Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Clancy, Tom - Bob Shacochis (review date 4 August 1991)

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Bob Shacochis (review date 4 August 1991)

SOURCE: A review of The Sum of All Fears, in Los Angeles Times Book Review, August 4, 1991, pp. 3, 8.

[In the following review, Shacochis offers praise for The Sum of All Fears.]

OK, all of you despondent Desert Storm junkies, cheer up—the adventure continues (for a whopping 800 pages; none of this Wham, Bam, Thank You, Saddam stuff). The Sum of All Fears is the perfect panacea for anyone experiencing withdrawal symptoms from the Gulf War, unwilling to trust the White House to co-produce the sequel.

Whoever spends the bucks on Tom Clancy's sixth novel should be able to figure out how decent people become drug addicts, since Clancy is to storytelling what a voracious crack habit is to cocaine, firing narcotic blasts of 100% pure plot right down your pipes. And yet, if you're hankering for a little Escapist Lit from the guy, forget it; his MO is to animate the...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Walter Isaacson (review date 11 August 1986)
   2. Anthony Hyde (review date 26 July 1987)
   3. Ross Thomas (review date 2 August 1987)
   4. Robert Lekachman (review date 31 July 1988)
   5. Ross Thomas (review date 13 August 1989)
   6. David Wise (review date 13 August 1989)
   7. Elliott Abrams (review date 16 August 1989)
   8. Morton Kondracke (review date 28 July 1991)
   9. Bob Shacochis (review date 4 August 1991)
   10. Louis Menand (review date 16 September 1991)
   11. William F. Ryan (essay date Winter 1993)
   12. G. Gordon Liddy (review date 22 August 1993)
   13. Walter L. Hixson (essay date Fall 1993)
   14. John Calvin Batchelor (review date 21 August 1994)
   15. John Lehman (review date 2 September 1994)
   16. Christopher Buckley (review date 2 October 1994)
   17. Michael R. Beschloss (review date 18 August 1996)
   18. Paul Dean (review date 25 August 1996)
   19. Christopher Hitchens (review date 14 November 1996)
   20. Helen S. Garson (essay date 1996)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Tom Clancy