Reviews for Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising: Shadows of War

The average rating for Larry Bond's Red Dragon Rising: Shadows of War based on 2 reviews is 3.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-05-28 00:00:00 John Keefe I've read a couple of other books by Larry Bond...and I liked them better than this one. This book forces me into my "3 star mode". I've had at least on person who follows my reviews take to task for three star ratings. He or she wanted me to come down more "for or against" each book. The thing is of course that you can't...all books aren't pass or fail. This book is "synopsized" as a war fiction. It's more an extended first chapter of a war fiction. The book does cover the beginning moves in what will possibly be WW3. It is however more a very politically loaded story of a CIA agent trying to get a scientist who happens to be the sole survivor of his group. He also has a visual record of the Chinese invading Vietnam. Look the book was written in 2009 when everyone was gleefully telling us we were going to be destroyed by global warming. The action in the book is taking place basically in our present and we're supposed to be paying $14 a gallon for gas, the world has collapsed due to said global warming and so on. So, wade through all the political rhetoric...the book opens with a few thousand words on it. Each "part" of the book also "pauses" to "read us in" on the global warming catastrophes. We get fake headlines, news stories and so on. It's a set up for why the war is happening. Take it with a grain of salt... Well, unless of course your really into it and are still looking for our demise due to global warming (recently renamed climate change since we've had a couple of the coldest winters on record instead of having an average of being 5 degrees hotter or something) then you will enjoy the opening and the interludes.... Anyway, skip, skim or read them, whatever is your..."bag". Now the body of the book is good. Bond can tell a story (as you may know) I liked Red Storm Rising on which he collaborated with Tom Clancy. I liked Vortex. He can write. I intend to follow this series (in no small reason as this is as I said much like an extended first chapter). I still have hope that we will actually get a "technothriller".... There are some good scenes, the characters are pretty well drawn and there's some action. Not a loss overall, but it could have been a lot better had maybe the rational for the "war" not been so politically loaded. I have the next book from the library. So I'm an optimist....try it yourself see what you think.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-07-11 00:00:00 Blase Ozuna I've been a fan of Bond since he co-authored "Red Storm Rising" in 1987 with Tom Clancy and later wrote "Red Phoenix" both are probably my two favorite books, and ones I have bought as a hardback, then paperback, and finally e-edition. I have read each book at least 15 times. I also enjoyed the Jerry Mitchell series, particularly "Exit Plan". "Shadows of War" starts off with a bang and does not really slow down, my e-book shows almost 1200 pages for this book, and it only took a couple of days to read. So I liked it, but I don't get the whole global warming message in the book, it had very little to do with the plot, except to say that China was a wasteland due to global warming, so they needed to invade the border into Vietnam where things were better. I would think Global Warming does not care about a border, it would be bad on both sides. Not to mention the large American cities, tearing down their homes and planting gardens. Are they going to live in a tent? Thankfully, there is not a lot of this storyline in the book, OK I get it I'm not properly educated in global warming. This global warming thing could be the co-author's personal political agenda sneaking into the manuscript. China the aggressor, would make much more sense. (This plot worked extremely well for both Russia and North Korea in both of the Red books.) However, like all Bond books, the characters are well developed and the story is gripping. It is a good story, but I will only read it once, and might pass on the rest of the series.