Rating: 
Summary: Retire Ryan or Retire Clancy
Review: what a disappointment! the only reason I finished this book was I paid full price for it. stupid me.the theme in this book sound interesting, but, by 565th page, I just found it ridiculously laughable. china invaded siberia of Russia and US sent troops to help defend? how the hell clancy could come up something like that. didn't make any sense at all. worst, clancy tried to create his own evil empire, China, to replace the Regan version, Russia. But he just failed to do his research on modern chinese life, culture and society. A lot of things he described the chinese are outdately wrong. obviously he relied on his own personal imagination to create this chinese background w/o any basis of facts. that's just plain lazy. then he casted this evil empire image on the whole chinese civilization, you can call him racist, I would rather think he is just retardedly flawed in his logic. I think it's time for clancy to retire the Ryan character (it's getting old and boring) or the readers should retire clancy.
Rating: 
Summary: Classic Clancy Page Turner
Review: This is one great adventure story. It's timely. It's controversial. It's politically incorrect. What more could we want?
Rating: 
Summary: His worst book yet
Review: Like most TC readers I have read all his previous books and looked forward to this release. However early on in the reading of the Bear and the Dragon I found myself pushing to get through the book. There is little to no character development and little to no excitement. Phrases are repeated throughout the book that feel like they were cut and pasted verbatim from earlier chapters or from other works (The Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reicht). Not that there is plagerism going on. It's just historical reference, but it should have been expanded on and made unique to this book. Nothing breaks the enjoyment of reading as much as noticing the writing. Various times in the book there are severe errors in descriptions of technology - most notably in the areas of the internet. These areas made me cringe in their extreme ignorance on the basics of domain names, email, modem speed and the like. For instance we are expected to believe that in China one can connect to an ISP at 57000 bits per second. First off we can barely do that here in our country and then you would not be connecting at that speed, but would probably connect at a number based on 1024 (i.e. 48128 or similar). in fact i believe that there are limits in a 56k modem that keep the connections below 50k. We are also expected to believe that the CIA also connects via a dial up! It takes 3 minutes for the laptop to send the email and it also takes 3 minutes to receive it at CIA headquarters. Perhaps she really is using AOL to get her most secret encrypted email, but that is stretching belief quite a bit. Also - no one who uses computers calls them 'puters. How about "PC's" next time Mr. Clancy? Okay, I'll admit that this is all nit picking, but the reason that TC is so great is the attention to details as the story is crafted. If the suspension of belief is broken while reading, the story has problems. I also found the plot very heavy handed. I felt like this is a political message about China and abortion. Not that I disagree with his beliefs but everyone has the same opinions in TC's government. Anyone who opposes his view are cast as "tree huggers", commies or gays and are quickly cast aside. This book is just too much propaganda for TC's political views. It lacks realism and is just a plain disappointment. Sorry.
Rating:
Summary: Major disappointment and needless polemic
Review: I've read every Clancy novel and loved each one. Maybe you just can't maintain such a high level all the time. But it seems he's substituting quantity for quality in this tome. The story line was expected, and picked up where the last novel left off. But we have to endure about 900 pages of preliminary chess moves until we get to the real meat. And then, it was disapointing. We are told over and over that the Russian Army and especially the Far Eastern Command can't defend against a determined Boy Scout Troop. Yet the fight comes comes off more like a Nintendo game than combat with the worlds largest standing army. But what really did the book in was the frequent social and political commentary. For example, when Mrs. Ryan complains about some small thing Jack has done, Jack thinks that all women just need something to complain about. And the frequent references to Clinton is tired. It could be time to retire Jack Ryan and John Clark. Maybe I'll just retire from Clancy! Rock Chalk, y'all...
Rating:
Summary: Too long, too little, nothing new
Review: It is very disappointing to write a poor review on a Clancy novel. One of my favorite authors. The good is that you get to renew all the characters of the previous books that have not been killed off and you enjoy. The story line is disappointing in that it is almost a rehash of the last books with different villians. The most disappointing is even though the book is 1000 pages none of the characters has enough of a central theme to identify with unless they are old friends from previous readings. There were pages upon pages of preaching on all kinds of issues somewhat akind to Ann Rand (Atlas Shrugged). Hope he can find the forumula if there is a next book.
Rating:
Summary: The Bear and the Dragon
Review: The worst of the Jack Ryan series. None of the usual suspense, Jack & his circle know everything that's going to happen before it happens because of a conveniently placed spy. There's none of the usual multiple sub-plots to speak of, just the impending conflict between Russia & China. And even that's gets resolved in just the last few pages via the now popular 3-4 day war. The usual cast we've grown to know are all burdened with bit parts that really contribute nothing to the story, with a couple of them placed in highly improbable/unsatisfying positions. It's all the more disappointing because it appears to be the last of a very interesting and entertaining series. Definitely Clancy's weakest effort.
Rating: 
Summary: OK, Not Great
Review: This is one of Clancy's less exciting novels. He extends the Patrick Ryan set of characters, and they are good to spend time with again. The plot is less complicated than some of his earlier works. That's definitely a plus. He sets the story line within a strong moral framework, that I felt worked very well. Overall though, a bit too long, a bit too self-conscious. But still worth the read.
Rating:
Summary: Tom Clancy as POTUS
Review: Tom Clancy is not only the originator of the "techno-thriller" genre, he is also a master of writing multiple theatres of simultaneous action. He reached his peak at this in the novel Debt of Honor which ended with Jack Ryan not only becoming President but the rest of the government almost completely wiped out. In Executive Orders, Clancy continues the story of Ryan as President and facing an international conspiracy designed to further cripple the United States. In The Bear and the Dragon, Ryan has been elected to the office Of POTUS in his own right but there is another global conspiracy that he has to deal with. This time, however, the United States joins forces with the "new" Russia against China and her hard line, shortsighted leaders. The last two books in the Jack Ryan saga, however, are markedly different from his previous thrillers in that an extensive amount of print is devoted to Clancy's (as Jack Ryan) personal political philosophy. The story lines themselves are quite intriguing and well thought out, as usual. I found, however, that if the political editorializing were left out, the manuscripts would be shorter by at least 200 pages. For me, that interfered with the pace of the story and ended up leaving the page turning action to the very end of the book.
Rating:
Summary: Star Trek, racism and Chinese food.
Review: After Rainbow Six, I promised myself that I would wait for the paperback of his next book. Well I didn't but I should have. The book is crying out for an editor. Is Clancy too big these days and editors are afraid of him? Repetition, repetition repetition. We hear Ryan complaining about the same thing on numerous occasions. We hear about him sneaking around like a schoolboy getting a cigarette numerous times. We have at least five Star Trek references. We hear about Mao's sexual habits more than once. We hear about Chinese food from two different characters in almost the exact same words. Two characters have the same name in the book. Every character in the book thinks environmentalists are tree-huggers. The obvious blatant racism against the Chinese is distasteful Ryan has turned into a virtual dictator. Where is the senate? Does the government exist anymore? Wars are ridiculously easy to win (If you are American) Ryan used to be a likable almost human character. The books used to be soundly grounded in reality. They now have a surreal atmosphere. What's next? I can almost see Aliens (Klingons) attacking the earth and Ryan jumping into an F16 to fight them. It's really getting to that stage. Clancy should get one of his ghost writers from his other 'series' Op-center to write the next book for him (yes it is getting that bad) The next time, I'm not going to wait for the paperback, it's a visit to the library for me.
Rating:
Summary: Clancy Has Lost The Touch
Review: Tom Clancy has finally run out of things to write. As a (past) Clancy lover, I believe I have every right to stand by that comment. His new book is nothing more than a platform for Clancy to mouth off his half-way thought through political ideas, most of which are unconstitutional. A big military power needing oil? Didn't we see that before? Character development? He completely relies on the development from past books. I can't IMAGINE what someone who has never read Clancy before thought of this. Editing? I wish I had written them down, but the amount of times he repeated lines, anecdotes, and so-calle "military jargon" was absurd. I have never wasted so much time. The only reason I even finished the book was to keep with my philosophy that no book is so bad that it can't be finished. This book has made me wonder.
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