Tom Clancy, 1947-2013
I haven’t read Clancy in years, and never felt the hunger to find and consume all of his work, a la Zelasny and Vance. I merely read Red Storm and the Jack Ryan novels.
Clancy wasn’t a great writer, because he wasn’t a great wordsmith. He was “only” a very good one. But man, could he tell a story. He was a great, great, great storyteller. How great? Every single Hollywood adaptation of his novels has been worth seeing…yes, even the Ben Affleck one. This puts Clancy’s storytelling instincts beyond Hitchcock, Spielberg, and even Uncle Walt. There is Clancy and there is Pixar. That is all.
Rest in Peace, Mr. Clancy.
World's Only Rational Man 
As far as I know, the ones I read were Red Storm, Clear and Present Danger (was that the drug war one?), the one where Jack Ryan becomes president, and the post 9/11 revenge one with the undetectable paralysis drug. All were fun reads!
I beg to differ; every film adaptation of Clancy’s works (with the possible exception of Red October was well-nigh unwatchable. Hollywood tends to do that to good stories.
I only say no film adaption was ever, no will it ever be a match for Studio Ghibli.
Same for Pixar. They’ll never be on that level.
Guess I am a little late to the party.
I read all his early stuff but the movies were uniformly pretty bad but that wasn’t his fault.
I eventually stopped reading his books when I discovered 1 out of every 25 words was the “F-bomb.” It just got really tedious at that point so I stopped buying and reading his books.
Plus, he started farming out his series to other writers.