Executive Orders | Literary Precedents

Executive Orders Literary Precedents

Clancy's Jack Ryan novels have as their foundation the subgenre of espionage novels, emphasizing sinister plots and heroic derring-do. Clancy's device for creating a sense of epic scope for a vast plot of worldwide proportions may be found in other works that try to convey a narrative of widely separated events progressing toward a dramatic confrontation. Perhaps the most notable of these is Seven Days in May (1962) by Fletcher Knebel and Charles W. Bailey II. The novel uses an episodic structure to show geographically separated events occurring simultaneously, building suspense as America's political leaders move toward a dramatic showdown with traitorous American military leaders.