The Bear and the Dragon: 8 (Jack Ryan Novels) - Softcover

Clancy, Tom

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425180964 ISBN 13: 9780425180969

Publisher: Berkley Books, 2001

Synopsis

Minimal shelf wear to cover. All pages intact and clean. Binding is tight. SHIPS IN 24 HOURS OR LESS!

About this title

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

Review:

Praise for The Bear and the Dragon

"Builds to an excitingly cinematic climax as Ryan toils to bring the world back from the brink of nuclear war."--Entertainment Weekly

"Once Clancy pulls the trigger...nobody can touch his gift for describing combat."--People

"Those who like heart-stopping action in their thrillers will not be disappointed...Entertaining and eminently topical...Clancy still reigns. The publication of The Bear and the Dragon reminds his fans that he is not likely to be dethroned any time soon."--The Washington Post

"Exhilarating...You'd have to be numb not to be impressed by the scale of [Clancy's] ambition, his feel for the way information now flashes instantaneously across the globe, his mastery of technological developments. No other novelists is giving so full a picture of modern conflict, equally adeptly depicting those at the top and bottom of military and intelligence systems."--The London Sunday Times

"The most intricately plotted and in some ways the most satisfying of his military-techno thrillers since The Hunt For Red October...There's enough new technology to satisfy the most demanding Clancy fan...A juicy novel within a novel, full of heavy artillery, intrepid aviators and shrewd generals."--The Orlando Sentinel

"Clancy has a knack for stories that appear to come out of the daily headlines. The Bear and the Dragon confirms his title as a master of techno-thrillers."--The Montreal Gazette

"Interesting characters...too-real plotting."--The Florida Times-Union

"Clancy manages to thrill...The guts, the fun of these books, are the high-tech devices, the ingenious schemes and the inside look at military tactics. Clancy delivers here."--The Denver Post

"Clancy is a master of detail--especially those having to do with military action and weapons...And he builds strongly moral, attractive characters, ones we would like to emulate."--The Houston Chronicle

"The Bear and the Dragon works...Hypnotic appeal."--The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

"Megasuspense...thrilling."--Indianapolis Star

About this edition

• Publisher: Berkley Books
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0425180964
• ISBN 13: 9780425180969
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Number of pages: 1152