Don't get me wrong, I think it's an incredibly stupid concept to sell your name like this. I do believe, however, that Clancy himself 'retired' (don't big authors retire and come back all the time?) a few years ago. This is probably just a (stupid) way to add a little bit more to the retirement fund. I would like to know the specifics though; like if he actually sold his name completely or just cut a deal giving them unlimited licensing rights for a set period of time instead of them having to pay him case by case fees and royalties for everything they throw his name on to.
What's kind of interesting here is the books aspect. Not so much because he's an author but more because from what I can tell he started licensing his name out for novels he had little or nothing to do with years ago. This is made evident when you're in a bookstore and see "Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Retarded Subtitle" by Joe Blow and a couple other series of books that I don't think he ever wrote a word of (Nethack? Netforce?). I wonder if it was a similar licensing agreement and now those publishers have to sub the rights off of Ubisoft rather than Clancy himself.
