Red October (fictional submarine) the "Red October" adventure proved useful to Ryan's career. In later books, Ryan is able to use his heroism in obtaining the submarine as a lever with which to force a threatening KGB Secretary to defect to the U.S. against his will (in the novel "The Cardinal of the Kremlin"), ending the possibility of a Kremlin coup against a politically centrist Soviet government. Years later the truth of these events comes to light when political opponents of then-President Jack Ryan reveals his part in the affair. By this time in the early 1990s, the Soviet Union has collapsed and the
The Hunt for Red October System. In addition, a board game, published in 1988 by TSR, Inc. became one of the bestselling wargames of all time. In late 2015, River Horse announced it had acquired the rights and intended to crowdfund another game based on the intellectual property. The 2017 Indiegogo launch failed. The fate of the project is unknown as of late 2017. "The Hunt for Red October" popularized the book genre of techno-thriller into the mainstream. “Tom Clancy defined an era, not just of thrillers but of pop culture in general," said Jon Land, an author and marketing chair for the International Thriller