Debt of Honor

A Jack Ryan Novel

By: Tom Clancy

Narrated by: John MacDonald

Length: 36 hrs and 2 mins

Publisher's summary

Clancy plunges hero Jack Ryan into nonstop high adventure, as two seemingly unrelated occurrences being a chain of events that will stun the world.

Take another thrill ride with Jack Ryan.

©1994 Tom Clancy (P)2010 Random House Audio

Critic reviews

"Clancy's latest novel traces the financial, political, military, and personal machinations that drive America into the next major global war.... a shocker climax so plausible you'll wonder why it hasn't yet happened. (Entertainment Weekly)

“Breathtaking.” (Los Angeles Times)

“A brilliant describer of events.” (The Washington Post)

Entertaining and informative.

Where does Debt of Honor rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

Top five of Tom Clancy's novels.

What was one of the most memorable moments of Debt of Honor?

The moment Jack Ryan becomes the President.

What about John MacDonald’s performance did you like?

One of his best. With so many difficult languages involved, his variety of accents and tones make the story seem realistic.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Not a book that can be digested in a single setting. There are too many important messages involved that require time for reflection.

Any additional comments?

I've been to Japan for business at least 40 times over the last decade. The insights into the Japanese mindset are very accurate and informative. I learned much more than I expected through out the story. A must read for anyone that wants to get a view of the business related culture of Japan.

Just get past the first couple hours of bad audio...the story is worth it!

I find it utterly fascinating at the number of people giving poor reviews due to 2 hours of bad audio over a 32 hour recording. The narrator was awesome flipping between American, Japanese, and Russian accents. The story was amazing (as expected). Just suck it up for the first little part, it's worth it.

Must be cheap to get a robot to produce audiobooks

Fun story, read the Jack Ryan book as a young boy and loved the techno stuff. But would be nice to have a human being as reader.

Debt of Honor

The narration for this book is definitely not the best. His words do seem slow sometimes and its hard to discern the characters at times, it would not stop me from recommended this audio book however. I have read several of Clancy's books and this is my 2nd audio book. My biggest complaint about this book is that sometimes Clancy seems to stretch out tech stuff unnecessarily. Its almost as if he is assuming the reader in completely ignorant to military tech or similar. He might spend 5 minutes explaining about the rudder and aileron controls on an F-15 when your dying to hear the meat of the story. Other wise it a great listen and recommended for sure. Oh yea, this book should definitely be considered a part 1, downloading Executive Decision now!

Interesting Plot

The plot is obviously dated. But there are some intriguing ideas to juxtapose with current conditions with Korea and Iran. It is also entertaining and even informative to compare what was perceived as “the future” just how far off that could be.

Most of the time I enjoy the minutia and detail but with this performance it is more tedious than other Tom Clancy books have been. (I’m listening to them in order). The performer mispronounces a number of military acronyms (CHENG - chief engineer - is not pronounce “chinge” but “chang” is merely one example).

Another problem the performer seems to have is that he can’t seem to get his accents to designate characters straight. Sometimes the Japanese sound like New Englanders. Etc. This story would definitely be improved with a new narration.

Narrator leaves much to be desired

The narrator for this book is a big let down. He could not keep his accents straight from one sentence to another. It was a big distraction from the quality of the writing. I look forward to the next book in the series returning to the previous narrator.

Debt of Honor--a five star winner

by Stewart. Delaware, Ohio
I don't know what speed some of the reviewers heard the book when they panned John MacDonald's narration, but he made the book very pleasant to hear. I read the hardcover when it first came out and now couldn't put my earphones down even though I knew the story's end.

Couldn’t finish it

Nothing worse than having Microsoft Sam read to you. I had to stop it and buy another with a different narrator.

Great Story - Narration "OK"!

Would you consider the audio edition of Debt of Honor to be better than the print version?

I almost passed on this one due to the comments on the quality of the narration. That would have been a big mistake. The story is great, as usual, and the narration if "OK"! Don't miss it!

Good story, somewhat fragmented at first

All the parts finally come together but it takes a while, and at least one character gets fairly well developed and then never comes up again (the VP's rape victim). I found my mind wandering at times with the Clancy tendency for excessive details.

There were some weird quality problems with the recording, too (gaps-skips), that I have never encountered, but that could be my phone, I suppose.

As some reviewers have noted, the narrator is mechanical but I got used to it. By the end of the story, I ordered the next book, so it was good enough to get me to finish it and want more.