Best-selling author Tom Clancy dead at age 66

Update 11:16 AM 10/2/13 :

Ubisoft has posted on their Facebook page:

We are saddened to learn of Tom Clancy’s passing and our condolences go out to his family. Tom Clancy was an extraordinary author with a gift for creating detailed, engrossing fictional stories that captivated audiences around the world.

The teams at Ubisoft, especially at the Red Storm studio, are incredibly grateful to have collaborated with and learned from him, and we are humbled by the opportunity to carry on part of his legacy through our properties that bear his name.

Original:

Late Tuesday night at a Baltimore, MD hospital, best-selling author Tom Clancy died; he was 66-years-old.

Clancy was a prolific author, writing many military novels that later became movies and spawned a successful career in the video game industry. Some of his best works of fiction have been The Hunt for Red October, Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and The Sum of All Fears, all of which were turned into amazing films with actors Alec Baldwin, Harrison Ford and Ben Affleck portraying the famous Clancy character Jack Ryan.

In 1996, Tom Clancy co-founded the video game developer Red Storm Entertainment, which was later bought by Ubisoft in 2000. The big Clancy title in the video game world is Rainbow Six, based on his 1998 novel of the same name (and by far my favorite of his books). Since the 1998 release of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six, there have been 17 Rainbow Six games made. That's not counting other games using Tom Clancy's name, like Ghost Recon, EndWar, H.A.W.X. and Splinter Cell.

The latest Tom Clancy game coming from Ubisoft is the third-person shooter MMO The Division, where players fight to prevent the fall of society after a devastating pandemic sweeps through New York City.

Tom Clancy is one of my favorite authors. He'll be missed by family, friends and fans worldwide.

You can follow Senior Editor Lance Liebl on Twitter @Lance_GZ. He likes talking sports, video games, movies, and the stupidity of celebrities. Email at LLiebl@GameZone.com

[Business Insider]