Mystery Books Store
The Bear and the Dragon (Random House Large Print)
RRP: $28.95
Our Price:
You Save: $ 28.95 ( 100% )
Manufacturer: Random House Large Print
Author: Tom Clancy
Publisher: Random House Large Print
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price:
You Save: $ 28.95 ( 100% )
Manufacturer: Random House Large Print
Author: Tom Clancy
Publisher: Random House Large Print
Average Customer Rating:
Experimental feature: Order The Bear and the Dragon (Random House Large Print) from the UK, Canada, Germany or France by clicking an appropriate flag below.
Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.
Some items available at Amazon.com are not available in all countries.
The Bear and the Dragon (Random House Large Print) Description
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375430695
Format: Large Print
ISBN: 0375430695
Label: Random House Large Print
Manufacturer: Random House Large Print
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 1504
Publication Date: 2000-09-05
Publisher: Random House Large Print
Studio: Random House Large Print
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780375430695
Format: Large Print
ISBN: 0375430695
Label: Random House Large Print
Manufacturer: Random House Large Print
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 1504
Publication Date: 2000-09-05
Publisher: Random House Large Print
Studio: Random House Large Print
Editorial Review of The Bear and the Dragon (Random House Large Print)
Time and again, Tom Clancy's novels have been praised not only for their big-scale drama and propulsive narrative drive, but for their cutting-edge prescience in predicting future events. In THE BEAR AND THE DRAGON, the future is very near at hand indeed.
Newly elected in his own right, Jack Ryan has found that being President has gotten no easier. Domestic pitfalls await him at every turn, there's a revolution in Liberia, the Asian economy is going down the tubes, and now, in Moscow, someone may have tried to take out the chairman of the SVR - the former KGB - with a rocket - propelled grenade. Things are unstable enough in Russia without high-level assassination, but even more disturbing may be the identities of the potential assassins. Were they political enemies, the Russian Mafia, disaffected former KGB? Or, Ryan wonders, is something far more dangerous at work here?
Ryan is right. For even wile he dispatches his most trusted eyes and ears, including black ops specialist John Clark, to find out the truth of the matter, forces in China are moving ahead with a plan of truly audacious proportions. If they succeed, the world as we know it will never look the same. If they fail...the consequences will be unspeakable.
Blending the exceptional realism and authenticity that are his hallmarks with intricate plotting, razor-sharp suspense and a remarkable cast of characters, this is Clancy at his best - and ther is none better.
Newly elected in his own right, Jack Ryan has found that being President has gotten no easier. Domestic pitfalls await him at every turn, there's a revolution in Liberia, the Asian economy is going down the tubes, and now, in Moscow, someone may have tried to take out the chairman of the SVR - the former KGB - with a rocket - propelled grenade. Things are unstable enough in Russia without high-level assassination, but even more disturbing may be the identities of the potential assassins. Were they political enemies, the Russian Mafia, disaffected former KGB? Or, Ryan wonders, is something far more dangerous at work here?
Ryan is right. For even wile he dispatches his most trusted eyes and ears, including black ops specialist John Clark, to find out the truth of the matter, forces in China are moving ahead with a plan of truly audacious proportions. If they succeed, the world as we know it will never look the same. If they fail...the consequences will be unspeakable.
Blending the exceptional realism and authenticity that are his hallmarks with intricate plotting, razor-sharp suspense and a remarkable cast of characters, this is Clancy at his best - and ther is none better.
Customer Reviews of The Bear and the Dragon (Random House Large Print)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Lengthy, but interesting - I recommend it
Review: For President Jack Ryan, things have never just rolled along smoothly. After the Russians discover great mineral wealth in Siberia, the CIA discovers that China is casting greedy eyes to the north. America is in a race to block China from grabbing the wealth that is just across the border, but will they succeed?
OK, when reviewing books, sometimes you are with the majority, and sometimes you are with the minority. For this book, I am definitely in with the minority. I am a big fan of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, and I really enjoyed this book. As with the others in the series, the author does a great job of running a number of parallel storylines, keeping each one interesting and avoiding confusion and chaos.
Now, this book has been criticized for a number of flaws, including its length, which is a valid complaint. Mr. Clancy definitely wanted to include many details and sub-stories, but personally I thought he kept the overall story interesting. This is not a quick read, and just looking at its fatness, you know you are in it for the long-haul.
But, that said, I really enjoyed this book. As in real life slower moments punctuated moments of exhilaration and drama. Many a time, I was totally gripped by what was happening, unable to put the book down. Was it totally realistic? Perhaps not, but the action and adventure make for a great ride. I really enjoyed this book, and don't hesitate to recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Typos Detracted From The Story!
Review: A reel disappointment. Four a book to bee enjoyed it helps if it does knot contain sew many speling and typograffikle errurz.
I usually enjoy TC's books---but this one was indeed a disappointment. Decent story, but the typos and errors became tedious. Halfway through the book I started circling the obvious errors for entertainment value alone. Obviously the publisher opted to use an automated spell-checker because the book was filled with typos---some funny, but most were annoying and detracted from the reading experience. Just because a word is spelled correctly does not mean it's the right word to use! Next time the publisher might consider having real people proofread TC's novels.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Good but not great
Review: As usual I enjoyed the technical aspects of Clancy's Bear and Dragon. And incidentally I happen to agree with his politics, and I think he was actually quite kind to a certain former President. I'm also fairly patient about cliches and over-workings. So I only have one real criticism: Even with 1,000-plus pages, this story ended far too suddenly. I hate it when it appears that the author simply got tired of writing. Several deliciously rich threads were left to dangle in the wind. So I might hope for a sequel, just to wrap up a few very enjoyable subplots, but I'm sure it wouldn't work very well. From page to page I enjoyed Bear and Dragon, and I always enjoy the pleasant fiction of former enemies being such close pals -- fiction only in the sense of so readily allowing massive foreign military assets to touch native soil -- but this book most certainly needed another 20 or 30 pages of closure.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Ugh, So Very Bad
Review: So Clancy would have us believe the Russians would not have employed nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons to repel the Chinese in this scenario?
Maybe Mr. Clancy is not as knowledgeable about the Russians as his earlier work would lead one to believe.
The premise that Americans would be invited to help defend the "Motherland" is just the final nail in the coffin of the Tom Clancy legacy of good writing.
Save your money, or if you insist on reading this, buy the paperback version.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not His Best
Review: I finished "The Bear and the Dragon" yesterday after a read that took about three days. Overall, I found the book to be enjoyable, but also noticed a not small number of frustrations and irritations.
First, I was disappointed by the way the author sort of hastily tied up the subplot involving Ming. At the point in the novel where the Siberian War started she and the American spy in Beijing just sort of disappeared from the story.
Second, I was disappointed by the failure to follow through on the Mike Reilly part of the story. After the renegade KGB agent confessed to his work for the Chinese, it seemed like Clancy just let FBI agent Reilly and his colleague, the Russian police officer, fade out from the tale. I think that was a mistake, especially since the last appearance of Reilly was when he told the FBI director about the Chinese plot to kill the Russian president.
Third, I got pissed off by the overt anti-Clinton comments in the book. They are totally illogical in the Ryan-verse, of which this book is part, because Clinton was never President in this fictional Ryan-verse and there is no indication in any prior novel that any of Clancy's fictionalized American leaders exhibited behavior like Clinton did in the real world. In any event, this is fiction, not a political speech. We don't need to have Clancy's Republican point of view thrown at us so obviously.
And the same goes for his several criticisms of environmentalism and those who advocate for it. None of those nasty comments, which he had come out as "thoughts" of several characters, especially Admiral Mancuso, had anything at all to do with the plot and they didn't even do much to bring out the character's personality. Again, I thought these were just random, unnecessary and irritating windows into Clancy's personal politics.
I didn't like the way the climactic scene involving the missile strike on DC was handled, either. There had never been any hint before that part of the novel that the Navy's hotshot civilian programmer was having any trouble fixing the missile software to allow interception of an ICBM. All of a sudden Clancy drops this thing about how he programmed the interceptor missiles to hit the heat coming out of the ICBM engines. That was weird and it seemed to me Clancy just forgot to set the table for that development.
I also didn't see the point of the whole Ryan being dropped off on the cruiser thing. It didn't add anything to our well-developed understanding of the character and I couldn't figure out what Ryan, who normally shows such great judgment in the novels, was hoping to achieve with that move. Clancy even concedes that when he has Ryan say pretty much the same thing.
Finally, I thought Clancy's economics were a bit off mark. Granted, before the financial disaster our government created for itself since the novel was published the U.S. had a big budget surplus and a big trade deficit with China, so the author's imagination of a China that was bringing in huge export revenues and spending them on weapons and military equipment wasn't a bad one. However, he never really got around to explaining how the Chinese military could have spent so much money but be so incompetent and so bereft of modern weapons technology or modern combat tactics. This part of the novel was muddled, at best.
All in all, the novel kept my attention well. I am not sick of Jack Ryan as President. I hope, in fact, that Clancy writes another novel that focuses on what happened to Ryan after the events in "The Bear and the Dragon." While he's at it, maybe he can tie up the loose ends involving Reilly, Ming and the American agent, and the Russian general who became a hero in this novel (Bondarenko). And in what story was Robby Jackson supposedly killed off, anyway?
Review Summary: Lengthy, but interesting - I recommend it
Review: For President Jack Ryan, things have never just rolled along smoothly. After the Russians discover great mineral wealth in Siberia, the CIA discovers that China is casting greedy eyes to the north. America is in a race to block China from grabbing the wealth that is just across the border, but will they succeed?
OK, when reviewing books, sometimes you are with the majority, and sometimes you are with the minority. For this book, I am definitely in with the minority. I am a big fan of Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan series, and I really enjoyed this book. As with the others in the series, the author does a great job of running a number of parallel storylines, keeping each one interesting and avoiding confusion and chaos.
Now, this book has been criticized for a number of flaws, including its length, which is a valid complaint. Mr. Clancy definitely wanted to include many details and sub-stories, but personally I thought he kept the overall story interesting. This is not a quick read, and just looking at its fatness, you know you are in it for the long-haul.
But, that said, I really enjoyed this book. As in real life slower moments punctuated moments of exhilaration and drama. Many a time, I was totally gripped by what was happening, unable to put the book down. Was it totally realistic? Perhaps not, but the action and adventure make for a great ride. I really enjoyed this book, and don't hesitate to recommend it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Typos Detracted From The Story!
Review: A reel disappointment. Four a book to bee enjoyed it helps if it does knot contain sew many speling and typograffikle errurz.
I usually enjoy TC's books---but this one was indeed a disappointment. Decent story, but the typos and errors became tedious. Halfway through the book I started circling the obvious errors for entertainment value alone. Obviously the publisher opted to use an automated spell-checker because the book was filled with typos---some funny, but most were annoying and detracted from the reading experience. Just because a word is spelled correctly does not mean it's the right word to use! Next time the publisher might consider having real people proofread TC's novels.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Good but not great
Review: As usual I enjoyed the technical aspects of Clancy's Bear and Dragon. And incidentally I happen to agree with his politics, and I think he was actually quite kind to a certain former President. I'm also fairly patient about cliches and over-workings. So I only have one real criticism: Even with 1,000-plus pages, this story ended far too suddenly. I hate it when it appears that the author simply got tired of writing. Several deliciously rich threads were left to dangle in the wind. So I might hope for a sequel, just to wrap up a few very enjoyable subplots, but I'm sure it wouldn't work very well. From page to page I enjoyed Bear and Dragon, and I always enjoy the pleasant fiction of former enemies being such close pals -- fiction only in the sense of so readily allowing massive foreign military assets to touch native soil -- but this book most certainly needed another 20 or 30 pages of closure.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Ugh, So Very Bad
Review: So Clancy would have us believe the Russians would not have employed nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons to repel the Chinese in this scenario?
Maybe Mr. Clancy is not as knowledgeable about the Russians as his earlier work would lead one to believe.
The premise that Americans would be invited to help defend the "Motherland" is just the final nail in the coffin of the Tom Clancy legacy of good writing.
Save your money, or if you insist on reading this, buy the paperback version.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Not His Best
Review: I finished "The Bear and the Dragon" yesterday after a read that took about three days. Overall, I found the book to be enjoyable, but also noticed a not small number of frustrations and irritations.
First, I was disappointed by the way the author sort of hastily tied up the subplot involving Ming. At the point in the novel where the Siberian War started she and the American spy in Beijing just sort of disappeared from the story.
Second, I was disappointed by the failure to follow through on the Mike Reilly part of the story. After the renegade KGB agent confessed to his work for the Chinese, it seemed like Clancy just let FBI agent Reilly and his colleague, the Russian police officer, fade out from the tale. I think that was a mistake, especially since the last appearance of Reilly was when he told the FBI director about the Chinese plot to kill the Russian president.
Third, I got pissed off by the overt anti-Clinton comments in the book. They are totally illogical in the Ryan-verse, of which this book is part, because Clinton was never President in this fictional Ryan-verse and there is no indication in any prior novel that any of Clancy's fictionalized American leaders exhibited behavior like Clinton did in the real world. In any event, this is fiction, not a political speech. We don't need to have Clancy's Republican point of view thrown at us so obviously.
And the same goes for his several criticisms of environmentalism and those who advocate for it. None of those nasty comments, which he had come out as "thoughts" of several characters, especially Admiral Mancuso, had anything at all to do with the plot and they didn't even do much to bring out the character's personality. Again, I thought these were just random, unnecessary and irritating windows into Clancy's personal politics.
I didn't like the way the climactic scene involving the missile strike on DC was handled, either. There had never been any hint before that part of the novel that the Navy's hotshot civilian programmer was having any trouble fixing the missile software to allow interception of an ICBM. All of a sudden Clancy drops this thing about how he programmed the interceptor missiles to hit the heat coming out of the ICBM engines. That was weird and it seemed to me Clancy just forgot to set the table for that development.
I also didn't see the point of the whole Ryan being dropped off on the cruiser thing. It didn't add anything to our well-developed understanding of the character and I couldn't figure out what Ryan, who normally shows such great judgment in the novels, was hoping to achieve with that move. Clancy even concedes that when he has Ryan say pretty much the same thing.
Finally, I thought Clancy's economics were a bit off mark. Granted, before the financial disaster our government created for itself since the novel was published the U.S. had a big budget surplus and a big trade deficit with China, so the author's imagination of a China that was bringing in huge export revenues and spending them on weapons and military equipment wasn't a bad one. However, he never really got around to explaining how the Chinese military could have spent so much money but be so incompetent and so bereft of modern weapons technology or modern combat tactics. This part of the novel was muddled, at best.
All in all, the novel kept my attention well. I am not sick of Jack Ryan as President. I hope, in fact, that Clancy writes another novel that focuses on what happened to Ryan after the events in "The Bear and the Dragon." While he's at it, maybe he can tie up the loose ends involving Reilly, Ming and the American agent, and the Russian general who became a hero in this novel (Bondarenko). And in what story was Robby Jackson supposedly killed off, anyway?