Executive Orders

Jack Ryan, Book 8

By: Tom Clancy

Narrated by: Michael Prichard

Length: 51 hrs and 25 mins

Publisher's summary

The US President, along with most of the Cabinet and Congress, is dead. Dazed and confused, the man who only minutes before had been confirmed as the new Vice-President of the United States is told that he is now President.

President John Patrick Ryan.

With stunning force, Ryan's responsibilities crush on him. He must calm an anxious and grieving nation, all while attempting to reconstitute a Cabinet and a Congress with the greatest possible speed.

But that is not all. Both within Washington DC and across the globe, there are those eager to act on the animosity towards the United States and others from Jack Ryan's past that harbour a grudge towards the new President himself. Soon they will present Jack Ryan with a crisis so big even he cannot imagine it.

©1996 Jack Ryan Limited Partnership (P)1996 Books on Tape Inc

Critic reviews

"His plotting here is masterful, as is his strumming of patriotic heartstrings. This is heavyweight entertainment." ( Publishers Weekly, Starred Review)

"Vintage Clancy ... The conclusion features the most harrowing battlefield prose Clancy has written since Red Storm Rising." ( Bookpage)

well worth listening time

Would you listen to Executive Orders again? Why?

yes, I am sure I missed some as I sat late in the evening to get my next fix so will repeat the enjoyable experience at some time in the future.

Who was your favorite character and why?

no real favourite

Which character – as performed by Michael Prichard – was your favorite?

I am not American so enjoy the different accents, he gives a marvellous performance

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

it would be nice but not possible

Mesmerizing and spell binding

Good book with a great story. Definitely one of the best fiction I have ever read to date. Even better to listen to this again on an audiobook

President Jack Ryan

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

I recommend this audiobook to anyone who enjoys great political thrillers. Tom Clancy was a master of the genre.

Who was your favorite character and why?

Jack Ryan for his ability to step up to plate.

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

Once again too lengthy but I gave it a red hot go.

Fantastic writing & story but scarily prescient

For a book written 20 years ago I was amazing how true parts of it rang with the current COVID crisis of the last few years bows receding. Government & Public Reactions done perfectly.

This was written pre-9/11: keep that in mind.

I regard Tom Clancy as a solid, competent writer who deserved the success he has received. We foreigners who have been to the US have to remind ourselves that while Special Forces are carefully selected and trained to be the very best they can be and enjoy most of the advantages of hi-tech, offensive and defensive, they are still human and can be killed, wounded or mentally damaged. In Executive Orders, a Japanese pilot, seething over conflict described in a previous book, takes a 747 below the radar, kills hi co-pilot and dives the huge bomb into Congress, killing most of the US government, including the President, and the chain of command down to a level beneath the Joint Chiefs. Our hero Jack Ryan is thrust but unwanted circumstance into the role of President, with only one Senator protesting. The reluctant POTUS faces danger from many quarters but manages to find sufficient men with backbone to rally to the cause and uncover/destroy the real perpetrators of the plot to take out the US. If the plunged 747 decapitating the US government only to be foiled doesn't grab you, the underlying plot, which involves the weaponizing of the ebola virus, should make thinkers pause and pay more attention to events in Africa and the Middle East.

Mr Clancy has written a powerful account of a mega tragedy for the US and the world. I rate Red Star Rising as the best of Clancy's books but even with the passage of time this is a very close second. I purchased not knowing that that it was set on a different time line. Normally, my first reaction would be to return the book but I'm pleased I hung in there. It's a long but very worthwhile read.