Red Dragon Rising

Any time I see a military thriller with a recommendation from Tom Clancy who virtually invented the genre with his Jack Ryan series of novels (think Patriot Games, Clear and Present Danger and many others) it's a novel I'm interested in reading.Red Dragon Rising is the initial work by Larry Bond and Jim DeFelice which paint a bleak picture of the world in the near future. To start, global warming has begun in full force and is wreaking havoc on the world in general. The United States has come out ahead because much of the northern portion of the country has been able to farm for the remaining parts which are now too dry and warm to effectively grow food for the nation. Overall, the diverse and varied American economy has had struggles, but has been able to survive. The rest of the world is in much worse shape including China and India which are experiencing major water shortages with China facing massive food related problems because their rice industry has been decimated by
the warmer weather.The result of this massive resource shortage has China making plans to attack Vietnam and then roll through the rest of Asia with a long term plan of overtaking the Western portion of the United States.The main protagonist in the novel is a scientist who has survived a vicious attack on his family as a child, so he knows generally how to live in the wilderness for some time alone as well as how to use a gun. He was in Vietnam working for the United Nations on climate change when his scientific expedition of three individuals was attacked by the Chinese army which was in Vietnam for a scouting expedition.Overall the book was well written and provided a quick, enjoyable read. I do however get tired of China always being the enemy in these types of stories, for a country with no historical interest in dominating all of Asia, I find it interesting that was the basis for the entire book.

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