What readers think of The Bear and The Dragon, plus links to write your own review.

This is a very good book. For a moment, I was afraid it would take after the godawful Rainbow Six. Fortunately, not so.
The plotline; after a Tienanmen-like disasaster, the PRC is abandonned virtually overnight by a world community tired of its years of barbaric human rights violations. Out of money and hurting for oil and other products, the PRC decides to invade Siberia, where the Russians have recently discovered oil fields large enough to rival the Gulf. Thanks to unusually good American intel, newly reelected President Jack Ryan manages to organize a joint Russian/American defense of Siberia.
The plotline is good and credible. The political comments from Rainbow Six are still there, but directed at the world's largest dictatorship, they aren't so bad.
Characters were also well develloped. My favourite was Sergey Golovko, Ryan's Russian friend and head of the SVR, who backs and encourages the rapprochment and friendship between Russia and America. Also Fang Gan, the Chinese Minister Without Portfolio who wants to liberalize China.
Most interesting was Zhang Han San, the other Minister Without Portfolio, who is finally clearly defined. In Debt of Honor, he was simply an undercover envoy of his government. Executive Orders, however, hinted at a much larger political role. In this one, we finally discover that he is a full Politburo member and the power behind the throne in Beijing.
One problem with this book is Clancy's constant denunciation of Chinese culture and history, which is why I give it only four stars. Other than that-great book!

Great story with plenty of action.Glad I was on holiday to get through the detail. Clancy could do to cut down the detail and keep the story moving! Still a great holiday read.

Clancy does produce some powerful fiction. At the same time, I must say that reading the book has become an intellectual challenge of sorts. Being a Russian, it is incredible how poorly researched are the parts dealing with Russia (having been writing about Russia for years, Mr. Clancy might as well braved a trip down to look -see).

Dealing with geologists and oil exploration, it is weired how inaccurate that part is. It actually cracked me up! Had things been so easy, we would have had 10 cents per gallon gas!

I am sure that people who know China will find that part wrong and comic and as a previous poster had pointed out, the computer technology is all screwed up as well.

I have no doubt about the military stuff, however and even with the identified deficiencies the book makes a fantastic read.

Pretty good book if you ask me. Im only a teen but i know more then most adults when it comes to the military. I couldnt put the book down. But there is a lack of actual fighting and it isnt that descriptive usually its either a slaughter or a draw, and the political fluff is way over stretched. The ground war is just a theory really and Clancy makes it look like the Chinese pilots are total idiots and Col. Bronco Winters is an angry pagan god. If you ask me the book is way biased and does not have any really juicy battle sequences. Pretty good though.

I have always been enjoying Clancy's book in either language, the original (English) or translation (Jap).
This book is nearly excellent; as a former NEC employee and an ex cryptography/computer security
technology expert/scientist, I might be the most unhappy reader of this novel because of the differences
between the descriptions on Nomura (NEC) or computer security technology and the reality:-)

Beware young CIA agents who would want to go NEC to go to China; the Japanese companies will
never treat you like Nomura even when you are Japanese.

Except those, I've been enjoying the book; yes, I haven't finished yet, a third of the story is yet to come!

This was in fact the first Tom Clancy novel I read and I came back to it lately and re-read it. For the most part, I enjoyed it. This huge tapestry of a novel that begins with seemingly independent plots comes together in a well-woven story. It is so complex that it seems like several novels in one; part murder mystery, part spy/techno-thriller. It is a massive economic, military and geopolitical overview of a not so unbelievable near future....
In conclusion: A sometimes-fascinating glimpse at how the wheels within three powerful governments might turn when the threat of world war looms. Multiple human dramas combined with a big-picture overview of a very possible world. One interesting aspect that I noticed was Clancy's entrance into social critique, specifically of the human rights situation in China. If the ‘insider’ world of diplomacy and statecraft is anything resembling this then there is certainly a cause to be alarmed.
Not Clancy’s best work, then, but worth reading.
Following the events of September 11 in the United States, it is notable that Clancy predicted terrorist hijackings of airliners in the novel Executive Orders, where terrorists take over an airliner and slam it into the Capitol. He also alluded to biological terrorism in this same novel and the afore-mentioned Rainbow Six.

[Edited by BookBrowse to avoid giving away key plot details]

I was an avid fan of Tom Clancy when i was younger, after almost 20 years in the military i can honestly say he is not using insider information when he writes about the military side.

This is pure pro-American propaganda. The way soldiers are portrayed and the way the equipment operate sis completely unrealistic, in the book set just before this America had just finished a war with Japan and had basically no assets with which to even conduct this war and the war with Iran/ Iraq, now they are able to move entire armoured divisions around the globe on 24 hours notice, not to mention the time line of them moving seems to miss out about 2 weeks worth of movement.

Also Russia joining NATO in 24 hours? really look how long it took Sweden and Finland to join, when we knew that Ukraine was going to be invaded did we allow them to join NATO? i think not, also how accurate and good the aircraft are are well of the mark, they drop 900 munitions and whamo 800 tanks are killed, if things were that good we would never have an Army to begin with.

The political side is pure nonsense as well, this book truly is Team America world police.

One lenghty, boring book I had to finish since I started it. Thought it might get interesting in the end since he built up a huge plot with so many characters. Fizzled out totally in the end. It seemed like it was more of a republican, and defence contractor propaganda than real entertainment. Some of the subplots are pretty childish only present for belittling either the chinese or the russians. Whereas the gods in his book are english and americans predictably. I have wasted a lot of time reading this book while I could be reading something more entertaining or useful.