Customer Reviews

Dancing with the Dragon

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

I had a real high stress job in the '80's and the late '80's and I decided to go back to one of my first loves, reading. I hadn't read a novel in years and I was literally, killing myself. So I picked up Joe Weber's "Rules of Engagement." My recollection of it was that it was a little superficial but good plotting. Trouble was, I hadn't read a book in 10 years. So by that standard it was "War and Peace" meets "Tale of Two Cities" with "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" thrown in.

Since that time I have probably read 50 books a year but I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Joe Weber.

Well Joe, we're even. I don't know where you were going with "Dancing with the Dragon," but you didn't get there.

PLOT: Confusing. I lost track of what ocean I was in, what frigate I was chasing, who was flying what and what type of aircraft was being flown. C

INFERENCE: I was uncomfortable with the racism, but more importantly, I was uncomfortable with the assumption that all Chinese were evil or drunk or drunk and evil, politicians are fat, and that there are two ex-military pilots that are on a first name basis with the Secretary of Defense, State, NSC and the President. C-

DIALOGUE: I think that the characters should be allowed to report what has happened and what they are going to do about it, once in awhile for the reader's benefit. This is a good way to keep the characters, the reader and the writer figuratively and literally on the same page.

But every page we have these silly conversations between Scott and "whatever she is to him" on why this happened, what could have happened, why what could have happened didn't happen and what they're going to do about it." This is really exceptionally tedious. D

CHARACTERS: Come on. I kind of like Spenser and Susan where they go into the bedroom and the next scene we see is that pathetic dog sleeping on the bed with them and Susan is sighing and Spenser is trying to reach over to the bedstand to turn on the Red Sox game. 'Nuff said. We're all adults. We don't need a schematic.

But Scott and Jackie? Do they like eachother? Do they kiss? Do they sleep together? How about a really hot tango? Something. The two of them have got to be the most un-fun, robotic couple since Ward and June Cleaver. F

CONCEPT: Hey. Chinese holograms at 30 and 40 thousand feet fooling any number of Air Force and Navy pilots with engineering degrees and letters in physics. I don't think so.

But the laser beam that blows up spacecraft has some merit. I think Flash Gordon and Dr. Zharkoff got wacked that way in the 1930's. D

Sorry. I'd like to tell you what it was about but I'm just not sure.

Well Mr. Weber has done it again. A 300+ page novel of heart stopping action slowing down occasionally so you can catch your breath.
Although this book came out last month, last week the actual headlines in various news outlets read, "China beginning preps to reunify Taiwan". Mr. Weber's crystal ball was right on target again.

What I like the most about the book was the ability to use my imagination to determine outcomes within the book, IE Scott and Jackie's personal life and the significance of there secret mission. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out these things, but each reader may have a different spin on it.

The technical details were accurate and did not bog the story line down (After all who cares what the lat/long is of a microphone on the ocean floor, or how far a photon torpedo will travel in the vacuum of space (If this is information you need get a tech pub).

Weber writes a great action sequence, among the best I have read. Also his geopolitical scenario is well thought out and his military and aviation details are accurate and well researched.

Still, the book fell kind of flat for me. The problem is in the details.

His characters keep getting into chases and fights because they make basic mistakes in spy craft, like giving details over an open phone line. Not what you would expect from a couple of ex-CIA whiz kids.

I won't be giving away much to say that the book involves a war with China and our heroes conduct a dangerous undercover mission. However, I was unable to find any connection between their high-risk mission and the conclusion of the war.

One of the main characters is a female former military fighter jock. I am supposed to expect she accepts constant male chauvinist put-downs. I think not.

Finally, the dialogue has major problems. Much of it is very formal and stilted. It doesn't ring true.

Also, there are multiple sections in the dialogue of what SF authors call the "Don and Ron" where characters tell each other what they already know to advance the plot. "Ron, I am sure you'll recall that an antimatter torpedo only has a range of 5 parsecs." "But Don you must remember you can double that with power from the forward shields." You get the idea.

I finished the book because I bought an autographed copy full price and that made me stubborn. If you like action sequences and can overlook problems with the basic structure, it's a good read.

I read my first Joe Weber novel (Primary Target) in 1999 and, I must say, I was hooked by his writing style. Weber combines gripping action, a well-thought-out plot, believable characters and a pace that moves at break-neck speed. Unlike some who write military techno-thrillers, he doesn't slow down the action with techno-babble. When I heard he had a new book out (Dancing with the Dragon) I couldn't wait to get my hands on a copy. I cleared my weekend calendar and dove in headfirst. I was not disappointed. In typical Weber fashion, the action begins on page one with the downing of an F/18 off the coast of Southern California by a strange `bogey.' The pilot of the downed plane was a close friend of Scott Dalton (Primary Target). Dalton and Jackie Sullivan, who have an aviation consulting business as a front for their covert operations, are asked by the pilot's widow to look into the unusual circumstances surrounding the crash. Before you can say, "heat-seeking-missile," they find themselves in the middle of a Pentagon cover-up. Several U.S. military planes have been mysteriously downed by what the Pentagon, stretched thin by the war on terrorism, is calling, "routine training accidents." The President's National Security Advisor suspects something sinister afoot and puts Dalton and Sullivan on the case to find out who and/or what is behind the crashes. Their investigation leads them to a secret Chinese weapon's laboratory in Northern California, which was run by a group of prominent scientists from around the globe. With the exception of a Chinese-American, Dr. Richard Cheung, all the scientists have met an untimely demise. The Chinese are holding Cheung at their weapons development laboratory in Mianyang, China. It soon becomes clear that they plan to make their move on Taiwan, and their newly acquired laser weapon is an integral part of their plan. Dalton and Sullivan are tasked by President Chord Macklin (Primary Target) to rescue Dr. Cheung and, in so doing; to determine how many laser weapons the Chinese have deployed - a critical piece of intelligence to the U.S. if it is to become involved in a shooting war with China. As Dalton and Sullivan prepare to take on their mission, tensions between the U.S. and China heat up to the boiling point. The Chinese trap a U.S. Navy warship and its crew in the locks of the Panama Canal. President Macklin goes toe to toe with the Chinese President and all-out war seems imminent.
If you enjoy military action, Dancing with the Dragon is a must read. Be sure to set aside plenty of free time. Once you pick it up, you won't want to put it down.

Weber takes his two consultants, Dalton and Sullivan, on a rip roaring adventure that traverses country and the Pacific rim. Fast paced, lots of action and military jargon. Interesting weapon systems. The story centers around a Chinese high technology weapon system developed with technology stolen from the US. Foolish US decisions, such as giving up the Panama Canal and selling high technology to China provides, the backdrop for the story. China wants Taiwan back, and China does now control the Panama Canal, facts, not fiction. Underlining the fast paced plot are serious issues that effect our future. I am looking forward to reading his next book, Assured Response.

Now that the Soviet Union is no more, the authors of novels concerning armed conflict need to find another enemy for the United States to face. The obvious choice is the emerging superpower, the People's Republic of China. There are many points of potential conflict between the U. S. A and the P. R. C., not the least of which is Taiwan. However, for a story to be engaging, it must have a degree of plausibility. It is not enough to simply invent a conflict and it must not be too one-sided so that the outcome is obvious.
In this story, P. R. C. agents recruit American physicists to develop a powerful laser that can be used to blast planes from the sky. This laser is placed on ships and used to destroy some American military planes, which leads to an armed conflict between the nations. It rapidly escalates into a launch of nuclear missiles by the P. R. C. that fortunately do only minor damage.
The main characters are Scott Dalton and Jackie Sullivan, two special American agents who are directly controlled by the U. S. Secretary of Defense. They are sent many different places and always succeed, but their successes stretch the limits of credibility. I have a basic theory about such novels. Any part of the story line must not rely on a level of incredible incompetence of people in power. These two agents sneak deep into the P. R. C. to a military base in an attempt to recover an American physicist who is working for the P. R. C. The base is alerted while they are there, but they fight off the soldiers, fly a helicopter to an airport, take off in a civilian jet, are shot at by Chinese military jets where an engine blown off, and then they successfully land it on an aircraft carrier in very rough seas. This is just too much and I found it all beyond my limits of believability. It is also very hard to believe that the Chinese leadership is so crazy that they would openly begin hostilities and launch nuclear weapons, given the overwhelming American technical and nuclear superiority.
For these reasons, this story lost my attention. The plot stretches the limits of believability far beyond that which makes a good story.

I'm having a hard time deciding whether to claim that this book is racist drivel or to give it the benefit of the doubt and call it poorly written jingoistic propaganda. Although based on a relatively standard "foreign-power with new super-weapon" premise, the plot is quickly relegated to the role of flimsy framework for long diatribes about how evil, irrational, and dangerous the Chinese government and Chinese people are. American soldiers are uniformly brave and noble warriors, Chinese officials are uniformly froth-spewing dictators (when not insane), and Chinese soldiers are uniformly incompetent to the level of absurdity. (Oh, and in case you were wondering, Americans of Chinese ancestry are apparently all spies, especially if they're in the US military.) The protagonists have the super-spy nature of James Bond combined with the wealth and connections of your standard W.E.B. Griffin character: Call a few cabinet secretaries before breakfast, execute a few improbable special-ops missions before lunch, and spend the afternoon by the pool of the mansion or flying around in your private plane.

Assuming that you are able to turn off your amazement at the level of mindless stereotyping exhibited by author and characters alike, you still won't find much to hold your interest. There's a whole lot of things happening, but none of it is covered in any depth - it's like trying to find a character's motivation by watching an MTV video. Epic naval, air, and ground battles are squished into a few paragraphs and Bond-esque infiltrations of enemy ships or complexes barely warrant a few paragraphs. The tension you'd expect to find when your hero is trying to parachute onto an enemy boat and gather intelligence without being caught simply isn't there when you've only got a few sentences to read (it doesn't help make things interesting when the guards, being Chinese, are of course drunk, asleep, or stupid.)

If Weber's other books are the same [as]found here, I find it hard to believe that any publisher is still willing to print this stuff. Even within the realm of mass-produced pulp techno-thriller, there's much better out there. Save your money and time.

Weber tells it like it is. The U.S. military, stretched to the breaking point by the war on terrorism, is faced with their worst nightmare - a head-to-head confrontation with China. If you read DEFCON ONE or PRIMARY TARGET, you know that Weber is a master at taking current world events and weaving them into a humdinger of a fictional scenario. As a pilot, I have a special appreciation for his in-depth knowledge of the military and for his technical accuracy. It's clear; he knows where all the bells and whistles are. DANCING WITH THE DRAGON may not appeal to left leaning readers. Weber's books are all pro-military, and President Cord Macklin bears an uncanny resemblance to George W. Bush. Macklin, a former Air Force fighter pilot, is a determined leader with strong convictions. I had to keep reminding myself that this character first appeared in PRIMARY TARGET, published in 1999, almost two years before Bush (43) became president. If you enjoy military action in full after-burner, you won't be disappointed with DANCING WITH THE DRAGON.

I received my first Joe Weber book (Primary Target) as a gift back in 2000 and loved it. Fast, action-packed reading. Since then have gotten the rest of Joe Weber's books and have read them all. I have been itching for Primary Target's sequel - Dancing with the Dragon - and was not diappointed at all. I finished the book in less than a week. The action and never ending plot twists kept me up late several evenings. President Macklin is a terrifically developed character and the team of Scott and Jackie are a pleasure to follow. The action is non-stop and the plot is frighteningly plausable, especially in today's world. Another excellent addition to my techno-thriller library. A must read!!!

My first book by Joe Weber and it will be my last. The plot is as thin as a sheet of aluminum cooking foil. The characters are hopeless and uninteresting. Weber seems more interested in showing off his knowledge of US military aircraft designations than writing a decent thriller. To be fair, it's not badly written, but the whole thing smacks of the worst kind of jingoism and the battle scenes are completely ridiculous. Don't waste your time on this one.