Depending on which reviews you read, Tom Clancy is either “at the top of his war-gaming” in his latest techno-thriller, “The Bear and the Dragon,” or he has perpetrated a hernia-inducing “fat slug of a book” that “rivals Mao’s Long March” for endurance requirements.

Either way, Penguin Putnam isn’t worrying: Clancy’s publisher – which pays the author a reported $19 million per hard-cover title – printed two million copies of the 1,026-page doorstop of a novel, which came out Aug. 21, and expects it to reach No. 1 on the best-seller lists.

But as far as Clancy is concerned, his novels are just the beginning, the cornerstone of a whole industry.

The one-time Maryland insurance salesman and Army reject (because of bad eyesight) has in the last several years transformed himself into Tom Clancy Inc., standing astride a business empire that extends from computer games to military nonfiction to the hugely successful lines of paperback novels he oversees (“Tom Clancy’s Net Force,” “Tom Clancy’s Power Plays.”)

And now, with his recent news-making defection from longtime agent Robert Gottlieb at the William Morris Agency, Clancy is poised to take off in even bigger ways.

Or so says his new adviser and representative, Michael Ovitz, who is putting Clancy projects on the front burners at his Artists Management Group.

“We have to look at the fact that he hasn’t had a book made into a film or television show since 1994, which is problematic in continuing the Clancy brand,” Ovitz told The Post in a telephone interview.

“When you get a Clancy book made, it goes through a series of media windows – film, video, cable, free television, syndication – and the reality is that without those windows, it’s hard to keep the franchise in the position it should be.”

Not that “the franchise” has done so badly. Three years ago, Clancy signed a record-breaking contract with Pearson PLC, Penguin Putnam’s parent company, reportedly worth $100 million, making him the best-paid author in the world.

In addition to buying two novels, Pearson paid $25 million for a four-year book/multimedia deal with Red Storm Entertainment, the computer game company that Clancy founded and partly owns. (Though privately held, Red Storm reported more than $60 million in revenues for 1999, a 400 percent increase over its 1998 figures.)

But the lack of film and television deals rankled Clancy, prompting his jump from William Morris to uber-insider Ovitz, who brings his Hollywood standing to bear in negotiating fatter deals for the author.

In the past, even when film deals were made, Clancy was notoriously unhappy – and outspoken – about them, criticizing scripts and casting. (He has lately voiced approval of Ben Affleck, who will replace Harrison Ford as the hero Jack Ryan in the planned film version of the 1991 Clancy novel, “The Sum of All Fears.”)

Clancy is so focused on seeing his work turned into film – just like fellow brand-name authors John Grisham and Michael Crichton – that he doesn’t seem inclined to compete with another megabrand-name author, Stephen King, on the e-publishing front.

But while King is making headlines with his downloadable-novel enterprise, Ovitz says, “E-books are “something we’ll talk about after Labor Day.”

“That’s not high on his agenda right now. We’ve got a screenplay in the process for ‘Rainbow Six,'” Ovitz continues, ticking off projects in the pipeline. “We’re analyzing ‘The Bear and the Dragon,’ and ‘Debt of Honor’ and ‘Executive Orders’ are being developed by our television group for miniseries, and ‘Without Remorse’ is being written for theatrical.

“The goal is next year to have a miniseries or motion picture out every year, the dream scenario being to have them out within six months of each other, with one promoting the other,” Ovitz concludes.

“We’ve got writers and producers on every single project that’s lying fallow.”