Here he is, the behemoth of geopolitical military fiction himself, Tom Clancy.

Something to understand about Tom Clancy is that he helped usher in what I see as a new era of techno-thriller. You'll see this tradition carried on by many writers, from Michael Crichton to DaVinci Code. And his style of describing advanced technology from many points of view - each viewpoint representing an iota of government or military power, each viewpoint holding its own tricks and motives - is a natural outgrowth of many traditional novel styles. In fact, I don't believe that Clancy even invented the style that he epitomizes - you may want to check the original James Bond and Bourne Identity novels - but he's popularized it in a way that's become quite infectious.

Where we see most see Clancy's influence is in the techno-thriller. Nowadays, you can't look at the bestseller racks without seeing at least one or two of these modern thrillers mixed in among the romances and the mystery-novel-of-the-moment. (Half of these thrillers, it seems, are stamped "Based on Tom Clancy's _____," which makes the comparison even simpler.) Yet his influence - we'll call it "The Clancy Effect," for lack of a better term - has spread to other genres as well. In many fantasy and science fiction novels, we see a tight blurring between reality and the unreal - see The War of the Flowers for a prime example.

Whether Clancy is the originator or a natural result of "The Clancy Effect" is hard to say. Yet the key components of this effect are very natural results of our modern society. We live in a society of accepted mysteries - we believe that the government has much greater technologies than we're aware of, we trust that corporations are hiding their most sensitive research, and we are all convinced that those who crave power will risk everything to get more. The Clancy Effect simply capitalizes on these fears. Whether it's a silent submarine that could punch right through American naval defenses or an atomic bomb detonated by terrorists during the Super Bowl, we are all firm believers that Powerful People are in possession of Terrible Secrets that could Change Everything. And to stop the inevitable deadly things, good Americans must arrive to save the day through courage and cunning.

This fear of unknown terrors is not, of course, entirely new. Literature has long capitalized on spies who have "the critical knowledge" to "change the course of the war," and then we also have students of "dark arts" who threaten to "conquer the world" with their "demonic knowledge." Ghost stories and mystery stories naturally capitalize on the unknown, but they rarely approach the scope of a story which threatens to "forever change life as we know it." Where the Clancy Effect differs from prior literary approaches, though, is the fact that the stories are (often) very plausible. Unlike most supernatural stories, which must build up unearthly rules by which ghosts and wizards abide, a Clancy Effect story is centered on technologies we see in our own homes: DVD players, computers, that graphing calculator with the USB cable to uplink data with the internet. (Oh, did I say graphing calculator? How passé. I meant to say "iPhone." And why does it even need a cable? Just use Bluetooth.)

Unfortunately, this Clancy Effect has been abused by many practicioners of Megabuck Literature. Just look at the recent G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra or Armageddon - the success of speculative movies and novels based on realistic technologies has spawned many, many books and movies which give up the pretense of plausibility. And I believe that this, too, is a symptom of the modern world, but not a symptom of progress. As our technologies have become exponentially more complex, the pace of education continues to lag behind. Impossible (and downright idiotic) premises to an engineer often seem plausible - or even compelling - to younger viewers and adults who are not scientifically inclined. (For example, we have a scene in The Rise of Cobra where falling pack ice destroys a subsea base. Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I didn't think it was possible for pack ice to sink in ocean water, let alone pulverize a pressurized undersea facility presumably constructed of steel.)