The Sum of All Fears is a best-selling thriller novel by Tom Clancy, a part of the Jack Ryan series. It was the fourth book of the series to be turned into a film.
The novel
The book is about a terrorist plot to detonate a nuclear weapon made from an old Israeli bomb. Jack Ryan, at the time DDCI (Deputy Director of Central Intelligence), must prevent a nuclear exchange between Russia and the USA. It is interesting to note the prescience of Tom Clancy. The book was written several years before the 9/11 attacks, yet it describes in detail the reality of terrorism in America.
The book began with this quote:
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"Why, you may take the most gallant sailor, the most intrepid airman or the most audacious soldier, put them at a table together - what do you get? The sum of their fears." — Winston Churchill
The film
The Sum of All Fears was turned into a film in 2002, starring Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman. While the basic plot was the same, there were significant changes from the book, including the identity and ideology of the terrorists. The original terrorists in the novel were Muslims, but in the movie, they are changed to neo-Nazis. Additionally, Jack Ryan is a low-level analyst in the movie, whereas he is the DDCI in the book.
In the film there is this sentence:
- "You don't try and fight Russia and America. You get Russia and America to fight each other... and destroy each other." —
The game
See: The Sum of All Fears (game)
Last updated: 02-08-2005 14:30:50
