Red Phoenix [Mass Market Paperback]

Larry Bond (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1990

This thundering geopolitical thriller dares reveal the military hardware, global upheavals, and raw combat that a second Korean War would unleash.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

"Tom Clancy's collaborator on Red Storm Rising here makes his first--and impressive--independent contribution to the techno-thriller," wrote PW . Bond establishes a credible scenario of a North Korean invasion of the South, although the novel's individual episodes are more suspenseful than the course of the war as a whole.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

In the aftermath of a series of student riots in Seoul, the U.S. Congress rushes a bill into law which calls for complete withdrawal of American troops from South Korea. This sets off a chain reaction: North Korea attacks across the DMZ, Russia supports North Korea, the Chinese remain neutral, and the United States fights again with its South Korean allies. Bond, a retired naval officer and collaborator with Tom Clancy in writing the best seller Red Storm Rising (LJ 9/1/86), uses all his vast knowledge of things military to keep reader interest level at a peak. This techno-thriller has everything going for it except the mind-boggling use of the Communist Chinese as the new U.N. peacekeepers.
- Jo Ann Vicarel, Cleveland Heights-University Heights P.L., Ohio
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 736 pages
• Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; First edition (May 1, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446359688
• ISBN-13: 978-0446359689
• Product Dimensions: 4 x 1.2 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (63 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #607,980 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LARRY BOND is the author of numerous New York Times bestselling thrillers, including Vortex, Cauldron, and The Enemy Within. He previously worked with Jim DeFelice on the Larry Bond's First Team series. A former Naval Intelligence officer, warfare analyst and anti-submarine technology expert, he makes his home in Springfield, Virginia.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is the book to have!!!!!!!!!, June 13, 2002

By 

K. Wyatt "ssintrepid" (Cape Girardeau, MO United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Red Phoenix (Mass Market Paperback)

"Red Phoenix" is the authority in the world of "What if's" as far as the Korean theater of operations is concerned. The "puzzle palace" was probably wondering how he figured all this out. I'd originally read this amazing story when it first came out and was just floored by the realism, the character interactions and the author's knowledge of military operations. A few years later I was scheduled to go to South Korea on tdy and picked it up to read again. It was amazing to be reading this book and seeing a lot of the areas he'd talked about in the book, in person. To see the river's and the rivetments on the banks, to see the tank barricades all around Seoul and all the bases north of Seoul and be reading this book again at the same time. Absolutely amazing! Thank you very much to Larry Bond for an excellent book.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chilling, prescient novel of a Second Korean War...., October 4, 2003

By 

Alex Diaz-Granados "fardreaming writer" (Miami, FL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Red Phoenix (Mass Market Paperback)

A few months before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Larry Bond and Patrick Larkin's first collaborative effort, Red Phoenix, became a New York Times bestselling novel.

In this novel, Bond (Tom Clancy's uncredited co-author of Red Storm Rising) uses his superb writing skills, experience as a former Navy intelligence expert and talents as a war game designer (he is the creator of Harpoon) to write a terrifying scenario for a second and even more destructive Korean War.

Red Phoenix is set in the early 1990s. North Korea's elderly Great Leader, Kim Il-Sung, is still alive but clearly frail. Day to day control of this isolated and paranoid Stalinist nation is now in the hands of Kim's ambitious son, Kim Jong-Il, the Dear Leader. Ruthless and mercurial, the younger Kim seeks to surpass his father and accomplish what the old man had failed to do in the 1950s: the reunification of the Communist North and the capitalist South.

At first, Kim's plans almost become undone when a team of South Korean and American soldiers discovers a tunnel dug under the DMZ by North Korean combat engineers. In it is a vast stockpile of weapons, ammunition, and even Soviet-made tanks, enough for a battalion of invaders. But events elsewhere, including the office of a Michigan Congressman and the Interior Ministry in Seoul, soon create a perfect convergence of events that enables North Korea's nefarious Dear Leader to mobilize his forces and launch a lightning invasion of South Korea.

Bond and Larkin's novel depicts units, weapons systems, and tactics which were state-of-the-art 14 years ago, and the political makeup of the world has changed since its publication. (Modern day readers might see as archaic Bond's references to the Soviet Union, East Germany, and other Warsaw Pact nations. In early 1989, these may have sided with North Korea, at least nominally. Today, of course, the USSR is no more, East Germany reunited with West Germany and is part of NATO, as is Poland.) However, considering the current and alarming situation as the real Kim Jong-Il races to build and openly deploy nuclear weapons, Red Phoenix is no longer a relic of Cold War-era popular fiction; it is a chilling vision of what a conventional conflict in the Korean Peninsula could have been like before North Korea upped the ante and developed weapons of mass destruction.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tension Building, October 27, 2003

By 

David Stapleton (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Red Phoenix (Mass Market Paperback)

This is one of the better Cold War escalating conflict scenarios I have read. Sure it's dated; like much of this genre it relies heavily on the technology from the time it was written (for that matter most of the techno-thriller genre is dated by the time it hits the stores). But the techno stuff is only the superficial element of the story. Much of the action takes place at a level that could be set in WWII or present day with a few tweaks of the equipment.

The story begins on the DMZ between North and South Korea with a little action, that can easily fail to hook you, but keep reading. There is quite a bit of setup for the story before the action begins, but once it begins, the momentum will drag you through the rest of the book in no time. As far as accuracy, there are certain parts I have to accept on trust, however, having spent all of 1983 in Seoul, traveled around the country a little, done some little time as a ground pounder, in tanks and with artillery as well as some time as a remf; those aspects are fairly realistic.

The story thread hops between approximately 5-6 main characters (pilots, generals, politicians, civilians, and frontline troops) and a few one shot characters in a pretty successful effort at building and maintaining tension. This is a keeper for me; I'll no doubt read it again in a few years.

For other books in the genre, check-out Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy or for something on a more tactical scale try Team Yankee by Harold Coyle. P-)