control. He plays by the rules." Reception Commercially, Patriot Games debuted at number one on the New York Times bestseller list for the week of August 2, 1987. It has since sold over 1,063,000 hardcover copies by the next year. Critically, the book received generally positive reviews. The New York Times praised it as "a powerful piece of popular fiction; its plot, if implausible, is irresistible, and its emotions are universal." However, Kirkus Reviews's verdict is mixed, stating that "Exciting shoot-outs and chases, and lots of Royal wish-fulfillment; but without naval authenticity to bolster the prose, Clancy is a fish out of water." Film adaptation The novel was adapted as a feature film, which was released on June 5, 1992. Jack Ryan was played by Harrison Ford and Sean Miller was played by Sean Bean. The film is notable for being the sequel to the previous movie The Hunt for Red October (1990), although the order is the opposite in the books. Additionally, the Prince and Princess of Wales were replaced by Lord Holmes, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the Queen's cousin, as the ULA's primary target. Patriot Games spent two weeks as the No. 1 film, eventually grossing $178,051,587 in worldwide box office business. It has garnered generally positive reviews, and earned a 73% "Fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes based on 33 reviews. Conversely, the movie was criticized by Clancy for deviating too much from the source material, stating that "I don't like eating dirt, and I won't eat any from these guys." "There is only one, maybe two, scenes in the shooting script that correspond to a scene in the book," Clancy later added. "They have a movie called Patriot Games that uses my characters—but it's not my story." He eventually asked for his name to be removed from the film's promotional materials, and in an apparent countermove, entered negotiations with the same team at Paramount Pictures to sell the rights to his other novel The Sum of All Fears (1991). By the time the film was released in 2002, the author had cooled off on the idea of having his books made into films. References 1987 American novels American thriller novels Techno-thriller novels Prequel novels Novels by Tom Clancy Ryanverse Works about the United States Marine Corps American novels adapted into films G. P. Putnam's Sons books Novels set in Wales Works about the Irish