Rating: 
Summary: Jack Ryan does friend Robby Jackson no favor here
Review: Two books back in "Role Of Honor", doomed Prez Roger Durling threw Jack a curve: "Be my new veep-the old one made an a-hole outa himself." Jack said; "Aw come on, Mr. President", but he gave in anyway. In this book, Jack tosses his best friend the same sort of spitball and both beneficiaries should have told their benefactors where to stuff this "great honor". If you read "Role" and its successor "Executive Decisions", you will know that Robby found getting kicked upstairs to Admiral a very dubious honor indeed-the man was a Navy flyboy and loved it. A vice president I don't remember the name of once commented that each of his predecessors had historically left office a better golfer than when he was sworn in. That's the fate of Top Gun Jackson, whose Secret Service codename is now TOMCAT. Name him after his jet fighter-thanks a heap, Mr. President! Jack himself remains a truly off-balance Leader Of the Free World in this book, so one saving grace of this effort is that a lot more of it is focused on the front line troops like John Clark and Ding Chavez (co-stars of sidestream tale "Rainbow Six"), Russian luminaries Sergey Golovko and Gen. Gennady Bondarenko, and our old friend Chet Nomuri from "Role Of Honor". Also, "offscreen" character Rev. Hosiah Jackson (we only knew him through son Robby's anecdotes about his childhood) gets a speaking role here through his congregation's outreach aid to a Chinese Baptist preacher. Clancy does sort of recycle one of his old plot premises here-that of "Red Storm Rising", Clancy's second novel written at a time when he might yet not have had plans for a Ryan series. In that book, the pre-perestroika Soviet Union suffers an oil field disaster that collapses their economy and this moves them to mount an invasion of Western Europe. In this book, a diplomatic atrocity on the part of China, coupled with a refusal by nationalists in Beijing to admit wrong, results in an embargo on trade, which destabilizes their economy. At the same time, Russia becomes the beneficiary of a mineral bonanza in Siberia. The reaction of Beijing to that-"hmmmm". You know, I'm reading a lot of attempts in other reviews to paint Clancy's work as right-wing manifesto masquerading as entertainment, more specifically the demonization of an enemy nation. The ancient bromide "They don't think the way we do" has been used as a way to avoid understanding the other folks as people for millennia, but in this book BOTH sides use it--and actually they're both right to a very real extent. Clancy takes another opportunity here to trot out his old aphorism about war being a humongous armed robbery, but that's only one theory. Military historian Gwynne Dyer defines it as one nation imposing its will upon another by use of force--that's another. But when you get right down to it, war is also the collision of cultures who don't think alike. And I can't help but see many of the objections here as being an aftereffect of the 1960s/ '70s Peace Movement which I was part of myself back then. After we had accurately spotted the irony that the noisy love-it-or-leave-it bunch seemed to be more nationalists than they were patriots, we fell into the hubris that we could social-engineer that flaw out of the entire human species in a few semesters. A lot of us outgrew that brand of undergrad arrogance but I'm afraid those of us who did can't speak for everyone. Especially when the issue is entertainment, which is first and foremost what Tom Clancy does for his bread and butter. There isn't a damn thing created by anyone that doesn't offend someone. I don't read Tom Clancy for his poli-sci expertise-I've never been particularly impressed with that. Clancy's value to me is as a storyteller. Period. There are products sold here that I wouldn't want if they paid me to take them. So that stuff doesn't wind up on my "wish list" or in my "shopping cart". I vote with my mouse-it's that simple. Come on, gang--every dime we spend here is for FUN.
Rating: 
Summary: Clancy Needs A Break!
Review: TBATD continues Clancy's downward spiral towards mediocrity. Starting with Rainbow 6, Clancy's novels have become nothing but platforms for his own political ramblings and ethnocentric (borderline racist) feelings. Where have the politically-hip, technically-detailed, and tightly-plotted yarns gone? Here are the major (but not only) problems in this book:1. Plot: Or rather, a lack of it. It's 1000+ pages of rising and falling action that lack any believable or even interesting connection. Simple-minded and too predictable. 2. Characters: Ryan is too old, and maybe Clancy is too, because he needs a new, fresh character with a new, LESS RIGHT-WING, and less cynical attitude on life and international relations. 3. Language & Size: The grammar is unacceptable. Spelling errors abound and grammatical mistakes make sentences hard to understand. Long-winded paragraphs and Clancy's typical (although this time he goes overboard) technical descriptions turn a mediocre 500 pages story into a horrible 1000 page exercise in torture. Also, the audience does not need to hear the F-word or the word "chink" a thousand times, nor raunchy, immature references to "Japanese sausage". 4. Bias: Perhaps Clancy is a racist; his description of anything non-American is appalling! We all know his beliefs on cultures: Americans - moral, right and heoric, Rats - anything non-American; but his latest diatribe is just embarassing. 5. Research: Gathering from the reviews I've read, I've only recently realized that maybe some of the technical (not to mention cultural) information is just plain wrong. Clancy needs a break from writing. He may have been the master of his genre, but now he's writing like one of his villians: a politically-crazed, cynical madman.
Rating:
Summary: A farce
Review: THis book has a scenario that is so unreal, it borders on bad military science fiction. RUssian in NATO, China invading Russia. Right. What's next, flying saucers come to the rescue in part 2, where the secrets of Area 51 are finally revealed by Clancy. THere was once a time when Clancy wrote good books, but his latest, if indeed he does write them himself, are getting worse and worse. Which is apparently okay, becasue somehow they still end up on the best seller lists.
Rating: 
Summary: A Masochist's Lolipop?
Review: I have read all of Clancy's books and am disappointed to find each new novel has slipped a notch below the previous one. He is concentrating less and less on the techno-thriller aspects (his forte) and more and more on inane dialogue (his Achilles heel). I just finished reading it (about a year later!) My wife was patiently waiting for me so she could start it. The ending was truly exciting, one of his best. But did he really have to make us plow through 750 pages of dreary start-up to get to the punch? If not for the ending, this might have been my last Clancy read.
Rating:
Summary: Too long, otherwise entertaining
Review: Bottom line: not a great piece of literature but entertaining. Buy it for the last 400-500 pages. First the bad news: -- Clancy needs to hire a really good editor (if one was involved in this, he/she needs to be replaced). Too many errors stayed in and the first 600 pages should be the first 300 pages, too much repeated stuff and too many words to get the job done. -- If you can't figure out the major plot items 100+ pages in advance, then you're asleep or this is the first Clancy novel you've read. Ending is especially so. -- A few too many echoes of Red Storm Rising. -- If I "hear" Ryan whine about being President ever again it will be too soon. Very tiresome and needlessly so. The good news: -- The espionage stuff up front is generally excellent and sets up a complex situation. If this part were condensed down to be tighter it could stand up well with the last 1/3 of the book and give away less of what unfolds later. Some good ideas here. -- The war sequence at the end is classic Clancy. Full of cool toys, great detail and good storytelling. -- Despite the weaknesses, I found the book entertaining and I'd still rate it as one of the stronger of his more recent books.
Rating:
Summary: A Novel of the Failure of Diplomacy
Review: One would think that after 760 reviews that there would be little left to say about any book. That being said I will still add a few words after reading this thousand plus page opus. First of all, I am not a rabid Clancy fan. Yes, I did read some of his earlier works and found them to be thought provoking and exciting from a technical point of view. The Bear and the Dragon is not a technothriller in the usual sense of the word. It is a slow sometimes thought provoking read detailing the failure of conventional diplomacy. That being said, let me emphasise, the book rumbles along for about 800 pages before the real action for lovers of military fiction begins. In its premise we have multiple subplots that connect to bring about global disaster. There is an attempted assassination of a high ranking Russian official. The killing of a papal nuncio and a baptist minister during the midst of Chinese/American Trade Talks brings about a virtual collapse of the Chinese economy and a grand scale retaliation by the Chinese Politburo. The plot involves the invasion of Siberia by the Chinese army in hopes of revitalizing their economy. Into this mix comes the idea the Russia and the United States are now allies due to the fall of the Communist system. In fact, Russia is now a member of NATO for purposes of halting the Chinese aggression. Clany blends all of the above into a plot that is compelling at times but at others is a little hard to take seriously. At its best the action is a little far fetched and awkward. At its worst the plot is sheer folly. Clancy does in fact seem to know his hardware but his understanding of individual characterization and human emotion is far from genius. The characters at times are indistinguishable and seem little more than talking heads for Clancy's conservative preaching. The developing relationship between a spy and his agent feels as though it was ghost written by a teenager with over active hormones. All that said, The Bear and the Dragon is not a bad book but one which could have been much better had more attention been paid to the problems of diplomacy and cultural differences. These are the issues that needed to be addressed more than the outbreak of a "video game" type war that was easily resolved in the last 100 pages or so. Clancy has a great knack for dehumanizing war with technological advances. This is unfortunate in that it seems to make the characters little more than chess pieces on a board. No one really dies in Clancy's world but the bad guys. The result of this is that war becomes a fantastic game rather than the horror it really is. If I had been a true Clancy fan I might have been disappointed by this effort. In general the novel was fair but it could have been so much more.
Rating:
Summary: Thinly disguised bigotry
Review: Though Tom Clancy is a prolific writer who can churn out terrific action scenes, I found this, his latest book, to contain distressingly racist undertones. Most conversations in "The Bear and the Dragon" were liberally sprinkled with racial epithets that were not only unnecessary, but extremely offensive. Of course, these taboo words are sometimes *meant* to provoke, but I was provoked once too often. The politicians and "heroes" in Clancy's latest novel are coarse and vulgar. The Chinese people are stereotyped and portrayed at their worst, coming across as "slant-eyed" buffoons. Though I am not Chinese myself, I feel offended enough for the Chinese people. To be fair, Clancy is a good writer. He may simply be trying to emphasize the feelings of his characters without even realizing that this is cause for offense. If not for the excessive racial slurs, I probably would have made it all the way through the book in a week or so, but by the time I got a third of the way through, I was sickened enough to throw the book away for good.
Rating:
Summary: Not on par for Clancy, but still a great book...
Review: I have read all of Clancy's novels, and while I did enjoy this book, I think it was probably not his best. I feel that the Jack Ryan character has become a sort of "cardboard-cutout," kind of 2 dimensional, flat hero figure. I think that the Ryan character has not really developed in the past few books written about him. However, despite that, the book is action-packed, and is as much fun to read as his other books. Clancy excells at depicting both close-quarters and battlefield combat, and his realism has never been better. It is great that he can also bring the Rainbow group into the novels, so it is not just all Jack Ryan. While I would have given his other novels 5 stars, I must give this one 4, which is not bad at all...
Rating: 
Summary: Clancy Writes Another Great Book
Review: Full of what you expect of Clancy. Main plot, subplot after subplot. Very technical book as you would expect. Builds up his characters well. Very way out impossible settings and circumstances. If you have a dense mind, don't read it but if you enjoy good writing and fiction this book is for you.
Rating:
Summary: Worst of the lot, but still better than others work
Review: I have just finished this book and suffice it to say, I am somewhat disappointed. Maybe the Jack Ryan story line is wearing thin, but this is the first book from Clancy which disappointed me. The ending seemed rushed.. (did anyone else get the feeling that at one time, the nuke actually took out D.C. with Ryan, only to have TC change his mind into the book?) What disappointed me the most was the overly excessive use of profanity. It added absolutely NOTHING to the book. I got the feeling that he was being payed for every "F" word and vulgar human anatomy term that he used....
| 
