Rating: 
Summary: OK fiction, not really a "what if?"
Review: Tom Clancy is a fine author, even an important one. His early books helped inspire a generation of Americans to military service after Vietnam, adding momentum to the tide that defeated the old Soviet Empire. That said, Tom Clancy has probably been coasting on his considerable laurels for some time now.THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON is yet another installment in the long, downhill slide of Mr. Clancy's body of work. The action scenes are fine, the plot twists are, for the most part, interesting, but the author's overbearing opinions are wearing thin and his geopolitics, military tactics, operational art, and logistical understanding could use serious updating - not to mention that the use of gratuitous obscenities has appeared to reach an all-time high (low) and seems out of place much of the time. Sadly, after having developed the Jack Ryan character, Mr. Clancy is obviously loath to leave him behind and create a new potential future. As a result, we are stuck with Mr. Ryan's world. It is a world where terrorists detonated a faulty atomic bomb during the Superbowl, a Japanese Kamikaze piloted a 747 into Capitol Hill during a joint session of Congress, killing most of the Members of Congress and the President (and showing the author's contempt for politicians), and where the United Islamic Republic (Iran and Iraq) tried to rule the world and failed. As a result, we are so far down an alternate path of history that the Jack Ryan series has transcended the realm of the interesting "what if?" to mere fantasy. One must invest a huge amount of time to consume this monster book. What caused me to finally read it was that the many readers of my own book, CHINA ATTACKS, pestered me into reading Clancy's thriller (which came out months after the release of my own more modest effort at chronicling a future Chinese assault on a neighbor). In this regard, I consider this Clancy effort somewhat harmful (whereas his early efforts were helpful in improving the average person's understanding of the world). Clancy does do a commendable job in alerting us to the danger of aggression by the PRC. He fails in painting an accurate portrait of how the Chinese will seek to exploit our weaknesses while maximizing their strengths in any future conflict involving America. In THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON, as in most other Clancy works, once America sets her mind to the task, the enemy falls like a house of cards - sadly, in real life, the enemy gets a vote on the outcome too.
Rating: 
Summary: Clancy does it again!
Review: Jack Ryan's resolve as president is tried again when he faces the thing he fears most. China's leaders have thier mind set on propagating the biggest heist in history and are willing to do anything to keep themselves in power, even the unthinkable. President Ryan knows their every thought and has the brightest minds helping him, but can he avoid nuclear war! Clancy is a master of military suspense and proves it yet again with this unbelievable yet believable tale of national greed. Superbly written with a stunning ending.
Rating:
Summary: A Reasonable Read That Continues the Clancy Tradition
Review: The Good News: As always, Clancy's endings are more than worth the journey. Clancy's military details - whether accurate or not - allow a good suspension of disbelief for the layman. And all the characters we've known and loved for more than a decade are back as good as ever. The Bad News: The journey takes over 1,000 pages when it should have taken, perhaps, 700. Even with all that space, though, some of Clancy's characters have taken on even less than a cardboard aspect to them. I still can't remember the name of Jack's youngest child, for instance, and we go through 30% of the book before Cathy, Jack's wife, even makes an appearance. Clancy's bright star in the publishing world has also allowed him to slip even more of his far-right rhetoric into his stories (although anyone who likes Apple computers as much as he does can't be all bad). Be that as it may, while "The Bear and the Dragon" is not my favorite of Clancy's books it is still worth the time. I read it in preparation for "Red Rabbit" next month. Clancy has written himself into a corner with respect to Jack Ryan, and he's finally figured that out. While it is nice seeing our hero rise to the heights of the Presidency, Jack is no longer the "thinking man's action hero" that made him so popular in "Red October" and "Patriot Games." Jack's biggest action scene dealt with riding out an attack while onboard a destroyer while it was docked in port. At the end of the day "The Bear and the Dragon" very much continues the plotline and the style Clancy gave us in his later books. While good and solid, you still long for the days when it didn't take Clancy 700 pages to do a back story and when our favorite hero wasn't trapped behind a desk directing things from the back. I look forward to the series going "back to the future" with "Red Rabbit" next month.
Rating: 
Summary: Terror at 1152 Pages
Review: Tom Clancy's magnum opus, The Bear and the Dragon (starring movie hero Jack Ryan), is rollicking good fun for about the first 400 or so pages. Around then, the rollicking fun subsides for a couple of hundred pages, but then - Whammo! - we are back in the action. It is a testament to clancy's skill as a thriller writer that he can write over one thousands pages and have most of them not ... . Some could say that this book lacks realism. I say, why look for realism in a Tom Clancy book. You're looking for action, adventure, detailed descriptions of weapons, stock military characters, and the president of the United States Jack Ryan kicking some serious international ... . That's why you read Tom Clancy. That's why I read Tom Clancy. And that's why you should read The Bear and the Dragon. Get to it.
Rating:
Summary: Deja Vu?
Review: I like Clancy's Books, but "The Bear and The Dragon" was very disappointing. I understand that Clancy was attempting to create a back story in the first 700 pages, but enough is enough. In spite of this, it was the repeat plot from "Red Storm Rising" (One of my favorite books) that really disappointed me. The plot can be explained in 4 simple stages: 1) Nation in economic trouble 2) United States inadvertently contributes to the trouble 3) Political Elites of said nation devise a Hollywood type scheme to take resources from another nation 4) Clancy's typical set of main Characters contribute to an overwhelming NATO victory. Summary: A fair read, if you can just through the first 700 pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Disappointing.
Review: I agree with other recent reviews of this novel: It's over-written, poorly characterized, thinly researched, and credulity-straining. Clancy's strengths as a writer have in the past involved his ability to generate a suspenseful plot, and his devotion to describing military doctrine and technology with lovingly obsessive detail. Unfortunately, this novel showcases Clancy's many weaknesses: He's not compelling in writing characters or dialog; his familiarity with foreign cultures (especially China) is limited; he has no talent for writing romance or sex; and he fundamentally lacks the soul of a poet. The most important revelation in this novel appears to be that Ryan is a pro-life president, of the my-religious-beliefs-are-universal-truths-and-you're-a-moron-if-you-don't-agree variety. Disappointing, boring, and unnuanced: Clancy/Ryan is no George Will, nor even a Bill Bennet or a Tony Scalia. Clancy either needs to do a lot more homework in his writing, or else he needs to return to his roots in writing about militaria.
Rating:
Summary: The Bear and the Dragon
Review: The Bear and the Dragon by Tom Clancy is another well written Jack Ryan story. In this story Jack Ryan becomes President of the United States and things go downhill from there for Ryan. The book starts out typically for a Clancy novel... slowly and methodically. Clancy builds the story over the first two-thirds of the book working the reader through pitfalls, antiterrorism, conspiracies and international government intrigue. Ryan has found out that being President is not all it's cracked up to be as the world economy is going to hell in a handbasket. Russia finds gold in Siberia, China is fostering terrorism and is wreaking havoc world-wide. As suspense builds to a climax, the world will never be the same again. Clancy works the characters to a belief of realism and the techo-babble is plausable. Audaciously authentic, written with the world true-to-life scenerio that could be applied today. All in all, a story that becomes very interesting after you read the Clancy setup, so you get a book that really is one-third of the impressive 1000+ pages. Clancy does write a lot of profanity and we could do with a little less, but otherwise the tale is told well... Clancy does well with this book.
Rating:
Summary: This Book Stinks: A Laundry List
Review: There were so many things wrong with this book that it is difficult to know where to begin other than to simply give a laundry list of its flaws. 1. Poorly researched: Tom Clancy clearly loves the idea of an imperial president who is unencumbered by any constraints such as treaties, international law or the Constitution. In this novel, Jack Ryan commits the US to a war in Russia without even pausing to consider the fact that the power to declare war resides in Congress. Most people who have taken a freshman level Poli-Sci course have at least heard of the War Powers Act or the Constitution. Clancy should probably look these things up. If only to refute them in one of his typical straw-man arguments. The only hint of restraint comes when one character suggests that the NATO treaty does not allow the US to enter the war on behalf of Russia, the alliance's newest member. Ryan dismisses this idea by saying that the NATO treaty means what he says it means. I'm not sure that is the NATO charter and I would guess Clancy could not point it out to me either.
2. Clancy needs a thesaurus: I became increasingly annoyed that the only word Clancy seems to know to describe someone who belongs to a different agency of the government was "a puke". It was almost as annoying as his overly repetitive use of the word "whore." Those few times he used the word prostitute came as something of a relief.
3. Racial slurs aplenty: It is perhaps inevitable that any novel that depicts a war with China will include the word "chink". The last third of the book seems to have this word on nearly every page. To break the monotony Clancy occasionally throws in "raghead" in an allusion to Iranians and his previous novel. Of course, no one bats an eye at "chink" and when the Secretary of Treasury uses it in a meeting with the President, Ryan's only counsel is to not use that term in front of the press because they would not understand and react negatively. Of course, toward the end of the book Clancy has a Chinese character use "monkey" to describe an African-American to underscore Chinese bigotry. Clancy never seems to be phased at this inconsistency.
4. Poor understanding of history: Early in the book Clancy makes the statement that the US military never fought a war of conquest, rather it always fought wars of liberation. This would of course come as something of a surprise to America Indians who were only liberated of their lands and way of life. 5. Jack Ryan is annoying: The Jack Ryan of the earlier books, and movies even, has given way to a Jack Ryan that is a passive-aggressive whiner. Here is the character arc for Jack Ryan in the last two Clancy novels - "Why me, why me - just because I am President I don't see why I have to actually talk to other US citizens or take their views into account. I'm stressed give me a smoke. The press [is demanding] - they ask tough questions rather than simply let me do/say whatever I want. I'm stressed give me a smoke. It [terrible]being President when you are an ordinary guy like me - steward bring me some more expensive wine before my wife takes a government helicopter to work as she does everyday. I'm stressed bring me a smoke. I am bound by the Constitution and laws - except when I get ...[upset] then all bets are off. Let's bomb somebody. I feel a sense of relief, bring me a smoke."
6. Horrible sex scenes: These were laughably bad, but not too frequent. Although I did get tired of the phrases "honey bunny" and "Japanese sausage."
7. Clichéd characters: Most of the supporting characters in this novel are little more than clichés. The main women characters are all fantastic cooks in addition to being world class surgeons or deputy heads of the CIA and all of the Russians drink incessantly without apparent ill-effect. Apparently, Clancy has never heard of successful women who cannot cook, or successful men who can, let alone alcoholic Russians or Russians who do not drink at all. Of course developing actual characters would take away from Clancy's political diatribes or technology descriptions. Overall, "The Bear and The Dragon," was a major disappointment. At first, I kept reading it to see if it got any better. By the time I realized that this novel stinks, I was so far in that a perverse sense of curiosity forced me to keep going until the end.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not Great
Review: First off, Clancy is not losing his touch- he just needs an editor. This book continues the psuedo-alliance between Iran, India, Japan and China, only China is let standing. The plot develops at a snail's pace, but an interesting sidestory about a spy introduced in Debt of Honor will keep you enthralled. It's wonderful to see Clancy return to his roots in that respect. Still, the end is semi-predictable, but enjoyable. Side note: Much of the military technology and weaponry mentioned in this book are being used today in the war on terror.
Rating:
Summary: not Clancy's best
Review: I haven't finished this one yet but I'm most of the way throgh. Like several of his more recent books this one is more drawn out. Part of this is due to the fact that he is taking on bigger issues and providing more history, but the other part of it is that it's repititive and he wants to voice his political views through the characters. On many occasions he goes out of the way to repeat various characters titles and thoughts, which adds up to a few hundred extra pages. Also, I don't quite buy his descriptions of Chinese politics and life. In most of his previous books the bad guys are intelligent and competent adversaries, but in this one he portrays the Chinese as morons with guns. This doesn't mesh very well with the impression I get from talking with some of my Chinese friends. The excitement and action are there as always, and the police work is very well done, but I prefer some of his earlier books. Also, don't read this if you aren't a little familiar with some of Clancy's characters, because it'll really help to know who he's talking about in some cases. All in all, it's not a bad read..but far from his best.
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