The Bear and the Dragon

Author - Tom Clancy ... [Goo?] [Posters]

This Hardcover Book item from G. P. Putnam´s Sons was reviewed on 11-Dec-2008.

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1) Hardcover Book The Bear and the Dragon by G. P. Putnam´s Sons. A pathetic, narcissistic excuse of a story line with cardboard characters. The storyline is entirely unbelievable...all good ideas are from one side, all sagacious leaders are from one side, all heroes are from one side, all mistakes are from the other side... I suppose the claptrap about the weapons may interest some but anyone looking for a realistic description of international intrigue by evenly matched players is wasting his time here...¤

2) Hardcover Book The Bear and the Dragon by G. P. Putnam´s Sons. I think this novel is where Clancy stumbled. He as taken Ryan from being a CIA officer to President of the United States. I think that was too much of a leap.

But I think Clancy is trying to end the Ryan-verse series and the only way to do that, other than killing him was to make him President, which equals out to the same thing.

The plot of a China war with Russia is a very plausible one and this is where Tom Clancy shines, he created a very credible story, of corrupt Chinese officials staging a plan that will lead them, in their view, to a more powerful China and that would mean a war with Russia. The history between Russia and China is not the friendliest and that could mean at anytime they two could go to war, especially during the cold war era.

What I found to be very implausible was the ending, America airlifting Tanks that arrive just in time to repel China from Russia and a Nuke being shot down by Jack Ryan before it explodes over Washington.

But overall, Clancy does weave a good story and it is worth the 1,0000 page read.¤

3) Hardcover Book The Bear and the Dragon by G. P. Putnam´s Sons. For President Jack Ryan, things have never just rolled along smoothly. After the Russians discover great mineral wealth in Siberia, the CIA discovers that China is casting greedy eyes to the north. America is in a race to block China from grabbing the wealth that is just across the border, but will they succeed?

OK, when reviewing books, sometimes you are with the majority, and sometimes you are with the minority. For this book, I am definitely in with the minority. I am a big fan of Tom Clancy´s Jack Ryan series, and I really enjoyed this book. As with the others in the series, the author does a great job of running a number of parallel storylines, keeping each one interesting and avoiding confusion and chaos.

Now, this book has been criticized for a number of flaws, including its length, which is a valid complaint. Mr. Clancy definitely wanted to include many details and sub-stories, but personally I thought he kept the overall story interesting. This is not a quick read, and just looking at its fatness, you know you are in it for the long-haul.

But, that said, I really enjoyed this book. As in real life slower moments punctuated moments of exhilaration and drama. Many a time, I was totally gripped by what was happening, unable to put the book down. Was it totally realistic? Perhaps not, but the action and adventure make for a great ride. I really enjoyed this book, and don´t hesitate to recommend it.¤

4) Hardcover Book The Bear and the Dragon by G. P. Putnam´s Sons. A reel disappointment. Four a book to bee enjoyed it helps if it does knot contain sew many speling and typograffikle errurz.

I usually enjoy TC´s books---but this one was indeed a disappointment. Decent story, but the typos and errors became tedious. Halfway through the book I started circling the obvious errors for entertainment value alone. Obviously the publisher opted to use an automated spell-checker because the book was filled with typos---some funny, but most were annoying and detracted from the reading experience. Just because a word is spelled correctly does not mean it´s the right word to use! Next time the publisher might consider having real people proofread TC´s novels.¤

5) Hardcover Book The Bear and the Dragon by G. P. Putnam´s Sons. As usual I enjoyed the technical aspects of Clancy´s Bear and Dragon. And incidentally I happen to agree with his politics, and I think he was actually quite kind to a certain former President. I´m also fairly patient about cliches and over-workings. So I only have one real criticism: Even with 1,000-plus pages, this story ended far too suddenly. I hate it when it appears that the author simply got tired of writing. Several deliciously rich threads were left to dangle in the wind. So I might hope for a sequel, just to wrap up a few very enjoyable subplots, but I´m sure it wouldn´t work very well. From page to page I enjoyed Bear and Dragon, and I always enjoy the pleasant fiction of former enemies being such close pals -- fiction only in the sense of so readily allowing massive foreign military assets to touch native soil -- but this book most certainly needed another 20 or 30 pages of closure.
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6) Hardcover Book The Bear and the Dragon by G. P. Putnam´s Sons. Four Cassettes, 6 hours

Time and again, Tom Clancy´s novels have been praised not only for their big-scale drama and propulsive narrative drive, but for their cutting-edge prescience in predicting future events.  In The Bear and The Dragon, the future is very near at hand indeed.

Newly elected in his own right, Jack Ryan has found that being President has gotten no easier.  Domestic pitfalls await him at every turn, there´s a revolution in Liberia, the Asian economy is going down the tubes, and now, in Moscow, someone may have tried to take out the chairman of the SVR - the former KGB - with a rocket-propelled grenade.  Things are unstable enough in Russia without high-level assassination, but even more disturbing may be the identities of the assassins.  Were they political enemies, the Russian Mafia, disaffected former KGB?  Or, Ryan wonders, is something far more dangerous at work here.

Ryan is right.   For even while he dispatches his most trusted eyes and ears, including black ops specialist John Clark, to find out the truth of the matter, forces in China are moving ahead with a plan of truly audacious proportions.  If they succeed, the world as we know it will never look the same.  If they fail--the consequences will be unspeakable.¤

7) Hardcover Book The Bear and the Dragon by G. P. Putnam´s Sons. Power is delightful, and absolute power should be absolutely delightful--but not when you´re the most powerful man on earth and the place is ticking like a time bomb. Jack Ryan, CIA warrior turned U.S. president, is the man in the hot seat, and in this vast thriller he´s up to his nostrils in crazed Asian warlords, Russian thugs, nukes that won´t stay put, and authentic, up-to-the-nanosecond technology as complex as the characters´ motives are simple. Quick, do you know how to reprogram the software in an Aegis missile seekerhead? Well, if you´re Jack Ryan, you´d better find someone who does, or an incoming ballistic may rain fallout on your parade. Bad for reelection prospects. "You know, I don´t really like this job very much," Ryan complains to his aide Arnie van Damm, who replies, "Ain´t supposed to be fun, Jack."

But you bet The Bear and the Dragon is fun--over 1,000 swift pages´ worth. In the opening scene, a hand-launched RPG rocket nearly blows up Russia´s intelligence chief in his armored Mercedes, and Ryan´s clever spooks report that the guy who got the rocket in his face instead was the hoodlum "Rasputin" Avseyenko, who used to run the KGB´s "Sparrow School" of female prostitute spies. Soon after, two apparent assassins are found handcuffed together afloat in St. Petersburg´s Neva River, their bloated faces resembling Pokémon toys.

The stakes go higher as the mystery deepens: oil and gold are discovered in huge quantities in Siberia, and the evil Chinese Minister Without Portfolio Zhang Han San gazes northward with lust. The laid-off elite of the Soviet Army figure in the brewing troubles, as do the new generation of Tiananmen Square dissidents, Zhang´s wily, Danielle Steel-addicted executive secretary Lian Ming, and Chester Nomuri, a hip, Internet-porn-addicted CIA agent posing in China as a Japanese computer salesman. He e-mails his CIA boss, Mary Pat "the Cowgirl" Foley, that he intends to seduce Ming with Dream Angels perfume and scarlet Victoria´s Secret lingerie ordered from the catalog--strictly for God and country, of course. Soon Ming is calling him "Master Sausage" instead of "Comrade," but can anybody master Ming?

The plot is over the top, with devastating subplots erupting all over the globe and lurid characters scaring the wits out of each other every few pages, but Clancy finds time to insert hard-boiled little lessons on the vileness of Communism, the infuriating intrusions of the press on presidential power, the sexual perversions of Mao, the poor quality of Russian pistol silencers ("garbage, cans loaded with steel wool that self-destructed after less than ten shots"), the folly of cutting a man´s throat with a knife ("they flop around and make noise when you do that"), and similar topics. Naturally, the book bristles like a battlefield with intriguingly intricate military hardware.

When you´ve got a Tom Clancy novel in hand, who needs action movies? --Tim Appelo¤

Page Updated: Robert N. Goolsby, 8-Jan-2009, , 250-840-320-490-840-QIB-8

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