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Summary: Unlikely Scenario Post 9-11, Still A Thought-Provoking Novel
Review: A remarkably believable account, Humphrey Hawksley's Dragonfire, illustrates a major nuclear war in Asia emerging and proceeding in a series of logical steps, none of which seems as horrendous as the final outcome.Assume Tibetans based in India launch a raid into Lhasa to free a Tibetan monk being held prisoner by the Chinese. Assume the Chinese encourage their Pakistani friends to stir up trouble on India's western border. Assume the Pakistani military produces a risk-taking leader who replaces the weak government, undertaking a high-risk campaign against India with strong backing from China. Assume that at the peak of the Pakistani campaign, the Chinese launch an attack on India. These circumstances set the stage for what follows. As India's larger military weight wears out the Pakistanis and India pushes into Pakistan, the Pakistanis desperately decide to use nuclear weapons tactically on their own territory. From then on, the situation spirals out of control. The recent terrorist attacks on America make this novel slightly less likely because we are almost certainly going to see a stronger American military and a closer American relationship with Pakistan, which will have a stabilizing influence. Nonetheless, as a harbinger of the dangers the world will face in the next generation and the potential for utilization of weapons of mass destruction, this is an especially believable and incredibly thought-provoking novel well worth reading.
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Summary: Compelling Newspaper Reports
Review: Dragonstrike is a different style of storytelling. There are no real central characters or narrative, just a series of newspaper reports detailing major incidents (although there is a narrative about an English family preparing for the holocaust: very grim). This style makes the story seem a lot more authentic, but also presents baffling stats and figures for people without knowledge of military/economic affairs. In so far as this is alternate future history I found the book satisfying: a book ABOUT events, not a detective/murder/love story set amongst great events. The book is very believeable, and the fact that China was willing to sacrifice itself on the altar of nuclear fire was an indication of the mentality of the leadership not of the people. What this book teaches us is that war will never be simple again: because of the levarage of global and multinational corporations.
Rating: 
Summary: Good research, poor editing!
Review: Excellent research and a gripping subject, but marred by HORRIBLE copy-editing - missing words, very poor sentence construction, etc. The production flaws really bothered me a lot in the early part of the book. An important story, though.
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Summary: More a sketch than a story
Review: For scenario creation, research and thought, the authors get a 4.5. For story they get a 1. The characters are so thin as to be interchangable. The authors stop the story with multipage interludes to give background on key plot points, like the Japanese dependence on foreign sources for oil, and therefore their touchiness about the South China Sea shipping lanes. These topics could have been wrapped into the narrative, but without real characters even this becomes a problem. These interludes act like a sidebar in a magazine. In a magazine you can skip them if you don't want to read them. Here you don't know if you can or can't, as historical reality and future speculation are mixed together. Another problem is an overemphasis on equipment. Clancy's Red Storm Rising also went into heavy detail about this or that weapon system, but these elements were part of a cohesive overall narrative. In this story we learn next to nothing about any of the pilots, soldiers, sailors or leaders involved. Had the authors closely followed one or two Chinese submarine captains, a Vietnamese fighter pilot or Allied bomber pilot, the story would have been much richer. Read this to learn one way China might try to throw the US out of Asia, but run far, far away if you are looking for an engaging thriller.
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Summary: Red Dragon
Review: Hawksley has such a talent for understatement. The 'China Syndrome' time is back again. Where is the new one? "RED SPIRIT"? With a global take on both business and politics as usual, we deserve the thoughtful insights of an author who looks to the spirit behind material dialectic and capitalism whether East or West. Where is Hawksley hiding? we need to hear his voice.
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Summary: Miscalulation in a nuclear world
Review: Portrays the harm that can come about when politics and distrust rules in a world armed to the teeth with nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction
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Summary: The Indian perspective
Review: Right up until the shooting starts, it's a great book. Beyond that point, too many players are using cards they would no longer have. The authors seem to have forgotten that most US cities came to terms with imminent attack long ago, and that at the end of the threatened scenario one side would still be in a position to offer deals that the other would no longer be in a position to refuse. Militarily spot-on, financially iffy. Beyond a certain point, economics does not play a role in policy decisions at a leadership level. A President that ignored that would not remain President very long.
Rating:
Summary: an excellent thriller which cuts no corners
Review: the writing style betrays this as a book written by journalists, but don't be put off. dragonstrike tells the story of a war in the far east launched by a china desperate for fuel to feed the insatiable appetite of its growing population. what is especially impressive is not the exhaustive details of the hardware and formations, but the amount of thought which has gone into the plot. from the initial chinese attack to the climax, everything makes sense, and the authors give a convincing account of how beijing would react to various setbacks and the likely reactions of washington and other major powers. this is definitely one worth reading
Rating:
Summary: Good fiction but unnecessarily long
Review: What I found interesting about this book is how the authors knit fact with fiction. Kudos to the authors for that and the detailed knowledge of the latest weaponry. But ultimately, it comes down to predicting the future........and that is a very hard thing to do. While I suppose that ANYTHING can happen in the future, there are some things which are very unlikely. For example, it is extremely unlikely that India might help China build its infrastructure after China is alienated by the West. (p. 246) Another problem I have is that the American President backs off when he realizes that China can unleash a nuclear weapon on American soil EVEN THOUGH China made the first (using conventional weapons) strike and killed 2,000 American seamen. Americans are very nationalistic. If the Chinese would rather die than to give in, so would the Americans. Also, a character named Reece Overhalt comes out of nowhere and becomes a key player at the most crucial time of the nuclear standoff. I find it hard to believe that a businessman like him is trusted w/ top secret information like location of Chinese submarines and that he, instead of the US Ambassador, negotiates peace on behalf of the American President. Finally, the book seemed a bit like a Hindi movie.......a 1.5 hour story stretched to 3 hours by smaller unrelated stories.
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