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During the last year, the Domination of Eiler has been rampaging through its collection of cheap used books. It's therefore had access to a lot of Tom Clancy novels. Tom Clancy writes political action thrillers which resemble other novels and/or the Real World, aside from a few minor differences.
The chief difference between the Real World and the Tom Clancy novels, is history. When Tom Clancy changes the world in his novels, he keeps building on the changes. This has resulted in a fictional world called "The Clancyverse".
The Clancyverse is best described by summarizing some of his international political thrillers. Wikipedia of course has such a summary, but it's helpful to skip some of the boring stuff that mostly involves grunts with rifles. Besides, Wikipedia avoids the term "Clancyverse". But the Domination of Eiler embraces it.
Soviet Thrillers: Russians fight America to a stalemate but secretly want to be American.
- The Hunt for Red October (1984): A Soviet submarine defects to the United States.
- Red Storm Rising (1986): The Soviet Union invades western Europe unsuccessfully. The peace settlement makes the whole war Never Was. This is said to not be in the same universe as the other novels, but there's mostly no reason why not. In fact, the fall of the Soviet Union makes more sense in the Clancyverse.
- The Cardinal of the Kremlin (1988): A Soviet general defects to the United States.
Post-Soviet Thrillers: Nation X threatens its neighbors, but America rides to the rescue.
- The Sum of All Fears (1991): America magically brings peace to the Middle East with the help of Switzerland. When the people with the white cross on their flags start patrolling the Holy Land, Palestinians don't make rude comments about Crusaders, they just sell commemorative T-shirts. Still, some terrorists find an Israeli nuke, smuggle it into Denver, and do about 0.1 kiloton worth of damage.
- Debt of Honor (1994): Japan holds an Axis of Evil meeting with China, then takes over the Mariana Islands. America rides to the rescue, but suffers an attack from a guy who crashes a jetliner into a building.
- Executive Orders (1996): Iran holds an Axis of Evil meeting with China and India, assassinates Saddam Hussein, takes over Iraq, and invades Saudi Arabia. America rides to the rescue.
- The Bear and the Dragon (2000): Russia joins NATO, China invades Siberia, and America rides to the rescue. This is the first novel in the Clancyverse which actually ignores the events of "Red Storm Rising".
Aside from the history, these other differences exist between novels, the Real World, and the Clancyverse.
- In average novels, one hero is occasionally The Bestest there is. In Tom Clancy novels, every United States soldier is The Bestest, and so are their entire lines of command. And their weapons are unstoppable. In the Clancyverse, the enemies of America have not discovered the roadside bomb.
- In the Real World, Russia has a crumbling military, plus misgivings about the continuing ambitions of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. In the Clancyverse, Russia works so well with NATO, they must have been having joint exercises all along. And with American support, Russian soldiers are The Bestest too.
In short, the Clancyverse is an amusing intellectual exercise in world domination. If such an exercise were properly focused, the Domination of Eiler could be the imperial power which would rightfuly benefit.
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