Jack Stewart Author
Naval Aviator

Honestly, I ate whatever was available. The wardrooms aboard aircraft carriers have specific hours for each meal of the day (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and mid-rats), so I ate whatever was being served during the hours before my flight. Fortunately, I’m not a very picky eater, so I always found something that kept me satisfied for most shorter missions.

On my first deployment aboard the USS Theodore Roosevelt, we were the designated night carrier, meaning that our missions were flown from sunset to sunrise, wreaking havoc on our internal clocks. The carrier CO wanted to make that shift easier on aircrew, so he swapped the meal hours. Instead of serving dinner at 6 pm, they served breakfast. So, I had a belly full of eggs, bacon, and sausage before most of my combat missions.

While pre-flight meals often varied on my deployments aboard the USS Enterprise and USS Abraham Lincoln, there was one constant that held true: nothing tastes better after a night trap than a Barney Clark at mid-rats! (When my wife visited me in Hawaii on a port call, I think I made her go with me to Denny’s in the middle of the night, just so I could have a burger with a fried egg on top!)

As far as snacks go, many of my missions over Iraq and Afghanistan lasted anywhere from six to eight hours. Yes, I absolutely carried snacks with me. In addition to the water I carried in a CamelBak (or in bottles in my helmet bag), I also brought along PowerBars, granola bars, and my personal go-to, Uncrustables.

Grape was my favorite.

What a great question!

(And a great choice! Ray Porter’s narration in Project Hail Mary is incredible!)

There are several books I’ve read or listened to multiple times, like Patriot Games by Tom Clancy, Flight of the Intruder by Stephen Coonts, and Red Metal by Mark Greaney. But there are very few books I return to time and time again.

If I had to pick just one book that I’ve found myself returning to over the years, it would be Annapolis by William Martin—a sweeping historical novel that follows several generations of the Stafford and Parrish families as they fight wars around the world and shed their blood for the Navy and the city that was its mecca.

Come to think of it, it’s probably time I read it again!

The short answer is no.

The longer (and slightly more detailed) answer is sort of.

By that, I meant that nobody will ever read Direct Action and think it was written by W.E.B. Griffin or Pressure Depth and think it was written by Tom Clancy. The best I can hope for is to evoke the same emotions in the reader as the originals.

When I set out to write Direct Action, I wanted to honor the legacy of W.E.B. Griffin by structuring my story like the first book in the series, By Order of the President. In many ways, that book was the “origin story” of Charley Castillo, and I wanted mine to be the same for Pick McCoy. I also wanted to bring back legacy characters as the connective tissue between the original novels in the series and the reboot. Based on the response from fans, I think I succeeded.

Likewise, when I started writing my first novel in the Jack Ryan, Jr. series, I wanted fans to feel familiar with the themes present in most Tom Clancy novels. I wanted it to be technically accurate and driven by a cast of characters that have been around since the original novels as well as ones added by the authors who followed, including Mark Greaney, Grant Blackwood, Mike Maden, Don Bentley, and M.P. Woodward.

My stories are uniquely Jack Stewart, but they shouldn’t be a jarring shift from the previous books. Because, in the end, I want the reader to enjoy the ride!

I’m sure every collaboration is different. I’m sure if you asked the same question of Andrews & Wilson, Brad Thor and Ward Larsen, Simon Gervais and Ryan Steck, or Jack Carr and M.P. Woodward, you’d get very different answers.

For my collaboration with Chad Robichaux, it started with having the same vision for the series. We both wanted to write a series focused on a unique subset of special operations told through a Christian lens. From there, we sat down and developed a three-book character arc for Foster Quinn.

Because Silent Horizons is loosely based on Chad’s own personal experiences, he was heavily involved in the development of the plot and themes. But for all three books in the series, I wrote the first draft and handed it off to Chad to add his own personal spin on the pages. I think it added authenticity you can’t get anywhere else!

In the end, the goal was to craft a series in which the reader can’t tell that two people had a hand in bringing the stories to life.