Rating: 
Summary: The Bear and the Dragon
Review: I feel that The Bear and the Dragon is a perfect mix between the excitment of battle, espianage, and mystery. It is a wonderful book for anyone who is a Tom Clancy Fan.
Rating: 
Summary: I was pretty disappointed
Review: I picked up The Bear and the Dragon with a great deal of anticipation. The arc of Clancy's books from Debt of Honor onward have been heading toward a confrontation between Russia and China, and this promised to be the conclusion of a great arc. Conflict between Russia and China is tomorrow's scenario of war. Other writers, most notably Eric Harry, have already explored this possibility and I was eager to see Clancy's take on it. The fact that the World Trade Center had just been attacked certainly contributed to my eagerness to read this book.The Bear and the Dragon begins with a fair amount of plotting and suspense, but the respective threads of the plot grow frayed long before hostilities commence. The book offers hundreds of needless pages of set-up, involving one of Clancy's trademark fluke events (a contrived killing of a diplomat). Generally, it's a bad call to force your readers to wait that long for a plot development that is foretold by the cover description. The actual writing of the war disappointed me for 4 reasons.
1.) is that it feels routine. The war is basically reminiscent of the one at the end of Executive Orders. Little menace is generated by the Chinese. The resolution of the war is sudden and unconvincing. China's a bit tougher than that, and the war deserved more than the last quarter of the book. Which brings us to
2.) the human element is genuinely lacking. Eric Harry has done some marvelous work in Arclight, Protect & Defend, and Invasion to display the horror and chaos of war. Clancy's war always seems distant. Good guys do not express doubt, panic, shock or horror. The cowboys are mutually interchangeable, equally cocky, and very few of them ever die.
3.) The bad guys are idiots. Zhang Han San always seemed the smartest guy in the room before, but Clancy turns him into an idiotic zealot in this book.
4.) Clancy's willingness to make unapologetic use of the word "chink" is indefensible. I really liked reading Tom Clancy novels before this. The Hunt for Red October got me started on the entire genre, Red Storm Rising rocked, and Clear and Present Danger is one of the best plotted books I've ever read. I do like Debt of Honor and Executive Orders as well - both delivered the promised fireworks. That's why I had such hopes for this book, and why I found it disappointing.
Rating: 
Summary: Not very good
Review: I wish I could give negative stars. I am somewhat compulsive and always finish an entertainment book even if I don't like it after a few hundred pages, but I couldn't wade through more than 200 pages of this droner. With each of the last 3 Clancys I promise myself, never again, but then I find myself in an airport or something needing a page-turner. This isn't it. I got thru about 200 pages of this and threw it away in disgust. The biggest sin is inserting dead prose (and to my mind brain-dead) political screeds in the middle of scenes. The conversation or action pauses for a page or more while he rails against abortion or for the honor of military men (which counts him out, of course). If it's not a political screed, it's a tin-ear (and often inaccurate in the areas I'm knowledgeable about) explication of technology or military structure, or Chinese history, or... I could put up with the right wing ranting if it didn't break the story so badly. The next biggest sin is the god-awful dialogue. Try reading one of his "character's" words aloud, go ahead, I dare you. Tell me with a straight face that any human would ever speak like that. Swearing is just an obvious clunker - I'm not opposed to swearing per-se, and probably swear as much as anyone, but these "characters" swear like seventh graders, plopping inappropriate obscenities in the conversation like loogies on the gym floor. I could go on (Clancy would) but I'll leave it here. With a good editor, there may be a worthwhile 400-500 page novel in here somewhere, but I'll never know.
Rating:
Summary: THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON
Review: A slow and long winded book with a "right-wing" political agenda and a sequence of highly improbable events. I think I have just read my last Tom Clancy novel.
Rating: 
Summary: Well, are you bored ?
Review: This was the first Clancy book I've read and also the first one in English. It got me going and going, but as I looked back, it was looooooong and tiresome.
I don't think anyone sould try reading it, it's long and not too intresting if you're looking to something thrilling.
All in all is one of the good guys so think I'll keep trying his books out anyway.
Rating: 
Summary: Phenominal!
Review: This book was very entertaining. The action was fast paced and the bureaucratic verbal exchanges in the book were interesting and captivating. For hardcore Clancy readers Jack Ryan was one of the main characters in the book, and the book also included the legenday counterterror group Rainbow Six and its commander, John Clark. The war parts of the book were accurate and chilling as were the political parts. I found this book very hard to put down and I would recommend it to anyone new or old to Tom Clancy.
Rating:
Summary: An embarassment
Review: I have been a Clancy fan ever since "Hunt for Red October." However, I will think long and hard before investing any of my time in another one of his books. The Bear and the Dragon reads more like a political lecture than a techno thriller. Clancy has managed to take previously well developed characters and and make them boring and downright irritating at times. As an added insult, much of the dialogue is openly and unnecessarily racist in nature. They say that the back third of this book speeds up and reads more like his earlier work. I wouldn't know - I threw it out in disgust half way through.
Rating:
Summary: Man what a lousy book
Review: There are so many things wrong with this book that it is impossible to know where to begin. Besides the blatant racism and gaping plot holes the story is just boring. It is about a one sided victory against a militarily backward foe. Does this story sound familiar? I guess in that way it is somewhat realistic. What I find frightening about this book is not its depiction of a possible conflict for the U.S. Rather it is the discription of the leaders in Washington. If our current Secretary of the Treasury is as stupid as Clancy's Whinston we should all be very afraid. He displays a complete ignorance of little things like the meaning of a trade deficit. If our diplomats are as incompetant as Gant then we are certainly due for a major land war here soon. Please God let it not be so. Amen.
Rating:
Summary: Best Book I've Read In A Good Long Time!!!
Review: (...) From page one I couldn't put this thick novel of suspense down. Clancy is a magnificent story teller. I love the recurring characters in all his books. It's like a military soap opera with dangerous politics and interesting subplots that wouldn't let me put it down and get any sleep. There is one scene--a woman having an unathorized birth in China--in the middle of the book that is undoubtedly the most suspenseful scene in a book that I've ever read. (... Tom Clancy) still is one of the most talented writers in America today. Keep writing.
If you are mildly interested in buying this book, do. Take it from me, you won't regret it. I didn't. I can't wait until Clancy's next one.
Rating:
Summary: A total waste
Review: This book is to fiction what the "White Raven" is to movies. It establishes a base line of mediocrity and tedium virtually unparelelled by anything else you'll find. Clancy can't keep from editorializing about former real life politicians, and he also exposes himself to be a racist and sexist through the so-called dialog of his shallow and boring characters. If you see this one in the bookstore, do yourself a favor and LEAVE IT. It's time to retire, Tom.
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