The Bear and the Dragon

Rating:
Summary: At Least I Read All of it!
Review: unlike some people i read the whole book to know what it was like. yhea I read all 1137 pages of the book and I thougt it was great so for all of you stupid illeterate people this book was great and you dont know what you are talking about

Rating:
Summary: Brilliant. That's All I Can Say
Review: I have never before read a book that was so long yet so very engaging. The political backstabbing, the military action, all were totally amazing. This is the third Clancy I have read, and I basically stopped breathing during the last two chapters. Incredibly intense, and powerful.

Rating:
Summary: Not worth the effort
Review: This tome shows multiple writing styles which begs the question: How many ghostwriters compiled this book? I've about given up on Clancy for any character development. Rainbow Six and The Bear and the Dragon show the same pitiful unidimensional characters. The conclusion was obvious, predictable and unsatisfying.

For a good read, go back to the classics: Red Storm Rising is still his best.

Rating:
Summary: Long while politically and economically Unrealistic
Review: This was a average novel but was far too long. It could have easily been 400 or 500 pages shorter. I did enjoy parts of it but there was a great deal of repetition on military technical mumbo jumbo. The politics were good but very dumbed down and unrealistic. The novel's last few hundred pages were very good but in the middle I lost interest. What kept me reading was the thought... "How many 1100 page books by international best-selling authors are bad? This can't be one of them."

I can't believe he stretched the story so long. Before I started reading it I envisioned a saga comparable to the world wars. That was not the result. Use the average reader review of this novel compared to some of Clancy's other and I am sure you will see my point.

I did find the Political and economic situation between the major powers completely unrealistic. For the most powerful nations of the world to go to war over a few billion dollars worth of oil and mineral resources was ridiculous. China has large untapped natural gas fields and Russia and its former states have huge mineral wealth and oil fields so I thought the plot was far fetched (even with hundreds of pages to try and build up the plot.)

Rating:
Summary: THE Worst Clancy Novel
Review: I have read every Book put out by Clancy since The Hunt for Red October. For the most part they were good books. Ant this one? Let's just say I have had this book for over 1 1/2 years and I have made it to page 495 (with some effort). There are soo many problems, where to begin? It's probably best to just list the problems I had with the novel.

1. The language. Yes, many people swear to varying degrees. But the degree of swearing in this book, particularly by people in high government office was just too much. And the numerous use of the word "sausage" in referring to the penis was annoying.

2. Tom Clancy's stance on abortion (among other things) is his business. It's quite clear he is to the right of Genghis Khan. It isn't necessary for him to use this book as a platform for sharing (actually ramming down our throats) his opinions on various issues (yeah fatherhood is a WONDERFUL thing. We get it!!!). It detracts from what was a bad novel to begin with.

3. The racial slurs are quite disturbing. Also unnecessary.

4. What REALLY annoyed me was the DDO (Mrs. Foley) using the moniker "honey-bunny" in reference to her husband. That got on my last nerve.

5. I am really getting annoyed with Ryan complaining about being president. If he hates it that much, resign. He just whines too much. In short, Clancy just need to play down Ryan's discomfort with the job. He has turned Ryan into a whining child.

6. America as the unbeatable superpower who is always morally right is also tired, stale and inaccurate. In this novel, the bigger problem is the portrayal of the Chinese. Although I have never been to China, I know enough to know Clancy's portrayal of that country and its people is highly flawed (yes Mao was a monster, that is true). One assumes that authors do extensive research before beginning their works. Clearly Clancy did not do so prior to writing this novel.

7. It was kinda sad seeing Clancy resort to sex, more explicit than I have ever seen in one of his novels. He didn't need sex to sell his novels before. His strengths were tight plots and details, excruciating details (which were always a joy to read).

8. A lot of reviewers have complained about the length of the novel. Well, I only got up to page 495, so I cannot address that directly, but I am sure there is truth to that criticism. Those 495 pages were the LONGEST 495 pages I have ever had to read. I have the impression from other critiques that the last 100 pages are a fast read, thought the battle(s) which takes places near the end of the book involving the USA are not portrayed with a glimmer of realism. I'll probably get to that part of the novel in 2005.

Again, I did not finish the novel, and can only give thanks that I did not actually buy the book. If this is what I can expect from Clancy in the future, I will not bother wasting my time reading his books.

I will close by saying that I wish I could have given it 0 stars.

Oh, and the novel has been poorly edited.

Rating:
Summary: Yackity Yack
Review: Speaking as a Tom Clancy fan, I was left disappointed by this book. His past strengths do continue, namely the battle scenes and the characters developed from previous novels, but overall things bog down and at times seem to be running in reverse.

Several pages may be devoted to what amounts to someone staring at the ceiling thinking about something. Yes, internal struggles can be interesting but not over and over and over.....reading this book sometimes is like sitting with a group of drunk philosophy majors late at night in the dorm.
Several devices that were interesting in prior stories (including obsession with cigarettes and booze) seem tired and overdone. The Chinese have become caricatures and stereotypes, boringly predictable. And what about this obsession with the male genitalia? If I talked half as much about "Richard" as Clancy does, I'd never be allowed in a locker room again.

Finally, the coincidences are so numerous as to make the story unbelievable. Gosh, Clark just happens to be in the right spot at the right time to save the day. Gosh, the computer programmer just happened to be around at the right time to save the day. Gosh, Golovko, etc etc etc. This novel has too much of about everything, except for self-control on Clancy's part.

Rating:
Summary: Ridiculous
Review: Interesting concept: How would the world react to enormous gold and oil reserves being found in Siberia.

The problem is that the book makes things so much simpler than the world really is. Every American is Clancy the corny hero. And every Chinese character is the bad guy who 'hates those greedy Americans who try to control us, because we are the superior race'.

Of course this is just supposed to be one long (1137 pages) roller coaster of action, and is fiction after all. It is just that the treatment is so unfair and the stereotyping is taken to the absurd lengths that one would expect of a farce, not a serious thriller.

My point is if you are setting a novel in real places like China and America at least try a little to represent the actual complexity of these places. If you're not going to, then rather make it sci-fi and set it in a made-up world.

Rating:
Summary: What Happened To Jack?
Review: Although I made my way through The Bear and the Dragon out of an absurd sense of loyalty to and fondness for the character of Jack Ryan, and for what I knew would ultimately be an exciting world-on-the-edge-of-disaster tale, I cursed Clancy far too regularly throughout the book. How did it happen that all his characters have come to share the same endlessly repeated attitudes? Could every man in the military worth his salt truly despise the "tree-huggers" and think of women with patriarchal disdain? Even if that were true, must we endure countless repetitions of internal dialogues, irrelevant to the plot, relating to a rehash of Clancy's values that have contaminated all his worthy characters and succeeded in erasing their individuality? Stop the pontificating! Shame on you, Tom Clancy, for turning a wonderful character like Ryan into a flat, faceless drone indistinguishable from all the other single-minded drones in this book. Where in the world was your editor???

Rating:
Summary: Hopelessly dull...500 pages too long
Review: A couple chapters into this book it becomes apparent Clancy is coasting on his name and reputation. This book is WAY overwritten. At over 1000 pages, it's a test of endurance to keep turning the pages. Clancy lays down page after page of irrelevant macho jargon when really he should be developing something resembling a plot. It's a mystery to me how anyone could stay interested in this book long enough to finish it. Hey Tom, cut the next one down to 550 pages and maybe I'll consider reading it.

Rating:
Summary: Great Fictional history
Review: This is another Tom Clancy military-political-fiction epic. This time the Chinese are the bad guys as they scam to steal Russia's newly discovered natural resources. This puts them in direct conflict with the USA.

This has the classic Clancy touch as he illustrates how current conditions, such as China emerging as a superpower, Russia's weakness and the trade imbalance develops as a recipe for a full conflict.

He is a master at describing systems, whether they are political, agencies, economies or how the executive branch of the U.S. Government works. His eye for detail and the ability to translate those complexities to the rest of us, is the talent that made him into a best selling author with the release of "The Hunt For Red October.

I had not read a Clancy novel in many years and I noticed that with this one, he has improved his character development. He describes the thinking process of the fictional U.S. president, Jack Ryan, as he faces a major crisis. He explores both the strengths and very human "I don't know what to do next" frailties of the character.

Clancy, in my opinion, is always an enjoyable escapist read. If you like fictional history, you'll surely enjoy this one. Because he is so great at describing "real events" and systems as a background for evolving his fiction, I never fail to learn something in the process.

P.S.: In one of his earlier novels (before 9/11/01) he predicted that a terrorist would smash a jetliner into an American icon. In that book it was a disgruntled Japanese airline pilot and he smashed into the white house. Those thoughts came into my mind on 9/11 as I sat horrified, watching the jumbo jets smash into the towers. Oh my god, I thought, there was always the possibility of this happening!! I surely hope that most of Mr. Clancy's work will remain fiction