The Bear and the Dragon

Rating:
Summary: Yak, yak, yak.
Review: I put it down after struggling through 600 pages of talk, talk, talk. A big disappointment after waiting for the next Jack Ryan story.

Rating:
Summary: One of the worst books i've ever read
Review: The premise of the book is good: China and Russia are at odds with one another over oil fields and gold mines in Siberia. The only other good part of the book is it starts out with an exciting beginning. From there it goes downhill very fast.

First of all, the President Jack Ryan, is constantly bitching about domestic politics; most of it is criticism of the left-wing. Do we really need to hear Clancy's rants about politics in a FICTIONAL book? A book about foreign affairs no less. I kept on rolling my eyes. I have no problem with Clancy voicing his opinion, but you'd think he'd come up with a more professional way of doing it.

Secondly, the whole scenerio is unbelievable. China attacking Russia?? And why does it attack Russia? Because of a trade embargo imposed by American citizens over the death of one fellow american and a cleric. Sorry Mr. Clancy, but your average american isn't as radical as you are and neither is the Chinese government.

I admit, I didn't finish the book. I got sick of the political viewpoints of Clancy that I kept on having to read plus I just gave up on the rationality of the actions taken by the characters in the book.

Rating:
Summary: The introduction is much too long
Review: I like the books of Tom Clancy a lot. Thus far I've read all his books and would rate them 5 stars.
However, in Rainbow Six, the introduction took about 300 pages. Since there were plenty of pages left, this is no problem.
In the bear and the dragon the introduction (the endless talking) takes 800 pages! It was hard to keep on reading.
The real action takes place in the remaining pages and ends very quickly. In this part it was hard to stop reading. This is the Tom Clancy I like.

Rating:
Summary: What a shame!
Review: What a shame, what a pitty!
As a huge fan of all Tom Clancy wrote (fictional), I longed to get my hands on his latest work (I had to wait quit some time for it in the Netherlands). Well, I have it now, and what a disappointment it is!
To be brief: Mr. Clancy is getting old and grumpy and uses his writing to express his rather boring, old fashioned and conservative political ideas. This must even be a bore for any US reader, but for an international reader it's like reading a 1100 page column in a local small town USA newspaper.
Oh, by the way, this book actually features a story somewhere between the lines. And yes, all our favourite characters are in it. It's a shame they are used as background figures.

Rating:
Summary: Bear & Dragon Cliffs Notes
Review: China invades Russia. Russia joins NATO. NATO kicks China's [butt]. Clancy loves a strong military. Clancy hates career politicians. Clancy hates abortion. Clancy takes your money without delivering the quality of his first few books.

Rating:
Summary: Prophetic descriptions of American air power
Review: A few days after Sept. 11, I bought Tom Clancy's novel from 2000, The Bear and the Dragon, as a relatively painless way to learn the current state of American war-fighting technology. It ends with a detailed description of how 21st Century American air power pulverizes a Chinese armored invasion of Siberia. I finished it and said, "Okay, we're obviously going to crush the Taliban from the air. No problemo. (My biggest worry then became that the Taliban would hand over Osama to us before we could devastate them, which we had to do in order to encourage the other regimes to not allow anti-American terrorists to operate from their territories.) I was incredulous when so many pundits decided around Nov. 1st that the Taliban were winning. "Don't they know anything about our current air power? Don't they read Tom Clancy novels?" A week later, of course, the fearsome Taliban threw down their weapons and ran into the hills, screaming like little girls. The answer to both questions about our commentariat I realize now is "No. They didn't know anything about military technology and a big reason was because they hold Clancy in contempt." Well, now the joke's on them. - Steve Sailer

Rating:
Summary: A decent author gone south
Review: Having read most of Tom Clancy's earlier works, I was sorely disappointed by this effort. In fact, I felt cheated. Where in the past Tom Clancy has written books with a good plot and exciting action, this book spends a great amount of time on Clancy's sexist, xenophobic and otherwise unecessary political views. This large tome (1000+ pages) could have been toned down to a few hundred if these distracting comments had been omitted. I would not recommend this book for anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Yuck!
Review: Too long by half. Wooden. Repetitive. Un-fun. Other reviewers have said it all before me.

I've decided that Clancy must've made a New Year's Resolution to crank out some number of pages per day on this one. Or, maybe he had a bet going with Stephen King to see who could make the most money with the least effort. Whoever won that bet, I know I lost by reading The Bear And The Dragon.

Rating:
Summary: Tom Clancy
Review: The Bear and the Dragon, like many of Tom Clancy's books, holds the reader from cover to cover. While the detail that Clancy uses is not appreciated by many readers, I found it to be valuable in forming a story which held my interest from the first time I'd opened it to the closing.

Rating:
Summary: From Bad to Worse
Review: Tom Clancy is one of the few authors I will buy in hardback; that is how much I enjoyed "The Hunt For Red October," "Red Storm Rising," "Patriot Games," and his other early works. Unfortunately, I can't say I've enjoyed any of his recent works. I couldn't believe the plot of "Rainbow Six," reworking the ebola virus angle of "Executive Orders," and the IRA terrorists of "Patriot Games" both in the same story. I suffered through that book and "The Bear and the Dragon." I must have known it would be bad; I waited a year after I bought it to start it. It had very poor, simplistic dialog. Every time the book turned back to Jack Ryan, a man we want to like, we had to listen to him whine about being "POTUS." Every damn time. We suffered through too many pages to count of a trade negotiation, when it could have been summarized in two. We only got about two pages of a U.S. submarine engaging Chinese submarines. Clancy has me by the wallet, I'll probably always buy his hardcovers. Do yourself a favor and wait for his paperbacks.