Rating: 
Summary: Pretty good, but not great.
Review: I have always been a fan of Tom Clancy's novels. From his earliest ones, even to his newest behemoths. In The Bear and the Dragon Clancy write a satisfying story of global proportions. Taking facts and presumptions from present day reality, he tells of the Bear (obviously Russia), and the Dragon (China)What's interesting is his depiction of the reasons behind Russia's and China's will to dominate. I wont give away any important information here, but you will be in suspense and you will have an enjoyable read. What many people think, and I would agree for the most part, is one of the best things in this book is the addition of John Clarke in a Jack Ryan novel once again. Clarkes addition really makes things start to happen. All in all, a very good read, but sometimes, as always, Clancy overpowers some scenes with way too much and sometimes unecessary information, but if you can get past that and the huge size (1,028 pages) I say go for it, you wont be disappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: Tom Clancy keeps them coming, book after book. From military expertise to government politics, to thirld world terrorism, this book has it all. I'm waiting on the next one!
Rating: 
Summary: So far, so... poor!
Review: I bought this book at lunch time yesterday, anxious to see what Clancy has been up to since the release of Rainbow Six. Naturally I don't know what he has been up to, but it hasn't been paying attention to deatil. Pardon me for nitpicking, but I feel that I must. In the first chapter, Clancy refers to a character as a National Intelligence Officer. In beltwayspeak, this person would be referred to as a NIO (rhymes with Geo). A NIO is an intelligence officer that gathers collected intelligence data and prepares, then delivers daily intelligence summaries for The President. He goes on to describe this NIO as being at CIA HQ in Langley, Virginia, preparing a briefing, then DRIVING (during the DC rush hour!) to the White House and going to his office. On the next page, this NIO is revealed to be the National Security Advisor. Again, this may be overly picky, but please! The National Security Advisor to the President of The United States doesn't drive to CIA HQ, then drive to the White House. Further, the National Security Advisor doesn't normally present the daily intelligence summary For someone as clued in as Clancy was always purported to be, this seems quite shoddy. One wonders if all of his good ideas went out the window when Larry Bond went off to write on his own. I'll have more when I am finished
Rating:
Summary: Exhuming McCarthy
Review: While Tom Clancy definitely has got all the numbers present for another over-the-top action novel, this is all paint-by-the-numbers ... And though most of his books have had the scent of the Red Scare in them, this book reeks of it. It reads at times like some sort of late '50s pamphlet, save that it's over 700 pgs. long, but the real question is why? Why take a story brimming with all sorts of intrigue, and pile on this unnecessary, and despite the author's attempts, wholly irrelevant 'Gee, Stalin was bad' material - the amount of it, and sacrifices of flow and plot to insert it are, quite simply, baffling. I've found watching the Jack Van Impe show to be much mroe rewarding than this.
Rating: 
Summary: The Best Tom Clancy Yet!
Review: I've read everything Tom Clancy has written... This is the best book by him yet!!
Rating:
Summary: Jack is back and to good to wait for shipping.....
Review: Sorry Amazon, but when Jack is back, it is to good to wait for the shipping, and I had to go to one of those other bookstores....anyway. Clancy has done it again with a book that has so many characters, situations, and insight that you feel you are truely in the middle of it all. The book is thick, but the day goes quick and you can't wait for the next installment. The details are great, perhaps a bit to explicit in some areas, but it is that detail that enables Clancy to draw you into the plot and that gives you the ability to since the feelings of the characters. Action backed and twists that make Debt of Honor and Rainbow Six seem predictable.
Rating:
Summary: Another great hit from Tom
Review: This book is excellent. He has done an excellent job of researching cool information and put it to a very good use in his writing. The book is so convincing and full of factual info (although I don't know how accurate they are) that it hooks right on to you till the end of the book. Although I do think that the ending could've been better... Well, definitely worth every dollar if you're into this genre of literature.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read
Review: Continuing the saga of Jack Ryan, this book lives up to Clancy's standards and goes beyond. It's thoroughly enjoyable and keeps the reader glued to the pages. An astonishing book.
Rating:
Summary: Intresting
Review: The book is one of the best books you can ever read... it is intresting and attracting. I think every one should read this intresting book.
Rating:
Summary: Quite nice
Review: A good read: it's got a lot of what Clancy's good at, and not too much of his faults. You learn gobs of authoritatively detailed things about modern spycraft and high command and the toys of a year-2000 war, and you get to have a good time learning them. Like most of Clancy's books, this one has a bunch of plotlines and viewpoints -- a CIA agent in Beijing, a police detective in Moscow, President Jack Ryan in the White House, a Russian general in Siberia. But all the plots hang together nicely. And the crisis is easier to swallow than the ones Clancy used in Executive Orders or Debt of Honor. His characters are more real, too. They don't even preach at the reader as much. Clancy's just become a better writer. (Am I allowed to say that?) Clancy finds a clever way to stage a major war in a world where the USA is too big for anyone to plausibly take on: it's not the United States' war, but Russia and China's. The USA comes in as an ally on one side, but it's a long trip to get United States firepower to northeast Asia... Even so the actual warfare is just the last third of the book. This is as much a spy novel as a war novel. Fortunately it's a good spy novel. There's lots of fun, interesting stuff about intelligence work from several angles, from the White House to the secret agent to the Moscow cop, as the Russia-China crisis escalates and the USA tries frantically to track it. The war novel in this book isn't quite as neat as the spy novel. Clancy does a great job bringing across the human side of things: what it feels like to be a recon group lurking just in front of an enemy division, or a commando team going after a nuclear silo. There's an eerie mixture of skill and luck and personality and the other guy's mistakes that makes up a combat operation, and Clancy captures it all. Clancy also shows off neat tactics, like how to jury-rig a nuclear missile defense, or how to turn an unmanned drone and the Internet into the ultimate propaganda weapon. But I was hoping for more than that. The bad guys in this book try a basically straightforward war, and when the American toys come into that war the bad guys get crushed. This is fun to read. But it isn't much of a surprise. Since 1860 if not earlier it's been suicidal to have a straight fight with someone who has thirty years' technological edge. How would a smart adversary adapt against American forces? What's the year-2000 equivalent of Afghanistani tactics against the Soviet Union or the North Vietnamese tactics against the USA? This book doesn't have to figure it out, because it cheats a little: it assumes the bad guys are dumb. So this is no Hunt for Red October or Red Storm Rising. Clancy's gift in this book is in the details, not the big picture. But it's fun and you learn a lot. How much more do we ask of a book?
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