Mike Maden Books in Order (Updated September 9, 2026)

Mike Maden writes military and geopolitical techno-thrillers built around emerging weapons, intelligence operations, drones, cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence, and international conflict. He began with his own Troy Pearce series before becoming a continuation author for Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan Jr. novels and later Clive Cussler’s Oregon Files.

The easiest way to organize Mike Maden’s books is by the fictional property he was writing at the time. Start with Drone for his original Troy Pearce series, Tom Clancy Point of Contact for his four Jack Ryan Jr. novels, or Clive Cussler’s Hellburner for his run with Juan Cabrillo and the Oregon crew.

Three Mike Maden reading lanes

1. Choose Drone if you want Maden’s own characters, especially former CIA operative Troy Pearce and his private drone-technology company.
2. Choose Tom Clancy Point of Contact if you already follow Jack Ryan Jr. and want the four Campus adventures Maden contributed to the larger Clancy universe.
3. Choose Clive Cussler’s Hellburner if you follow the Oregon Files and want Maden’s continuation of Juan Cabrillo’s maritime special-operations adventures.

Do not combine all three groups into one fictional chronology. Troy Pearce belongs to Maden’s original continuity, while Jack Ryan Jr. and Juan Cabrillo were created within established franchises by other authors.

Troy Pearce books in order

The Troy Pearce novels are the best place to see Mike Maden’s original techno-thriller voice. Pearce is a former CIA Special Operations Group operative who leaves government service and runs Pearce Systems, a private company specializing in sophisticated land, air, and sea drones.

1. Drone (2013): Troy Pearce is pulled back toward American covert operations after cartel gunmen attack American students, and his drone company becomes part of a secret attempt to strike the people responsible across the Mexican border.
2. Blue Warrior (2014): A strategically valuable rare-earth discovery in Mali brings China, Al Qaeda, the Malian government, and Tuareg rebels into conflict, while Pearce deploys his technology to rescue people close to him and uncover the interests manipulating the war.
3. Drone Command (2015): Rising tension between China and Japan in the East China Sea threatens to pull the United States into war, and President Lane sends Pearce and his team to Tokyo to identify the hidden players driving the confrontation.
4. Drone Threat (2016): ISIS uses drones and escalating attacks on American soil to issue a direct ultimatum to the president, leaving Pearce’s team to locate an elusive mastermind before the campaign causes mass casualties or pushes the country toward war.

Read all four in publication order. The geopolitical crises change, but Pearce, his team, American political leadership, and the growing capabilities of drone warfare develop from one installment to the next.

How the Troy Pearce series changes from book to book

Drone begins with the moral and political problem at the center of the series: governments increasingly rely on private operators and remote technology to conduct actions they may not want publicly connected to conventional military forces.

Blue Warrior moves the series into competition over strategic resources. Rare-earth elements are not just background detail. They explain why governments and corporations are willing to shape a distant regional war.

Drone Command makes state-on-state conflict more important, using China and Japan to test whether Pearce’s tools can prevent war rather than simply win a smaller covert engagement.

Drone Threat brings the technology back onto American soil and asks what happens when inexpensive drones become tools of intimidation and terrorism rather than sophisticated weapons controlled by elite operators.

Is Drone Command a separate series?

No. The title can make it look as though Drone Command begins another sequence, but it is the third Troy Pearce novel.

The correct order remains Drone, Blue Warrior, Drone Command, and Drone Threat.

Mike Maden’s Jack Ryan Jr. books in order

After Troy Pearce, Maden became one of the continuation writers working in Tom Clancy’s Ryanverse. His four novels focus on Jack Ryan Jr., the son of President Jack Ryan and an operative connected with the covert organization known as the Campus.

1. Tom Clancy Point of Contact (2017): Jack Ryan Jr. travels to Singapore with forensic accountant Paul Brown for what appears to be a financial assignment, but Brown has a hidden CIA task and both men become trapped between cyberwarfare, assassins, and a major tropical storm.
2. Tom Clancy Line of Sight (2018): Jack travels through the Balkans and becomes caught in tensions rooted in old ethnic conflict, personal history, and a conspiracy that turns what begins as a more private journey into another international mission.
3. Tom Clancy Enemy Contact (2019): Jack is sent to Poland while Western intelligence secrets are being compromised, and the investigation pulls him toward a criminal network whose reach is much broader than the problem he was originally assigned to solve.
4. Tom Clancy Firing Point (2020): Jack’s investigation into the death of an old friend in Barcelona leads him toward a sophisticated threat involving advanced military technology and a conspiracy capable of producing international consequences.

These are Mike Maden’s four principal Jack Ryan Jr. novels. They form part of a much larger series that began before he joined and continued after he left.

Where Point of Contact fits in the full Jack Ryan Jr. sequence

Point of Contact is not the first Jack Ryan Jr. book. Jack had already appeared in Tom Clancy’s The Teeth of the Tiger and in later continuation novels written by other authors.

Maden took over the Jack Ryan Jr. line after Grant Blackwood. His four-book run was later followed by Don Bentley’s Target Acquired, Zero Hour, Flash Point, and Weapons Grade.

If you are reading Mike Maden only: begin with Point of Contact. If you are reading the complete Jack Ryan Jr. series: keep Maden’s books in their existing franchise positions rather than treating them as a new Book 1.

What each Maden Jack Ryan Jr. novel emphasizes

Point of Contact uses technology and finance to put Jack in a mission where the person beside him has secrets almost as significant as the enemies chasing them.

Line of Sight gives the series a Balkan setting and uses old regional grievances to show how unresolved historical conflict can become material for modern violence.

Enemy Contact focuses heavily on intelligence compromise, corruption, and the difficulty of identifying the organization controlling a conspiracy when different crimes seem unrelated.

Firing Point shifts toward technological warfare again, making a friend’s death the personal entry point into a much larger strategic threat.

The Oregon Files books written by Mike Maden

Maden later joined another established action franchise, Clive Cussler’s Oregon Files. The series follows Juan Cabrillo and the Corporation, a private intelligence and special-operations team operating from the disguised high-tech ship Oregon.

1. Clive Cussler’s Hellburner (2022): Juan Cabrillo’s pursuit of a Mexican cartel leader leads toward the history of a secret weapon and a nuclear torpedo whose use could trigger a much larger international war.
2. Clive Cussler Fire Strike (2023): Cabrillo is hired to extract an undercover operative in Kenya and discovers a plot involving genetically enhanced soldiers, a Saudi prince, and a hypersonic missile attack capable of igniting war in the Middle East.
3. Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier (2024): The Oregon crew tracks a mysterious weapons developer called the Vendor, whose advanced artificial-intelligence arsenal, combat robots, drones, and neurotoxin plan turn a covert investigation into a global military threat.
4. Clive Cussler Quantum Tempest (2025): Central American cartel leader Amador Fierro creates an alliance called La Liga and backs Project Q, an artificial general intelligence system whose completion could give him extraordinary control over the United States.

For Maden’s Oregon Files run: read these four in publication order. They also occupy later positions in the much longer Oregon Files series, so readers completing the entire Cussler franchise should not begin the overall story with Hellburner.

Hellburner begins Maden’s Oregon era, not the Oregon Files themselves

The Oregon Files existed long before Mike Maden became its continuation author. Juan Cabrillo and the Corporation had already completed many missions under Clive Cussler and earlier collaborators.

Hellburner is therefore best described as the first Oregon Files novel written by Mike Maden, not the first Oregon Files book.

From nuclear torpedoes to artificial general intelligence

Maden’s Oregon Files books show the same interest in emerging warfare that shaped Troy Pearce.

• Hellburner: Nuclear weapons, old warfare technology, cartels, and the danger of deliberate escalation.
• Fire Strike: Genetically enhanced fighters and hypersonic missile systems.
• Ghost Soldier: AI-controlled weapons, combat robotics, drones, and advanced battlefield experimentation.
• Quantum Tempest: Artificial general intelligence as a tool capable of manipulating systems at national scale.

The technology changes, but each story asks the Oregon crew to prevent a new military capability from giving one actor enough leverage to destabilize countries far beyond the immediate battlefield.

Mike Maden books by publication era

The Troy Pearce years

1. Drone (2013): Introduces Troy Pearce, Pearce Systems, and Maden’s recurring interest in private drone warfare.
2. Blue Warrior (2014): Uses rare-earth competition and the Tuareg struggle in Mali to widen the geopolitical scale.
3. Drone Command (2015): Moves Pearce into the East China Sea crisis between China and Japan.
4. Drone Threat (2016): Turns inexpensive drones into tools for a terror campaign against the United States.

The Campus years

5. Tom Clancy Point of Contact (2017): Jack Ryan Jr. and Paul Brown face cyberwarfare and assassins in Singapore.
6. Tom Clancy Line of Sight (2018): Jack becomes entangled in a modern conflict shaped by the history of the Balkans.
7. Tom Clancy Enemy Contact (2019): A Poland assignment brings Jack closer to the organization compromising Western intelligence.
8. Tom Clancy Firing Point (2020): A personal loss leads Jack toward a conspiracy involving dangerous advanced technology.

The Oregon Files years

9. Clive Cussler’s Hellburner (2022): Cabrillo races to stop a nuclear torpedo capable of producing a global crisis.
10. Clive Cussler Fire Strike (2023): Bio-hacked soldiers and hypersonic weapons threaten to ignite Middle Eastern war.
11. Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier (2024): The Oregon team confronts an AI weapons developer and his next-generation arsenal.
12. Clive Cussler Quantum Tempest (2025): Juan Cabrillo battles a cartel alliance seeking power through an artificial general intelligence project.

If you only want Mike Maden’s original characters

Read the four Troy Pearce novels and stop there. Jack Ryan Jr. and Juan Cabrillo belong to franchise continuities that Maden inherited from Tom Clancy and Clive Cussler.

1. Drone: Pearce is drawn back into covert operations through a cartel attack and a secret American response.
2. Blue Warrior: Pearce enters a struggle over rare-earth resources and the fate of Tuareg rebels in Mali.
3. Drone Command: Pearce attempts to stop China and Japan from sliding toward open war.
4. Drone Threat: Pearce hunts the source of a drone-based terror campaign against the United States.

A Mike Maden sampler across all three worlds

1. Drone: Start with Maden’s own hero and the technology that first defined his fiction career.
2. Drone Command: See his original series move into major-power geopolitical confrontation.
3. Tom Clancy Point of Contact: Move into Jack Ryan Jr. for Maden’s first experience as a legacy-franchise author.
4. Tom Clancy Enemy Contact: Try one of his later Campus missions with intelligence compromise at the center.
5. Clive Cussler’s Hellburner: Begin the Oregon Files portion of Maden’s bibliography.
6. Clive Cussler Ghost Soldier: Sample his later interest in AI-enabled weapons and autonomous warfare.
7. Clive Cussler Quantum Tempest: Finish with artificial general intelligence and the most recent published Maden novel listed here.

Can the Jack Ryan Jr. and Oregon Files books be read without the older series?

They are written to orient readers to the immediate mission, so a thriller reader can understand Point of Contact or Hellburner without reading every earlier franchise book.

However, the recurring characters already have histories. A full-franchise reader will understand relationships such as Jack’s place in the Campus or Cabrillo’s leadership of the Corporation more deeply by reading the earlier novels first.

Current Mike Maden release status

As of September 9, 2026, Clive Cussler Quantum Tempest is Mike Maden’s latest published novel in the principal bibliography covered here. It continues his Oregon Files run after Ghost Soldier.

The Jack Ryan Jr. series has moved on to other continuation writers since Maden’s four-book run, so new Jack Ryan Jr. titles should not automatically be added to a Mike Maden author list.

Questions about Mike Maden’s books

What was Mike Maden’s first novel?

Drone, published in 2013, was Maden’s first novel and introduced Troy Pearce.

How many Troy Pearce books are there?

There are four: Drone, Blue Warrior, Drone Command, and Drone Threat.

Did Mike Maden create Jack Ryan Jr.?

No. Jack Ryan Jr. belongs to Tom Clancy’s Ryanverse. Maden wrote four continuation novels featuring the character.

What is Mike Maden’s first Jack Ryan Jr. book?

Tom Clancy Point of Contact is the first Jack Ryan Jr. novel written by Maden.

How many Jack Ryan Jr. books did Mike Maden write?

He wrote four consecutive entries: Point of Contact, Line of Sight, Enemy Contact, and Firing Point.

What is Mike Maden’s first Oregon Files book?

Clive Cussler’s Hellburner is Maden’s first Oregon Files installment, although it is a much later book in the complete Juan Cabrillo series.

What order should I read Maden’s Oregon Files books?

Read Hellburner, Fire Strike, Ghost Soldier, and Quantum Tempest.

Are Troy Pearce and Jack Ryan Jr. connected?

No. Troy Pearce belongs to Maden’s original series, while Jack Ryan Jr. belongs to the Tom Clancy franchise.

The cleanest Mike Maden order

For Mike Maden’s original fiction, read Drone, Blue Warrior, Drone Command, and Drone Threat. That four-book Troy Pearce sequence is self-contained and requires no knowledge of another author.

Then treat his franchise work separately. Read the four Maden Jack Ryan Jr. novels from Point of Contact through Firing Point, and his Oregon Files books from Hellburner through Quantum Tempest.

This three-shelf approach keeps Maden’s own continuity distinct from the two legacy series he later helped continue.