The Bear and the Dragon

I actually enjoyed this book for the most part, though I did not particularly like reading about the technical aspects of the military machines.

My favorite parts of this novel were getting to see the individual personalities of the characters and how they thought and reacted towards others and the developing hostilities. Some (among the Chinese mainly) were so full of their own self-perceived importance that they could not see anything except visions of them conquering everyone, while others appeared more levelheaded and worked hard to accomplish their missions and reign in their comrades.

My favorite character was Gologo (the old man living in the Russian wilderness with the golden wolf pelts) because he was a tried and true Russian show more patriot who was not about to let invading foreigners take what was his (I'll admit that I am guilty of the sappy patriot stuff).

Jack Ryan himself was a bit of an annoyance to me and was indeed why I knocked .5-1 star off the rating. While he was by no means a terrible person/bad president, I felt that the writing made me dislike him. He came off as a bit idealistic and arrogant, especially in the end where he got on the Navy ship instead of flying to safety.

Another reason that I knocked the rating down was the amount of "fluff" sections that I felt could have been edited or eliminated entirely. One were the sections about the Russian police tailing the would-be assassin of the Russian president and the other were Ming's sections. She played a vital role on things, though unknowingly, but her sections about her activities were almost entirely unnecessary.

The war itself was very fun to read about and, again with the weakness for sappy patriot stuff, I really enjoyed seeing how the Russians and Americans teamed up to fight the Chinese. Speaking of which, they (the Chinese) were incredibly fucking stupid to start a war over gold and oil resources. Of the Chinese politburo, Fang seemed to be the only one with a strong brain in his skull and I am glad that the ending showed him surviving everything and ending up as the Premier. His anger at Luo's decision to launch the missiles gained him a bit of respect from me. show less

I’m not a big Clancy fan - he tends to be a bit too macho and his political views a bit too Right-leaning for me. But this tome (at over 1,000 pages) includes inside dirt on the fascinating stuff that goes on inside the White House as well as a glimpse into post Berlin Wall Moscow and Beijing. Plus, it features high and low-tech spy techniques as well. After a high-profile Russian pimp is murdered, we see the ever-widening ripples of fallout from the death and how four governments plot and scheme in its aftermath. And then the war starts.

I actually enjoyed this book for the most part, though I did not particularly like reading about the technical aspects of the military machines.

My favorite parts of this novel were getting to see the individual personalities of the characters and how they thought and reacted towards others and the developing hostilities. Some (among the Chinese mainly) were so full of their own self-perceived importance that they could not see anything except visions of them conquering everyone, while others appeared more levelheaded and worked hard to accomplish their missions and reign in their comrades.

My favorite character was Gologo (the old man living in the Russian wilderness with the golden wolf pelts) because he was a tried and true Russian show more patriot who was not about to let invading foreigners take what was his (I'll admit that I am guilty of the sappy patriot stuff).

Jack Ryan himself was a bit of an annoyance to me and was indeed why I knocked .5-1 star off the rating. While he was by no means a terrible person/bad president, I felt that the writing made me dislike him. He came off as a bit idealistic and arrogant, especially in the end where he got on the Navy ship instead of flying to safety.

Another reason that I knocked the rating down was the amount of "fluff" sections that I felt could have been edited or eliminated entirely. One were the sections about the Russian police tailing the would-be assassin of the Russian president and the other were Ming's sections. She played a vital role on things, though unknowingly, but her sections about her activities were almost entirely unnecessary.

The war itself was very fun to read about and, again with the weakness for sappy patriot stuff, I really enjoyed seeing how the Russians and Americans teamed up to fight the Chinese. Speaking of which, they (the Chinese) were incredibly fucking stupid to start a war over gold and oil resources. Of the Chinese politburo, Fang seemed to be the only one with a strong brain in his skull and I am glad that the ending showed him surviving everything and ending up as the Premier. His anger at Luo's decision to launch the missiles gained him a bit of respect from me. show less

I actually enjoyed this book for the most part, though I did not particularly like reading about the technical aspects of the military machines.

My favorite parts of this novel were getting to see the individual personalities of the characters and how they thought and reacted towards others and the developing hostilities. Some (among the Chinese mainly) were so full of their own self-perceived importance that they could not see anything except visions of them conquering everyone, while others appeared more levelheaded and worked hard to accomplish their missions and reign in their comrades.

My favorite character was Gologo (the old man living in the Russian wilderness with the golden wolf pelts) because he was a tried and true Russian show more patriot who was not about to let invading foreigners take what was his (I'll admit that I am guilty of the sappy patriot stuff).

Jack Ryan himself was a bit of an annoyance to me and was indeed why I knocked .5-1 star off the rating. While he was by no means a terrible person/bad president, I felt that the writing made me dislike him. He came off as a bit idealistic and arrogant, especially in the end where he got on the Navy ship instead of flying to safety.

Another reason that I knocked the rating down was the amount of "fluff" sections that I felt could have been edited or eliminated entirely. One were the sections about the Russian police tailing the would-be assassin of the Russian president and the other were Ming's sections. She played a vital role on things, though unknowingly, but her sections about her activities were almost entirely unnecessary.

The war itself was very fun to read about and, again with the weakness for sappy patriot stuff, I really enjoyed seeing how the Russians and Americans teamed up to fight the Chinese. Speaking of which, they (the Chinese) were incredibly fucking stupid to start a war over gold and oil resources. Of the Chinese politburo, Fang seemed to be the only one with a strong brain in his skull and I am glad that the ending showed him surviving everything and ending up as the Premier. His anger at Luo's decision to launch the missiles gained him a bit of respect from me. show less

Clancy has made a career writing long books with intimate details of weapons systems to create spy and military dramas, with no small amount of flag-waving. Most reviews will say that this book is looooooonnnnnnng. However, the abridged version is only a six hour listen--about right for a chilling action thriller. I find Clancy's strategic thinking pretty good...who's to say that the plot written here couldn't happen? That the Chinese invade Russia and the USA comes to help Russia? Clancy still writes an exciting book, just don't bite off the unabridged version.

The Bear and the Dragon is the last novel in Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series. To my mind, you do not have to have read the whole series up to this point to be able to enjoy this novel. However, you will most likely miss out on some references to events that were related in earlier novels. As this is only the third Jack Ryan novel that I have read - and my third Clancy, for that matter - I have to say that I enjoyed it even without knowing the full background.

Now, what is this novel about? As the title suggests it is about a conflict between Russia, or the 'Bear', and China, the 'Dragon'. The novel starts with two seemingly unrelated events. There is the attempt to murder a high-ranking Russian politician and there is the find of a gold show more mine and huge oil resources in Siberia. As Chinese trade with the US comes to a halt, China's economy is on the brink of collapse and its government needs to find a source of money. As a consequence the Chinese Politburo eventually starts plotting an offensive on Russia to seize their gold mine and their oil resources. Having inside information into the content of the meetings of the Chinese Politburo, the CIA informs President Jack Ryan. Together they try to prevent a war between Russia and China by inviting Russia into NATO. This plan, however, fails, war begins and a nuclear strike on major American cities by the Chinese cannot be ruled out.

Tom Clancy is one of those authors who do not need an introduction and probably do not need their writing reviewed anymore. Still, after having read The Bear and the Dragon I feel compelled to say something about Clancy's writing. This is the third Clancy novel I have read and I think that Clancy puts a lot of research and information into his works. On the one hand this makes some things - especially military or intelligence-related issues - easier to understand. On the other hand this makes for a lot of padding. This is especially true for the beginning of The Bear and the Dragon where I still felt like being introduced to the setting of the novel after a hundred pages or so. All those lengthy introductions to a huge set of characters, who are not only referred to by their names but also by their military ranks, positions or code names, made me almost put down the book. But once the story started to unfold I was actually quite drawn in by Clancy's writing and the novel became a very interesting page-turner. 3.5 stars. show less

No es ni de lejos la mejor de Clancy, aunque como todas mantiene la emoción. Rusia y China se enzarzan en un conflicto armado y el recién elegido presidente de los EE.UU., Jack Ryan, tiene que lidiar con ellos. Hay demasiadas subtramas que se dejan sin explicar, el autor, como viene siendo habitual, hace un planteamiento gigantesco y luego resuelve como puede.