Customer Reviews

The Bear and the Dragon

5 star:		(116)
4 star:		(161)
3 star:		(180)
2 star:		(250)
1 star:		(363)

 

 

As an avid Clancy fan, who's read all of his books and owns most of them in hard cover, I found this book to be a bit of a dissapointment that doesn't even approach Clancy's normal high standards. Its a definite "must read" for Clancy fans, but for everyone else I'd highly recommend skipping this one at least until reading most of Clancy's other books.

The plot of the book, as the title implies, focuses on Russia and China, but mostly the latter. In a nutshell, a diplomatic incident plus some trade negotiations with the U.S. gone badly awry lead China to seek to take advantage of some new found economic luck by their neighbors to the north. There are a lot of parallels between US / Japanese relations leading up to WW2. along the way, there are assasination attempts and spycraft, but at a high level that sums up Clancy's latest effort.

First, the book's bad points:

1. Obviously Clancy now considers himself above editors - cause its obvious this book was not edited at all. There are at least 7 or 8 occasions where characters thoughts are repeated, verbatim, 2 or 3 times over the course of the book (for example, Ryan's belief that 'Daughters are god's punishment to fathers for being men' ... Ryan 'thinks' this about 4 different times during the book) and there are a fair amount of spelling/typo type errors that detract from the enjoyment of the book.

2. The structure of this novel simply isn't as good as Clancy's best efforts - the plot is very straightforward and not at all unpredictable - but more importantly it really is not very intricate - One of Clancy's fortes is to start with seemingly disparate story lines and seemlessly relate them together in the scope of the larger story (the Sum of All Fears is an excellent example of this)- in this novel, however, none of that occurs - the reader can pretty much see, immediately, the signifigance of just about everything that occurs. In the end, Clancy spends (depending on your point of view) 600 to 800 pages of this 1000 page book building toward the climax - which leaves the climax too short and the buildup is just not executed in Clancy's usually superb fashion.

3. The book almost seems unfinished - there are a lot of plot points that are left dangling when it really seemed like Clancy had intended to finish them.

4. Clancy has been developing a penchant recently for repeating the same ideas conveyed in his previous novels. In Rainbow Six, he basically repeated the whole bio-warfare aspect of Executive Orders. In the Bear and the Dragon, at the end of the book he pretty much repeats what was a very large aspect of Debt of Honor.

On the plus side, this is Clancy after all, and it is still a good read. The novel's premise is a good one, and in that sense its a good follow on to some of the plot threads Clancy started four books ago in Debt of Honor.

I have long been an admirer of TC as a plotter and writer, despite his occasional lapses. [But never an admirer of his "as told to, but written but someone else" Op-Center products.]

With Bear-Dragon, TC has fully descended into Clavell's Disease - that syndrome which causes formerly creative and exciting writers to ACT like they're being paid by the word, which one should not do, even if one IS paid that way. Too many words (a fair-to-good 500-pager fluffed to 1 kilopage), too many subplots, too many characters, too many moral lessons.

And the editing! Are TC's editors now afraid to point out to him that he's used the same phrase, metaphor, simile, or analogy several times before - a few hundred pages ago? It's distracting and it's unprofessional. Sure people will buy the book anyhow, because of TC's name, but those loyal readers are owed a better book - I suggest we are owed a better book with each outing. Bear-Dragon isn't it, Tom.

I've always enjoyed Clancy novels, but the whole Jack Ryan-as-President thing is getting old. And how many times is Mr. Clark going to save the world? How many times do I need to hear that Jack Ryan hates being President (it was great the first hundred times, but I really don't need to be reminded every other page - I get the picture now move on!)

There are also several anti-Clinton side-references in the book, making subtle condemnations of some of the more outrageous Clinton escipades. But in Clancy's world there never was a President Bill Clinton, so his obvious references really corrupt the plot. You know what the author is trying to say, but a fiction-novel is not the format for a manufactured political diatribe.

Usually I'm amazed by the subtle way Clancy brings all the sub-plots together, but in this book everything feels contrived. It's painfully easy to figure out what's going to happen next, and one of the better sub-plots in the book just fizzles out in the end. The chilling tension that is the hallmark of a Clancy novel just isn't there.

The characters felt contrived as well; cookie-cutter. Sometimes I felt like Clancy was preaching (at one point quite literally)through the mouths of his characters.

Overall, The Bear and the Dragon was a great disappointment. Any serious Clancy reader knows about the "Clancy Experience" - the nail-biting tension, the total immersion in his world, that keeps you reading until beyond 3am. I've read through the night many times with a Clancy novel in hand.

Sadly, The Bear and the Dragon didn't capture me at all. I found myself wanting to skip to the end just to be done with it, but I plodded through because I owe Clancy that. I hope the next one will be better because Tom Clancy is a great writer, and it pains me deeply not to recommend this book.

Now that Jack Ryan has been President for a while, it's hard for Clancy to produce really great stories where we admire Ryan for playing the valiant underdog. Nevertheless, Ryan's role in Clancy's latest book is thankfully more prominent than in Rainbow Six and the result is a great story. I found the plot more believable and engaging than eco-terrorists. In any event, Clancy is still better than anybody else out there.

Confrontation between a weakened, fragmented Russia and a newly aggressive and acquisitive China, with the United States forced to take a hand in the conflict, forms the basis for Clancy's latest work. As always, Clancy makes it easy for the reader to suspend disbelief; anyone familiar with today's headlines can readily imagine that the events depicted in The Bear and the Dragon could actually happen (more or less).

The book benefits from some traditional Clancy strengths: strong writing, a familiar cast of engaging characters and an superb ability to explain the technology, tactics and art of war in a lucid and compelling way that forces the reader to keep turning the pages.

Unfortunately, it also suffers from some recurrent problems (to my mind, at least) that have become familiar to Clancy readers, and make this a good book, rather than a great one: gushy, uncritical adoration of the military and intelligence establishments, the tendency to portray the "good guys", all of whom are to the right of Albert Speer, as flawlessly noble, strong and wise, while depicting their antagonists as two-dimensional, fairly uninteresting characters who combine comic-book evil with enough doltishness to make their defeat inevitable.

The biggest drawback to this book, though, is the same one we've seen in all of Clancy's recent work: his apparent inability to shut up. The Bear and the Dragon is at least 30 percent too long. Clancy's success as a writer gives him the ability to veto editorial suggestions that he blue-pencil a few hundred (or few thousand) words here and there, and Clancy fans quickly develop skill at the art of skimming.

I've read all of Clancy's work, and, problems notwithstanding, I'll continue to read him. His strengths as a writer overshadow his weaknesses, and I still hold out hope that he'll return to the standards he set in Hunt for Red October and Red Storm Rising.

Five minutes ago, I told my wife and sons that this book was a HUGE disappointment. Being a big fan of Clancy, I could not wait for this book to come out. Usually it takes me at most, 3 days to read one of his books, but I am STILL working my way through this one after 6 days. So when my wife asked me why, I told her that this was a 400 page book stretched out forEVER. The first thing it reminded me of was when Ludlum started taking himself too seriously and writing huge boring books.

So I told my wife that I was going to go online and check out the Amazon review's to see if my comments were indicative of others who read the book. And sure enough, the second review I read by I think the name was Lane Shelton, could have been written by me as the comments were ALL the same as mine.

How many times do we have to hear this character ruminate that he didn't want the job, and doesn't know how to do it, but for the sake of the country he will do it. SHUT UP already, we got the point in the last few books but banging us over the head again and again and again is just ridiculous. And Clancy seems to be spending the entire book pontificating his moral authority and political beliefs thru this white knight who can do no wrong. I could not believe how repetitive he was in this book and I am only at page 500. It seems that he says the same sentance at least 3 different times, and he seems to be doing that on more than one sentance. In addition, Clancy repeats his political views, for example on abortion, over and over as if he hadn't told us yet. Tom, how many times do we have to hear about the 'previous' presidents preoccupation with sex.

And is it just me, or did he just start adding slurs and salty language in huge doses to somehow make his characters more colorful and down to earth.?

Ouch, stop me before I make this a 1 rating instead of my generous 2. Like the other reviewer I sort of want to cut to the end already as my arms are getting tired from holding up this overweight, over wordy and over done book.

I've read a lot of Tom Clancy in my life but this is an absolute low.

You would think with all the millions he's made he could at least afford an $1000 plane ticket to China. Even if he had just gone for one weekend he would have seen that his portrayal of China is complete rubbish. Not only is it inaccurate it's downright terrible. The only Mao suits you will find in China these days are on Mao's corpse and in fancy dress stores.

Laughable was the seduction of the Chinese secretary, Having western food for the first time after all that "Chinese garbage". It makes me wonder how Clancy feels about this 5th column of slant-eyes (with U.S. nationality!) living in his own country peddling their 'garbage' to god-fearing honest wasps.

I'm from Holland and I cant wait to see how Tom Clancy would portray my country in his next novel. Probably we would be called cheeseheads or something suitably insulting every two sentences. We would obviously all live in windmills and walk around in clogs. In fact we wouldn't even be able to walk because we would be continuosly sticking our fingers in holes in dikes to stop our country flooding. We would invade some country that has been our ally for more than half a century (eg. UK) for some ridiculous reason (Dutch businessmen want to monopolize world cheese production). Finally our totally incompetent airforce/navy (whatever) would be destroyed by a single US plane: Final result: Cheeseheads, 100000 casualties. USA, 0 casualties. US (incompetent)allies, 200 casualties (to keep it realistic). Of course this would happen in a book of not less than 3000 pages and include JR telling us that he really really really dosn't like being POTUS every 2 or 3 pages.

Keep it up Clancy!! You're sliding, but rock bottom is still two or three books away.

As an avid Clancy fan since _The Hunt for Red October_, I was almost hesitant about reading this book because I was afraid my expectations were too high after _Rainbow Six_. Fortunately, my fears were completely unjustified! Clancy just keeps getting better and better. I read all 1000+ pages in one day (and night). The entire book was so incredibly suspenseful that I just couldn't put it down. The technology featured in the story is absolutely fascinating. All of my favorite characters from previous books were included, and the newer characters were very well drawn, especially Lian Ming and Nomuri, the CIA spy who seduces Lian Ming into surrendering the contents of her computer...and other things, of course. The inside look at the functioning of the White House is like the TV show "The West Wing" would be if the President were a conservative independent, which is to say it's very entertaining but without the liberal bent. This is an absolute must-read for Clancy fans and a great first-time choice for those few who still don't see what all the fuss is about.

I've been with Tom Clancy and Jack Ryan since the beginning, but even I have to wonder if maybe it isn't time to turn out the lights and sweep up.

After Clancy throws us a bone of an "action" sequence (lasting a few milliseconds, literally) in the opening pages, it grinds to an unbelievable halt for, I dunno, 750 pages before the "Tom Clancy book" begins -- except what we get is pretty much the climax of Executive Orders, with Chinese names pasted over the Islamic ones.

Remember when Clancy used to surprise us? Everything here is telegraphed ages in advance. Remember when it was cute that all the good guys (military, law enforcement, political, whatever) were cut from the exact same wise-capable-honest-but-exasperated pattern? By now he's choked his world with an army of functionally identical good guys, especially in Ryan's cabinet. But don't worry, each of them has three different names you'll have to keep straight (his actual name, his job title, his Secret Service codename).

Huge tracts of text could have been left profitably behind. Just because some military unit is going to appear on page X, we don't have to see them 40 times beginning on page X minus 500 chatting about their training regimen over coffee. Especially not if we met all the same people in previous books.

The sharp increase in profanity and gutter thinking that other readers have pointed out doesn't offend me, but it does seem to show a writer who's too tired of his own creation to approach it with elegance anymore. He also leaves the air littered with story arcs that never make it back to earth. He'd probably say that he's being realistic--that in life, subplots and tangents don't always wrap themselves up neatly at the end. But I can get reality on the news, and I can get it for free.

If this series continues, can we get Jack Ryan out of the Oval Office already? One of the fun things about the earlier books was his meteoric, merit-driven rise through the ranks of government service. I know that there's no higher he can go, but he's been in this job longer than any other we've seen him occupy. Cool things could happen to Jack Ryan as a goodwill ambassador to some exotic locale that goes to hell while he's there, or in a similar situation. Get some dirt under the man's fingernails again.

I didn't realize just how strenuously I was going to trash Clancy until I started writing this. I've read some arrogant and unlikable things the author has said in real life, and that may be coloring my thinking. And to be honest, dutiful addict that I am, I'll probably lap up the next Jack Ryan story, if there is one. But I'll get it from the public library.

Wanted: Editor and proofreader to work with noted thriller author. Possession of a nice thesaurus a plus.

Tom Clancy is noted for his deep, labyrinthine plots and for taking his sweet time in moving his plots along. At his best, Clancy crafts long page turners with lots of juicy techno-speak and tons of subplots, and he's usually been good at tying all the strings together in a tidy knot at the end. I've found his earlier works a bit wordy, but for the most part enjoyable and gripping. Clancy's best works are like good action movies: not at all deep, but finely crafted and entertaining.

This bloated, shallow book, is not Clancy at his best. Yes, it's long. Yes, it has a half dozen miniplots simmering alongside the main thread. The problem is, none of the plots is all that interesting, and they move along at the pace of a snail on strong antihistamines. Plus, it's becoming quite clear Clancy's being paid by the word (or perhaps the pound). It's clear no editor was shown this mess. I found myself almost groaning out loud in parts as entire earlier passages or conversations were repeated almost word for word. This is a novel that would benefit greatly from having a monkey rip out half the pages at random. No matter where it chose to tear, the result would be tighter and it's hard to believe much continuity or plot would be lost.

In addition to the unnecessary and tedious word-bloat, there are other annoyances. Mr. Clancy seems to have discovered the four-letter word section in his Oxford English Dictionary. Crude and hollow-sounding profanity laces just about every sentence from every character. The president and his cabinet discuss national security matters mainly by stringing together cusswords and racial epithets. The dialogue comes across as wooden and contrived, like a 10th grader's attempt to write how "adults" speak.

The characters, like always, are as flat as Clancy's beloved Chesapeake Bay on a windless day. They all sound and act so much alike that it's difficult to determine who's speaking most of the time. Clancy tries to make up for his inability to craft interesting characters by making them all superhuman. There is harldy a "good guy" in the book who doesn't have 2 Ph.D's, a personal fortune made on Wall Street between gigs at the CIA or FBI, a medal of honor or two, a trophy wife who's a world-class doctor or professor, and a son who's an all-American football player at Florida State who also is a 4.0 honors student in nuclear physics. I've rarely felt so inferior as a human being as when reading this novel. It's fine to have overachievers in your story, but come on. The Bad Guys, on the other hand, are invariably cartoon villians with no humanity. Many are portrayed as perverts. Such amateurish characterization might work better if the plot was non-stop action, but thanks to Clancy's plodding, corpulent page count, we're forced to spend way too much time listening to these ciphers speak wooden dialogue to one another, explaining what we already know for the fourth time.

Other parts of the book are simply so strange they're amusing. A US CIA officer in Beijing's seduction of a Chinese secretary takes up a good chunk of the first 200 pages. This smooth operator of a spy buys the Chinese woman several hundred dollars worth of intimate lingerie at Victoria's Secret and presents it to her on their first date, whereupon this shrinking violet immediately models it for him with enthusiasm. This "love story" seems to have been written by the same people that produce porn films. Meet girl, ask her to dinner, give her crotchless panties as gift between the soup and the meat course, hop into bed.

On a nitpicky note, there are at least a half dozen typos in the text, words that are spelled correctly but out of context. Obviously the entire proofreading operation consisted of running a spell checker before sending the manuscript off to Printing. This adds considerably to the feeling that the book was written in one draft, unedited, and rushed into publication.

The big climax is an invasion by a Chinese army group into Siberia, and in this, Clancy seems to be in his element again, giving us 200 pages of combat and action. But by now we've even read this multiple times before. Pick up Red Storm Rising and reread almost any passage and you'll find the same stuff. The ending is abrupt and feels unfinished. The only release of tension one feels finishing the last page is a kind of relief that the ordeal is over.

Clancy is slowly turning into a parody of himself. In fact, if someone wanted to write a first-rate Clancy parody, this book would be a good thing to plagiarize and would need only slight modification. Hopefully this novel is an aberration - something rushed out because Clancy's Sherman tank needed new treads or something. Let's hope his publisher finds a strong-willed editor to work with him next time.