Helpful Score: 2
Ryan is president and Russia and China are at each others throats. Couldn't put this one down.
Excellent book, I would recommend it to anyone.
Terry D. (tmdaviss) - , reviewed The Bear and the Dragon (Jack Ryan, Bk 9) on + 72 more book reviews
Jack Ryan was always a man of the people. In The Bear and The Dragon, Jack is working through his 1st elected term as President of the United States, and he isn't sure he likes the job. He is trying to steer the country in straightforward ways. However, the policies the U.S. find to be fair are yet another reason for Minister Zhang, of the Peoples Republic of China to begin a war in an attempt to wrest Siberia from the Russians.
Published in 2000, this book is showing a small amount of age, as it cannot foresee the world events we have lived through in the past decade or so. It is, however, reflective of how China still does business with the U.S. The country that seems out of step in this book is a Russia without Mr. Putin trying to re-establish the glory days of the USSR. Otherwise, strategies and intrigues still ring true here; while technology has begun to lag.
This is a classic Clancy styled book, not coauthored, and with never-ending paragraphs, repetitious review of character's thoughts, and dialog out of the 1970's. Tom Clancy always had a well planned outline but took twice as long as necessary to bring you from one step to the next.
Clancy fans will still enjoy this story, but it will never be a classic. Out of his many books I believe Patriot Games will remain the best story he published.
Published in 2000, this book is showing a small amount of age, as it cannot foresee the world events we have lived through in the past decade or so. It is, however, reflective of how China still does business with the U.S. The country that seems out of step in this book is a Russia without Mr. Putin trying to re-establish the glory days of the USSR. Otherwise, strategies and intrigues still ring true here; while technology has begun to lag.
This is a classic Clancy styled book, not coauthored, and with never-ending paragraphs, repetitious review of character's thoughts, and dialog out of the 1970's. Tom Clancy always had a well planned outline but took twice as long as necessary to bring you from one step to the next.
Clancy fans will still enjoy this story, but it will never be a classic. Out of his many books I believe Patriot Games will remain the best story he published.
Nice and intense.
Newly elected in his own right, Jack Ryan has found that being president has not gotten any easier; domestic pitfalls await him at every turn, the Asian economy is going down the tubes, and now, in Moscow, someone may have tried to take out chairman of SVR, the former KGB with the rocket propelled granade.
Shirley E. (luvantiques) -
President Jack Ryan faces a world crisis unlike any he has ever known.
BIG hardback! "When you've got a Tom Clancy novel in hand, who needs action movies?" --Tim Appelo
From Publishers Weekly: "Klingons" is how hero Jack Ryan describes the villains, the Communist Chinese Politburo, of Clancy's mammoth new novel; other Yanks refer to Chinese soldiers as "Joe Chinaman." It's not for subtlety of characterization, then, that this behemoth proves so relentlessly engrossing. Nor is it for any modulation in the arc of its action, which moves insistently from standstill to hurtle. Nor is it for the author's (expressed) understanding of life's viscissitudes; in this Clancyverse, no white hat with a name dies, but every black hat gets whupped bad. Partly it's for the sheer bulk, if ever a book should come equipped with wheels, it's this one, which plunges readers into a sea of words so vast that, after hours of paddling happily through brisk prose, the horizon remains hidden from sight. Mostly, though, it's because that sea glitters with undeniable authority. Clancy has demonstrated in earlier books (Rainbow Six, etc.) that he towers above other novelists in his ability to deliver geo-political, techo-military goods on a global scaleDand here he's at the top of that war-gaming. With aplomb, he spins numerous plot strandsDamong them: a Sino-American spy seduces his way into Politburo secrets; enormous oil and gold reserves are discovered in Siberia; the new Papal Nuncio to Beijing is murdered; the Politburo orders a hit on a top Russian officialDthat lead to a Chinese invasion of Russia and a credible war scenario that occupies the novel's last quarter and that culiminates in a nuclear crescendo. Each thread carries a handbook's worth of intoxicating, expertly researched, seemingly inside, information, about advanced weapons of war and espionage, about how various governments work, complemented always with ponderings about the tensions between individual honor and the demands of state. Add to that the excitement for Clancy fans of this being the first novel to feature not just Jack Ryan but also, in significant subordinate roles, Jack Clark and Ding Chavez of Rainbow Six and other tales, and you've got a juggernaut that's going to hit #1 its first week out and stay there for a good while." Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Publishers Weekly: "Klingons" is how hero Jack Ryan describes the villains, the Communist Chinese Politburo, of Clancy's mammoth new novel; other Yanks refer to Chinese soldiers as "Joe Chinaman." It's not for subtlety of characterization, then, that this behemoth proves so relentlessly engrossing. Nor is it for any modulation in the arc of its action, which moves insistently from standstill to hurtle. Nor is it for the author's (expressed) understanding of life's viscissitudes; in this Clancyverse, no white hat with a name dies, but every black hat gets whupped bad. Partly it's for the sheer bulk, if ever a book should come equipped with wheels, it's this one, which plunges readers into a sea of words so vast that, after hours of paddling happily through brisk prose, the horizon remains hidden from sight. Mostly, though, it's because that sea glitters with undeniable authority. Clancy has demonstrated in earlier books (Rainbow Six, etc.) that he towers above other novelists in his ability to deliver geo-political, techo-military goods on a global scaleDand here he's at the top of that war-gaming. With aplomb, he spins numerous plot strandsDamong them: a Sino-American spy seduces his way into Politburo secrets; enormous oil and gold reserves are discovered in Siberia; the new Papal Nuncio to Beijing is murdered; the Politburo orders a hit on a top Russian officialDthat lead to a Chinese invasion of Russia and a credible war scenario that occupies the novel's last quarter and that culiminates in a nuclear crescendo. Each thread carries a handbook's worth of intoxicating, expertly researched, seemingly inside, information, about advanced weapons of war and espionage, about how various governments work, complemented always with ponderings about the tensions between individual honor and the demands of state. Add to that the excitement for Clancy fans of this being the first novel to feature not just Jack Ryan but also, in significant subordinate roles, Jack Clark and Ding Chavez of Rainbow Six and other tales, and you've got a juggernaut that's going to hit #1 its first week out and stay there for a good while." Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Hardcover
There is no dust cover
Dust jacket missing. Tom Clancy classic.
