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Binding: PaperbackDewey Decimal Number: 813 EAN: 9780140274066 Edition: New edition ISBN: 0140274065 Label: Penguin Manufacturer: Penguin Number Of Pages: 1152 Publication Date: August 30, 2001 Publisher: Penguin Studio: Penguin Related Items: Editorial Review: Amazon.co.uk Review: Power is delightful, and absolute power should be absolutely delightful--but not when you're the most powerful man on earth and the place is ticking like a time bomb. Jack Ryan, CIA warrior turned US president, is the man in the hot seat, and in this vast thriller he's up to his nostrils in crazed Asian warlords, Russian thugs, nukes that won't stay put, and authentic, up-to-the-nanosecond technology as complex as the characters' motives are simple. Quick, do you know how to reprogramme the software in an Aegis missile seekerhead? Well, if you're Jack Ryan, you'd better find someone who does, or an incoming ballistic may rain fallout on your parade. Bad for re-election prospects. "You know, I don't really like this job very much," Ryan complains to his aide Arnie van Damm, who replies, "Ain't supposed to be fun, Jack." But you bet The Bear and the Dragon is fun--over 1,000 swift pages' worth. In the opening scene, a hand-launched RPG rocket nearly blows up Russia's intelligence chief in his armoured Mercedes, and Ryan's clever spooks report that the guy who got the rocket in his face instead was the hoodlum "Rasputin" Avseyenko, who used to run the KGB's "Sparrow School" of female prostitute spies. Soon after, two apparent assassins are found handcuffed together afloat in St. Petersburg's Neva River, their bloated faces resembling Pokémon toys. The stakes go higher as the mystery deepens: oil and gold are discovered in huge quantities in Siberia, and the evil Chinese Minister Without Portfolio Zhang Han San gazes northward with lust. The laid-off elite of the Soviet Army figure in the brewing troubles, as do the new generation of Tiananmen Square dissidents, Zhang's wily, Danielle Steel-addicted executive secretary Lian Ming, and Chester Nomuri, a hip, Internet-porn-addicted CIA agent posing in China as a Japanese computer salesman. He e-mails his CIA boss, Mary Pat "the Cowgirl" Foley, that he intends to seduce Ming with Dream Angels perfume and scarlet Victoria's Secret lingerie ordered from the catalogue--strictly for God and country, of course. Soon Ming is calling him "Master Sausage" instead of "Comrade," but can anybody master Ming? The plot is over the top, with devastating subplots erupting all over the globe and lurid characters scaring the wits out of each other every few pages, but Clancy finds time to insert hard-boiled little lessons on the vileness of Communism, the infuriating intrusions of the press on presidential power, the sexual perversions of Mao, the poor quality of Russian pistol silencers ("garbage, cans loaded with steel wool that self-destructed after less than ten shots"), the folly of cutting a man's throat with a knife ("they flop around and make noise when you do that"), and similar topics. Naturally, the book bristles like a battlefield with intriguingly intricate military hardware. When you've got a Tom Clancy novel in hand, who needs action movies? --Tim Appelo Average Rating:
 Rating:  - God bless the US of A This was my first Tom Clancy novel and i think it will be my last. There is a halfway decent plot somewhere in here but at over 1,100 pages, this is a turgid and bloated read. Clancy's neo-con political rants and religious posturing are hilarious and his ethnic sterotyping would be a hoot if I thought he had his tongue in his cheek. The Americans are flawlessly moral, corn fed God damn super heros, the Russians are well meaning bufoons and the Chinese talk in sinister metaphors while planning to enslave the world. Every other nationality is a nailed on sterotype - efficient Germans, bumbling British, laconic Frenchmen etc All the characters are dismally one dimensional and the constant gung ho brainless dialogue attributed to the Americans shows absolutely no understanding of the political process. The description of all the weapons throughout the book is genuinely painful and utterly irrelevant. Just call a missile a missile for God's sake. I predicted the conclusion from reading the back cover but as I actually finished the whole book, I am duty bound to give it an extra star for the fact that there is actually a story in there somewhere. Rating:  - God how boringAfter reading Rainbow Six, i was on a Tom Clancy search and bought this title. OMG how boring and pro-American can you make a book? Its too jargonistic, use of multiple titles for the ever increasing number of characters i.e (Jack Ryan, POTUS, Swordsman if i remember rightly), multiply that for every character and it gets very very annoying! It spends too much time in Jack Ryans ultra-moralistic head, tries to preach Christianity to you, it makes Russia out to be a carbon copy of the U.S with less fortune in it's past, and goes about destroying Chinese credibility in much the same way Joseph Goebbels did to the Jewish community in Germany. It comes over quite racist to be honest! Analysis, 700 pages of Pro-American propaganda, 300 pages of a rather absurd battle between good and evil! Rating: - Very disappointingThis book was sooo disappointing. I hoped it might be Red Storm Rising in the east as China and Russia go to war, but it just does not deliver. Firstly, it badly needs editing. Clancy's personal politics come through as he lectures the reader constantly about abortion through the characters. Yes, I understand its part of the plot but Clancy was about as subtle as a sledgehammer! Its just too long anyway. If I recall Red Storm rising set the plot in about 100 pages before the action began, this takes 700 and when we get to the action its just not that great! Secondly, its just so American and stereotypical, the Russians are good but dumb, the Chinese are evil, the Americans are heroes, etc. Plus where are all the Allies; the Taiwanese, South Koreans, Australians, Japanese, etc? Some like the British and Germans rate a mention somewhere but thats it. Thirdly he missed out on some many possibilties. I thought the Chinese would attack/besiege Vladvistock, then the US Marines, with maybe Japanese assistance as a nice irony could come to the rescue? Chinese commandoes could have attacked the Trans-Siberian Railway? The CIA could have stirred up Tibet and/or Inner Mongolia as well as democracy activists in China. Taiwan could have played a part but they werent even mentioned! It was just so limited. Dont read this book, read Red Storm Rising again, when Clancy could write a great story, 1 star because I cant zero. Rating:  - Fire-Breathing Dragon Threatens Bear As Eagle Watches ...The first major event is the unsuccessful attempt on the life of Sergey Golovko Chairman of the SVR (formerly First Chief Directorate) which sets off warning bells throughout the free world, all the way up to the President of the USA, Jack Ryan. The second event of global magnitude is that President Jack Ryan has reestablished free trade with the Peoples Republic of China (PRC, i.e., Communist China). The third episode is a power play in which Chester (Chet) Nomuri is sent on assignment to the PRC on behalf of Nippon Electric Company (NEC) but his primary or real assignment is "intelligence gathering", to collect as much information as possible via espionage ... all this occurs within the first 40 pages of the book. The writing is pure Tom Clancy ... there is the right mix of political intrigue, detailed technology including computers, military weapons and satellite capabilities, global issues, and even complicated romantic encounters ... all of which make for a suspense-filled captivating reading experience. The genius of Tom Clancy shines brighter than ever. There is no rival to this author to date. Clancy casts a hypnotic spell over the reader. The characters are genuine, the future thrills are guaranteed. The reader anticipates a complex puzzle of espionage, politics, global threats, military encounters ... by the world super powers or power-wannabes, all vying to control more of the world's limited resources. Chet Nomuri manages to seduce a top level secretary, Ming, who works for a minor Chinese Politburo member, Fang, who happens to keep a diary of political transactions on a computer. He is no fool! He has witnessed political rivals destroyed based on these types of conflicts. His goal is to survive, no matter which faction, moderate or conservative, is in control. Ming was given a a special computer program by her lover Chet Nomuri which she attaches to her computer. It has a hidden program that downloads encrypted messages of all transactions ... Fang's diary is transmitted straight to the CIA in Washington, DC. There is an unfortunate incident which occurs in a Chinese hospital that is captured by CNN television live ... it creates a serious negative impact on the Chinese economy. The economy was already teetering on the brink of collapse due to an imbalance of trade and lack of capital reserves. World opinion crashes down on Chinese businesses. The bureaucratic political red-tape is tied and knotted so tightly that the Chinese Politburo fails to react appropriately to the unexpected murder of the Ambassador from the Vatican and a Chinese Baptist Minister. The PRC is punished on a global scale as an undesirable trade partner. This creates near panic in the PRC "Parliament" until ... the solution is discovered: secretly invade Siberia where newly discovered oil fields and gold mines will solve the economic needs of the Chinese, freeing them forever from dependence on world trade. The scenario is set again for yet another daring, exciting and exhilarating World War III episode. How Clancy does it, I do not know, but he can make the players all seem real, the events hair-raising and awe-inspiring in their believabilty. Tensions build as battle scenes are fought. Read the book to discover the final resolution to this depiction of how the-world-as-we-know-it nearly ends ... Erika Borsos (bakonyvilla) Rating: - Five Novels Stitched Into One -- Only One Is InterestingThe Bear and The Dragon combines five novels -- one about a murder mystery in Moscow, one about espionage in Bejing, one about Chinese-American trade diplomacy, another about economic development in Siberia, and a final one about major power conflicts. Of the five, only the last bears any resemblance to a Tom Clancy novel of the calibre of The Hunt for Red October, but that final novel in the book still manages to fall short of the former standard of this author. The book is incredibly bloated, boring (until the last 256 pages), annoyingly repetitive, predictable, and full of gratuitous sexual and racist references. If you feel you must read this book, begin on page 773. You won't miss anything you need to know before then, if you do. That's the point at which the Clancy-like novel begins with the usual gee-whiz technology and action. That last novel is fair-to-middling for a Clancy effort. As to the bloat in this book, Clancy did not need to write the other four novels to write his usual one (the last one in this book). He simply padded the book to make this more like War and Peace. Well, it's not War and Peace. Clancy doesn't begin to show the skill to work in that direction. The story is simply so improbable on its face that it's hard to imagine anyone finding it interesting. He likes to develop everything around a theme of the evil Chinese leaders. He demonizes Chinese leaders in the PRC more than most people darken Hitler today. As to repetition, you will get references to the sex habits of fictional and former Chinese leaders many dozens of times more than you will care to read them. The word, puke, must appear more than 200 times in this book, as an example. As for bloat, there must be 150 uninteresting pages in this book about Ryan sneaking a cigarette when his wife isn't around and not liking being president. As for predictability, every single person and technology you read about in the book shows up in the later action in one of the two ways you would most have expected. I was very disappointed. I found it hard to imagine that I stuck it out to the end. I suspect that most people will not. If you do decide to read this book and decide you dislike it, like me, ask yourself why you did not pay attention to the hundreds of warnings from people who have read the book. That may help you to understand why you act impulsively against your own best interest. If you do read the book and like it, I suggest you consider why others may not have. That may help you understand more about your taste in books. Then, you will be better able to distinguish the books that you will like in the future that most other people do not. Resist this book!  Try searching the Internet for "The Bear and the Dragon" or Ebay for "The Bear and the Dragon". You might also be interested in the following great products:
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