like an unfair
by joshmaker 11y ago
> Other pop novelists, like John le Carré and Tom Clancy, may flavor their work with a few real-world scenarios and some spy lingo...
This seems like an unfair characterization of Carré who actually worked as a spy for both MI5 and MI6 and who introduced the word 'mole' as slang for a sleeper agent into the english language.
- Borogravia 11y agoYou're not kidding - calling le Carre a "pop novelist" to begin with, let alone lumping him in with a hack like Tom Clancy, is selling him desperately short.
- provost 11y ago> lumping him in with a hack like Tom Clancy While not all of his 17 best sellers merited their sales, I'd say a handful of them were good enough to set Clancy a far cry away from a 'hack'.
- DanBC 11y agoDid Tom Clancy write each of those books? It'd be interesting to see if he's less hacky if we ignore the ghost-written books.
- mercurial 11y agoEach of them, I don't know, but Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising are his, I believe, and they're pretty good. Of course, after a while it really becomes about masturbating to America's mighty stick.
- spacecowboy_lon 11y agoAnd Le Care was a real spook (SIS) - he had had to leave because he was burned by Philby.