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The novel "Executive Orders" is divided into 63 chapters. It is told in an auctorial way - the narrator knows everything and also characterizes the persons, which causes a rather neutral point of view for the reader.
It is set in the year 1993 and mostly it is told in a chronological order. Many things happen parallel to each other, but one always knows what Clancy is talking about.
The setting changes quite often, so the story takes place in America, France, Africa, Iran, Iraq and Russia.
"Debt of Honour" ended with Clancy's most shocking conclusion ever - a joint session of Congress destroyed, the President of the USA dead. Dazed and confused, the man, who only minutes before had been confirmed as the new Vice-President is now told that he is President. Now suddenly, an unexpected and heavy weight has fallen on Jack Ryan's shoulders. He does not know how to run a government without a government or where to begin.
"Executive Orders is Clancy\'s most extraordinary novel to date."
"Executive Orders" is the direct continuation of "Debt of Honour". Jack Ryan is now President after a Japanese plane crashed into the Capitol and he is almost the only one left of the government. The whole world's eyes are now on him and many countries see their opportunity because a weak President is a weak country.
As usual there is not any real interpretation of the novel because its main purpose is to entertain people. So I can only repeat what I have written about the other novels because these things are the important ones for Clancy:
One of the main topics in this novel is, as usual, that the good defeats the evil. Clancy describes this process in nearly every book.
In "Executive Orders" there is not the conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States of America, but the conflict between the Near East and America and conflicts between countries of the Eastern world. So one can see: Ryan is President and the problems become bigger and more complex and difficult because in the other novels there were attacks and "real" wars described, things one is able to handle in a way or another. But here one has to think in a political and intelligent way and this makes everything a lot more difficult.
Although for example "Rainbow Six" sounded quite unrealistic, one gets the impression that this time the described things are possible, especially in these days with a war maybe going on and one really has to be afraid of what is going to happen because a strike against a country with biological weapons is not very unlikely.
"Executive Orders" is part of the so called "Ryanverse", which is a term for the books centered around the character of Jack Ryan.
In the meantime there are eleven "Ryanverse" books published, but the published order is not the story-line order, which can be a little bit confusing. All in all one is able to understand the context from former books because it is well explained.
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