Red Phoenix

Wrong.

Actually, it was a joint project between Clancy and Larry Bond, although Clancy only ever seems to have gotten the credit for it. And that's the injustice: read RSR, then read this, and you will see that the books are written in exactly the same style: a relatively decent plot, but breathtaking combat descriptions.

If you liked RSR, you'll LOVE this.


Work of Art   April 2, 2003
This is the first book in the techno thriller genre that i have read, borrowing it from a friend. i was first sceptical, discouraged by the length, but once i got into it i was blown away. the detail was mind blowing, the research that must of gone into this book is amazing. A great read for people of all adults, but i wouldn't recommend it for below 16 year olds (me being 17) as it is quite heavy and slow in places. brilliant book, planning to order Larry Bond's other book today


This is the book to have!!!!!   March 6, 2003
 3 out of 3 found this review helpful

"Red Phoenix" is the authority in the world of "What if's" as far as the Korean theater of operations is concerned. The "puzzle palace" was probably wondering how he figured all this out. I'd originally read this amazing story when it first came out and was just floored by the realism, the character interactions and the author's knowledge of military operations. A few years later I was scheduled to go to South Korea on tdy and picked it up to read again. It was amazing to be reading this book and seeing a lot of the areas he'd talked about in the book, in person. To see the river's and the revetments on the banks, to see the tank barricades all around Seoul and all the bases north of Seoul and be reading this book again at the same time. Absolutely amazing! Thank you very much to Larry Bond for an excellent book. {ssintrepid}


Red Storm Rising In Asia   May 28, 2002
 1 out of 1 found this review helpful

If you liked Red Storm Rising, you'll like this. I largely bought Red Phoenix because I was looking for something similar to RSR, and Bond uses precisely the same formula. Again, the circumstances behind the outbreak of hostilities in Korea are believable, enough to make you wonder whether this is a treatise written against US disengagement from the country. The emphasis is on military hardware, what it can do, and how it is operated. Bond also takes a slightly more realistic view of the US armed forces than Clancy: they are fallible, they do stupid things, and they can be caught on the hop by a cunning foe. They also run away when subjected to sustained artillery bombardment. As a consequence, the book is more believable than some of Clancy's work, which portrays the US military as a cosy little family that rarely puts a foot wrong. It is also still topical, in that the North Korean threat remains today, and some of the political questions raised by the US military presence in Korea are still the same, many of them dealing with the sensitive relationship between the US military and its South Korean counterparts, and left wing Korean politicians.

If this makes this book sound more intellectual than it reads, don't worry, there's plenty in the way of dogfights, artillery duels, and scrabbling around in the snow getting shot at to keep most readers happy. It's hard to believe how anyone could pose a credible conventional military threat to the US today, but Bond does a good job of showing how the US could find itself thing spread, and unable to react quickly enough to a localised problem.