Thomas Leo "Tom" Clancy Jr. (born April 12, 1947) is an American author, best known for his technically detailed espionage, military science and techno thriller storylines set during and in the aftermath of the Cold War, along with video games which he did not work on, but which bear his name for licensing and promotional purposes. His name is also a brand for similar movie scripts written by ghost writers and many series of non-fiction books on military subjects and merged biographies of key leaders. He is also part-owner and Vice Chairman of Community Activities and Public Affairs of the Baltimore Orioles, a Major League Baseball team.
The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger, and The Sum of All Fears have been turned into commercially successful films with actors Alec Baldwin, Ben Affleck, and Harrison Ford as Clancy's most famous fictional character Jack Ryan, while his second most famous character John Clark has been played by actors Willem Dafoe and Liev Schreiber. All but two of Clancy's solely-written novels feature Jack Ryan or John Clark.
The first NetForce novel was adapted as a television movie, starring Scott Bakula and Joanna Going. The first Op-Center novel was released to coincide with a 1995 NBC television mini-series of the same name (Tom Clancy's Op-Center) starring Harry Hamlin and a cast of stars. Though the mini-series did not continue, the book series did, but it had little in common with the first mini-series other than the title and the names of the main characters.
The website IMDb reports that Tom Clancy's novel Without Remorse is to be made into a movie and is expected to be released in 2011.
With the release of The Teeth of the Tiger, Clancy introduced Jack Ryan's son and two nephews who were main characters; these characters continue in his latest novel, Dead Or Alive.
Clancy has written several nonfiction books about various branches of the U.S. armed forces (see non-fiction listing, below). Clancy has also branded several lines of books and video games with his name that are written by other authors, following premises or storylines generally in keeping with Clancy's works. These are sometimes referred to by fans as "apostrophe" books; Clancy did not initially acknowledge that these series were being authored by others, only thanking the actual authors in the headnotes for their "invaluable contribution to the manuscript".
In 1997, Clancy signed a book deal with Penguin Putnam Inc. (both part of Pearson Education), that paid him US$50 million for the world-English rights to two new books.[citation needed] He then signed a second agreement for another US$25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal.[citation needed] Clancy followed this up with an agreement with Berkley Books for 24 paperbacks to tie in with the ABC television miniseries Tom Clancy's Net Force aired in the fall/winter of 1998. The Op-Center universe has laid the ground for the series of books written by Jeff Rovin, which was in an agreement worth US $22 million bringing the total value of the package to US$97 million.
Steve Pieczenik, MD, PhD(born December 7, 1943 in Havana, Cuba) is an American psychiatrist, former State Department official, author and publisher.
Pieczenik has made a number of ventures into fiction, both as an author (of State of Emergency and a number of other books) and as a business partner of Tom Clancy for several series of novels.
He studied writing along with medicine beginning with drama and poetry. But eventually "I turned to fiction because it allows me to address reality as it is or could be."
Pieczenik received a listed credit as "co-creator" for both Tom Clancy's Op-Center and Tom Clancy's Net Force, two best-selling series of novels, as a result of a business relationship with Tom Clancy. He was not directly involved in writing books in these series, but "assembled a team" including the ghost-writer who did author the novels, and someone to handle the "packaging" of the novels. The Op-Center series alone had grossed more than 28 million dollars in net profit for the partnership by 2003.
Books authored include: novel Mind Palace (1985), novel Blood Heat (1989), self-help My Life Is Great! (1990) and paper-back edition Hidden Passions (1991), novel Maximum Vigilance (1993), novel Pax Pacifica (1995), novel State Of Emergency (1999), novel My Beloved Talleyrand (2005). He's also credited under the pseudonym Alexander Court for writing the novels Active Measures (2001), and Active Pursuit (2002).
Dr. Pieczenik has previously had at least two articles published in the American Intelligence Journal, a peer-reviewed journal published by the National Military Intelligence Association.
In September 2010, Dr. John Neustadt was recognized by Elsevier as being one of the Top Ten Cited Authors in 2007 & 2008 for his article, "Mitochondrial dysfunction and molecular pathways of disease." This article was co-authored with Dr. Pieczenik.
Dr. Pieczenik is the co-author of the published textbook, Foundations and Applications of Medical Biochemistry in Clinical Practice.
