Rating: 
Summary: This must be Dubya's favorite book ...
Review: ...although it doesn't have pictures. Life is too short to waste your time with this book... or to write a review about it.
Rating: 
Summary: Continues the downward spiral
Review: Tom Clancy used to be a highly entertaining author who provided fast-paced action coupled with a deep understanding of the military and intelligence communities. His first several books became instant classics. I was a devoted fan and snapped up his novels as soon as they were published. His last two efforts, however, seem to be short on just that - effort. "Rainbow Six," while written well, was terribly predictable. His plot line seemed to be an excuse for the action rather than the foundation of the story. "The Bear and the Dragon" continues the downward spiral. The dialogue between characters is terrible. Another reviewer mentioned this complaint too. If you eliminate the long narratives/explanations between the lines of conversation, the dialogue sounds like it is between a couple of junior high students. Clancy has dramatically improved his talent for utilizing cliches and having his characters repeatedly state the obvious. The book seems like it needed one more draft until completion. While his plot moves along, I felt that it could have moved more quickly. Eliminating about 200-300 pages from the first half of the book would have helped. The high point of the book is the description of combat, a talent for which Clancy is unparalleled. The battles were fast-paced and exciting. They quite literally kept me on the edge of my seat. It is hard to justify 900 pages of (almost) boredom to get to the good parts. I do not recommend this book.
Rating: 
Summary: The Bore that Drags-on
Review: I have considered myself an avid Clancy fan for almost two decades. But, it just keeps getting harder. I purcased this, the latest Ryan adventure, as I have all the rest, as soon as it was available. And again it was a great disapointment. This book drags on in an attempt to peak suspense, but please Tom, give us some excitment. Give us a Jack Ryan that is as savy a president as he was a CIA operative. Remeber the good old days ( circa Cardinal of the Kremlin ) when Ryan was cooly smirking at his KGB captors after just having aided the escape of a high ranking double agent? Is this the same guy who is now bumbling around the oval office and whining about everything? I give this book 2 stars because I still consider myself a fan, even though I think the last good book in this series was The Sum of All Fears. Finally, the only other reason I think this book rates more than one star, is the ending action sequence, done in the bold Clancy style I know and love(thank god for Mr.Clark).You still got it Tom, you just don't have to waste so much paper getting there.
Rating:
Summary: Clancy at his worst...?
Review: The Bear and the Dragon was, by far, Tom Clancy's poorest attempt to revive the techno-thriller genre. Nine hundred and fifty pages of build-up to a conflict which is superficially resolved in the last one hundred pages is not the way maintain a devoted following. Even the last line of the novel (a crass reference to "Japanese sausage") is apt to leave a bad taste in the reader's mouth.
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Summary: Shameless.
Review: I've never read a more shameless attempt at using fiction to spread political views. I imagine Clancy sitting in his big leather chair before a roaring fire, giddy with boyish excitement, thinking he's used his popular Jack Ryan character to execute a successful covert propaganda operation on his loyal readers.
Rating: 
Summary: All-Encompassing Novel That May Turn Off Some Readers
Review: While I enjoyed The Bear and the Dragon very much, I must say that the book is not for everyone. While Clancy has written some of the best "techno-thrillers" of the past two decades, Bear lacks much of the raw action of Rainbow Six or Clear & Present Danger. Readers looking for a speedy action read will be disappointed. Despite the fact that Clancy is often slighly off-base with his political commentary or cultural depiction, I have always felt that the fact that his books include subplots in these areas to be a positive. This is most evident in The Cardinal & The Kremlin and can been seen again in Bear. The most important thing to know when picking up a Clancy novel is that he is in a genre by himself. No one else, for better or for worse, writes like him. Some readers may be put off by this or may not be able to follow Clancy's complex and multi-faceted plots. I couldn't critique anyone for not liking this book. However, if you are looking for a novel that is about more than guns, bombs, and missiles, I would recommend The Bear and The Dragon highly.
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Summary: Racism and tiresome main character sink this book
Review: I have read every Tom Clancy book since the beginning. Everyone knows his strengths and weaknesses, so there aren't many surprises. I do expect to be entertained by his books, but I wasn't this time. I simply can't stomach the endless racist remarks; Executive Orders got by with only a few references to "ragheads" to refer to people of the Islamic faith. Here, however, there are constant and ongoing racist and cultural slurs against Chinese people (I won't dignify them by repeating them). Also, Jack Ryan has become incredibly tiresome. He has turned into a self-righteous, ultra-right-wing character who loathes anyone who disagrees with him and spends all his time whining about how he doesn't want to be President. It's time for Clancy to move on from this series and get back to writing entertaining thrillers with interesting characters.
Rating:
Summary: Absolutely the worst Clancy I have ever read.
Review: The book is extremely lengthy, full of unnecessary sexual comments, and rubber-stretched passages. I found myself skipping entire pages. For me, beeing the biggest Clancy fan up to date it is really difficult to say that his work is bad, but every other book I have read was excellent-"The Debt of Honor," "Executive Orders," "Without Remorse," to name a few, - but this book absolutely does not grab attention and what is even worse, annoys.
Do not recommend.
Rating:
Summary: Worst Clancy: Flat stupid demeaning characters, boring,....
Review: I think I've read almost every Clancy book, including those he co-authored and co-created. Obviously I am a big fan of his. Unfortunately, this is one of the absolute worst books. Jack Ryan and the surrounding cast are quite one-dimensional. There is no sublety or complexity to either the "good" or "bad guys." On top of it all, the racial slurs and swearing coming out of every "good guys" mouth in practically every sentence is tiring and insulting. Sure, it captures the reality of US tension with China and some of the plot even seems prescient at times. Too bad it is so simplistically characterized. Come on Clancy, you are better than this. I was so disgusted, I considered foregoing any more Clancy novels if this one is indicative of what he is and will be producing - cranked out depth-less stories with tasteless characters in an effort to capitalize monetarily on his once good name.
Rating:
Summary: A Clancy Disappointment
Review: Clancy answered Martin Greenberg in The Tom Clancy Companion that he didn't think The Hunt for the Red October would sell because "the book didn't have any sex in it." Clancy proved with the subsequent nine books that he could sell books without sex in them. Yes, there was a section in Executive Orders that very strongly implied Cathy and Jack Ryan going to bed to have sex, but the passage was minimal and was between a husband and wife. In his latest book, Clancy has stooped to the level of discussing the sexual affairs between the main character, Chet Nomuri, and his information source. It's the type of ploy I would expect from a cheap romance novel, but not from Clancy. Clancy continues to weave multiple subplots into a good story, but it's unfortunate he felt compelled to include such a strong sexual element in The Bear and the Dragon.
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