This first book in Larry Bond's new "Red Dragon Rising" series is a somewhat worthy successor to his collaboration with Tom Clancy on "Red Storm Rising" but doesn't quite come up to that level. The overall premise (set in a future 2014 when the world is suffering from severe global climatic changes) of Red China deciding to invade Vietnam as their first step in dominating all of Asia (and later America?) is an interesting one that could easily happen in the real world. However, he's decided to focus his action on a Chinese lieutenant, a somewhat improbable female CIA agent, an equally improbable American scientist and a few assorted other characters, none of whom are fully fleshed out, and the plot tends to drag along a bit. Still it's not a bad read and there's some hope that the remaining three novels in the series will pick up the pace a bit as the overall premise is very interesting and could make for a blockbuster novel or two. My guess is that this was written with a screenplay in mind (with Brad and Angelina in the lead American roles?).

First, I love Larry Bond's earlier books. Red Storm Rising, Vortex and the other 'future history' books are some of my absolute favorite military fiction stories. Once he moved to the multi-volume stories, not so much. That's not to say the books themselves suffered under the premise, rather that I don't enjoy book series that feature the same characters. (Why? Cause if you know they are in the next book, there's little chance something unexpected will happen in the book you're reading.) So, I didn't really get into the books Bond has written in the past ten years or so.

I was given the chance to read this from my Vine program membership and decided to give Bond another shot. Mine is an advanced copy, so I'm sure the typos and weird wordings here and there will be ironed out by the time it goes on sale. Those would be my only con for the book.

Set in 2014 in a climate changed world, China becomes an aggressor against it's neighbors. Bond's strengths are his narration and vast knowledge of military hardware. Where another author might say 'rifle', Bond tells you the model and knows just what that model will do. This adds a lot of realism that is often missing from other books relying on tech for the story.

Did I like it? Enough to know I'll be reading the next volume of this four volume set - even with my previous statements about not liking multi-volume sets. Great return to the arena for a great author.

The year is 2014. Global warming has greatly affected many countries of the world. It has impacted China with record droughts and devastating food shortages. New leadership in China decides to invade the countries of their Asian enemies, starting with Viet Nam. They begin their invasion claiming the war has been started by Viet Nam, and use their world financial leverage to keep other countries from interfering. A group of American scientists in the area are killed as the war begins, but one surviving scientist has video evidence that the Chinese have instigated the war. Red Dragon Rising: Shadows of War basically details that one scientist's efforts to elude the Chinese while the American CIA works to rescue him and help the Vietnamese defend themselves without overtly entering the war. Meanwhile, Chinese soldiers are tracking his movements in an effort to capture, interogate, and then kill him before he can provide evidence of the truth to the world.

I'm not big on reading military books. Most of them are boring and tend to focus on minute details of military weapons, etc. that make for very dry reading. This book, though, focuses largely on its characters. The writing style creates genuine interest in the people in the story, even the Chinese officer in charge of the search mission to capture the key scientist. The pace is fast, and the action is unrelenting. Red Dragon Rising: Shadows of War is intended to be the first of a series of four books, so the ending is not very satisfying, but it leaves you wanting more. I will be looking forward to reading the next book in the series.