| The "Ryanverse" is a collective term
which deals with the books centered around the character
of John Patrick "Jack" Ryan. In the first book
chronologically in the series, Without Remorse, Jack
Ryan is a child whose father is a policeman "tracking"
John Kelly. In Patriot Games, the next book
chronologically, Jack Ryan becomes the central character
and is an adult. The Bear and the Dragon is
culmination, to this point, of Ryan's life as he is now
President of the United States. Rainbow Six remains in
the Ryanverse as it is a book centered on John Clark and
Ding Chavez, two major characters in the latter
Ryanverse books. Red Rabbit falls between Patriot Games
and The Hunt for Red October.
Complete character and concordance information is
available in the Revised Tom Clancy Companion which was
published on September 6, 2005. The Companion
covers the Ryanverse through The
Teeth of the Tiger (and Red Storm Rising).
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Contents
Order of Ryanverse Books
The last novel was published in
August of 2003. Clancy moved up his usual "every other
year for a new book" schedule for The Teeth of the
Tiger. He also tells us this, along with Red Rabbit,
are the last two Ryanverse novels. Amazon.com now has an entry for "New Clancy 1," a
hardcover book to be published May 31, 2006.
I am assuming this is another Ryanverse novel.
In essence, the "every other year for a new book"
schedule is no longer.
The storyline order of the movies is substantially
different from both of the above. See the
Movies
Section of this FAQ. The Sum of All Fears movie
threw that storyline in the trash...
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Character Listing
A comprehensive character listing for the Ryanverse
books has been developed with help from a number of
people. This listing is complete only through SoAF.
DOH, EO, R6, and TBatD will be compiled next.
Character Listing
Character
Listing
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Timeline
Tim Klevar has developed a
timeline for the Ryanverse through EO. It is based on
hard dates which appear in Without Remorse. WR+0 is
November, 1969, just after Hurricane Camille. In May,
1970, Kelly meets Pam and the Rosens. On June 18, 1970,
Pam dies and Kelly is shot in the back. In August, 1970,
Kelly makes the trip to New Orleans and Eglin AFB. Based
on this data, the timeline is then as follows.
Note that this is a "best guess" but is close. PLEASE
don't email me and tell me it is wrong. We know it is.
This is fiction we're dealing with!
Update: This has generated almost as much traffic as
the "which person do you like for THIS character in the
movie ______" threads. Couple of things. This timeline
was a by-product of researching things for creating the
FAQ, specifically character sketches and plot lines.
Clancy notes that "time is flexible in the Ryanverse" in
this note. For the folks out there, remember...the
books are written in real-time, and it probably helps
the "filler" to make reference to some real event. Alas,
the books themselves are fiction, and time is
manipulated to put the book's point across (and not
incidentally, make a ton of money), not to adhere
to....reality.
| Book |
Time |
Year |
Rationale or Notes |
| WR |
0 |
1970 |
Without Remorse begins November,
1969 |
| PG |
WR+11 |
1981 |
|
| RR (Red Rabbit) |
? |
? |
Falls between PG and HfRO.
Haven't worked out details. |
| HfRO |
12 |
1982 |
|
| CoTK |
17.5 |
1987-1988 |
PG + 5.5 or 6 |
| CaPD |
18 |
1989 |
|
| SoAF |
19 |
1990 or
1988 |
Jack, Jr., born at the close of
PG, is 7. Sally is 10 - Actually, as pointed out
by Grey Satterfield, the elections would have
had to be in 1988. |
| DoH |
21 |
1992 |
Jack had a "two year vacation" |
| EO |
22 |
1993 |
Executive Orders begins
immediately at the end of DoH |
| R6 |
22+ |
2000 |
Rainbow Six appears to run
concurrently with Ryan's term as President.
However, the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Australia
are at center stage. This pushes the timeline
well into the future. There is a lot of Jack
Ryan history missing during those 7 years.
Note, though, that Jack could be reelected for
two terms beyond the year that he is President
in EO. |
| TBatD |
22+ |
2000+ |
References to R6 events place
TBatD after R6. |
That's about as simple as it gets. The following was
submitted by another reader
and presents some additional review of the timeline.
To whom it may
concern,
I enjoyed reading
through your timeline in "Ryanverse". However, there are
a couple of discrepancies that I would like to point out
to you. They are as follows:
1. In Without
Remorse, John Terrance Kelly joined the CIA and became
John Clark. This is well known, of course, but there is
something else. We can be conservative and say this
happened in 1970, which it probably did. Now, it is
mentioned a few times in WR that Kelly is 26. However,
in Rainbow Six, it is mentioned that Clark is in his
"middle fifties", as well as having been in the CIA for
"more than 30 years". This would suggest that Rainbow
Six takes place towards the end of the '90s, or even the
year 2000.
2. One other point
that strengthens the 2000 time line is the Summer
Olympics that take place in Rainbow Six. These games are
held in Sydney, Australia, which everybody knows
actually happens in the year 2000.
3. Now, here is an
interesting point that supports Rainbow Six happening
AFTER 2000. The Gulf War and even President Bush are
mentioned a few times in a couple of the books. Now, the
President before Fowler, who is not named, had to have
taken office after 1992. He served a full term, as
mentioned in SoAF when Fowler was elected because the
incumbent "threw the election". So, in 1996, Fowler was
elected. Now, he was close to the second half of his
term when he resigned, making Durling President at the
same time the Jack resigned as well. And Jack was gone
for not quite 2 years, because the end of DoH was about
9 months away from the next Presidential election, which
occurs in 2000! He is summarily elected then, and serves
about 18 months when Rainbow Six takes place. This would
put Rainbow Six around summer 2001, which doesn't
support my theory about 2000 that well, but it does
support my theory that all of this happened around the
latter part of the 90's and early part of the new
century.
Sincerely,
Jeff Cottingham,
USN Pearl Harbor, HI
This is a good example of the irreconcilable
differences in the time line that even Clancy has spoken
about.
Finally, Bill
Alessio wrote up a comprehensive chapter listing and
put in significant dates and notes with respect to
building a timeline. It is found
here.
Well, not finally. Robert Miller
(scrapper6@earthlink.net)
provided another. It is found
here. This is far and away the most detailed and
researched chronology I have ever seen (thanks Robert).
We'll clean up the formatting as we go along.
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Book Summaries
Plot/book summaries for each of the Ryanverse books is
found here: Book
Summaries.
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Concordance
The complete Concordance is found in The Tom Clancy Companion
(Revised) published on September 6, 2005. Updates
and corrections will be found in this website in the
future. Purchase from Amazon.com:
Paperback
The original concordance remains available:
Concordance.
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