[books] review: robert ludlum -- the prometheus deception

i've decided to write down all books i read, whether or not i can manage a review of some sort, because i've never done that, and it'd be cool to see how many books i actually manage to read these days, and what percentage of them i like.

i've started the year with the small stack of robert ludlum i had picked up right after reading john le carré last. i used to read a lot of ludlum in the 70's and rather enjoyed them then, but i dropped the spy genre when the cold war ended. this has been my first foray into books ludlum wrote later in his career.

robert ludlum -- the prometheus deception

here are some review blurbs:
The New Yorker "... his most ingenious novel yet"
Chicago Tribune "Rarely has any writer of espionage novels come up with such an ambitious design that churns on so many levels."
Kirkus Reviews "Echoing le Carre and Graham Greene... [Ludlum's] best thriller yet!"

don't believe a word of it! the premise of this book is that one can't trust anyone -- clearly that includes these reviewers.

the story starts with undercover agent nick bryson having his cover blown while working to lead hezbollah affiliates in tunisia into a trap -- good start, i thought. alas it went downhill from there -- even though nick is assured he is the best, his boss retires him from his job with "the directorate", a super-secret intelligence agency in the US, which is needed because the FBI and CIA can't be trusted, mole-ridden as they are. for the next 5 years nick becomes a professor at a small pennsylvania college, where he also is the best at teaching -- until the day two operatives from the CIA try to forcibly invite him to a meeting, and it turns out that, even though there's been no mention of him keeping up his conditioning, he is still the best and can take out those two dilettantes. never mind; the deputy chairman of the CIA comes crawling to explain. "the directorate" apparently wasn't the good guys at all, but an ingenious GRU plot, and nick has unknowingly worked against the US all that time. nick isn't immediately convinced, but a few photos seem to do the job (this is where i started to get annoyed), and off he goes to work for the CIA, making up for having spoiled so many fine american undercover operations during his career with the directorate.

the underlying message, alas mostly hidden underneath the unrelenting action surrounding nick bryson, shooting his way around the globe, the message is a cautionary one: technology will soon allow for surveillance on a scale that seriously infringes on personal privacy; will the result be greater security for all, or ? that's a message i am quite interested in. but alas what i used to like about ludlum is mostly absent from this novel; there is no contemplation here, and too little social context -- the substory about his marriage with the beautiful romanian cryptographer is just ... *bleh*. ludlum's heroes are always strong men of action, but this one crosses into secret agent mary sue territory; he's too fucking perfect, even though he never actually catches on in time to what's happening.

everything in this novel goes over that fine line that separates enjoyable escapist fiction from horrid trash i'll recycle immediately. the prose is so overdone -- ludlum is always close to that line because of adjectivitis, but here he crosses over and wallows in the purple. the story feels loosely cobbled together, and just completely unbelievable. not the idea of it so much, but how the bad guys are always right on him like flies on shit, and yet he lives to kill red shirts another day, and in the end, foils a plot involving many world leaders. uh huh. (sorry, that wasn't a spoiler, was it? :)

i wish i had marked some of the more outrageous paragraphs. i think i'll keep a stack of 3M flaglets next to my bed from now on, so that i can slap one in there when i get ripped out of the story by pure idiocy and horrid writing.

joe bob piranha says: don't bother with this one. it churns on many levels, indeed. mostly in my stomach.

[books] review: robert ludlum -- the janson directive

peter novak, hungarian-born international financier, philanthropist, and nobel peace prize winner who has dedicated his life to bring democracy to the world without being beholden to any political side, has been kidnapped by islamic extremists and is being held on an island, soon to be executed. what to do, but to turn to security consultant peter janson, an legendary former agent for the CIA's "consular operations", known for his ability to handle the nastiest wet jobs -- and for owing his life to peter novak, while the terrorists holding novak are responsible for the death of janson's wife and unborn child. with the help of his favourite co-workers from the past, including his star pupil, janson stages a daring and ingenious rescue operation, but after the get-away from the island he needs to separate from his group, since they picked up an extra hostage who's taking his place on the plane. but when he turns around one last time, he sees the plane go up in a fiery explosion. his team, his star pupil and father-to-be (oh yeah, we must rub this in), and the world's greatest humanitarian -- all gone. janson is stunned, and then tries to head home to investigate.

woops. not so quick. this turn of events has apparently pissed off any number of people, including his own agency, and they want him dead, being as he's apparently a traitor. what happened? who did this? janson, on the run from one european country to the next, has got to survive long enough to find out. he's not doing so well, what with the frequent flashbacks to his service in vietnam -- is there a connection to what's happening now? (me, i could have done without some of the very graphic descriptions of torture and disembowelment, including of the "noble kovacz" -- though the purple prose was just a light lavender in this case.)

but overall, this is vintage ludlum. janson as the hero is masterful, of course, but he has flaws, and he feels like a fully realized character to me. there is a strong and capable female operative, jessica kincaid, who ends up helping him -- bonus points for strong female characters, a rarity in this genre when i last read it. the story has plenty of twists and turns (i like to try and work out the puzzles on the way), and the requisite distrust of people in power and authority (part of why i like reading these; i can identify). there's tons of detail about spiffy spy gadgetry, which i love.

except. the denouement -- *gah*. i was not pleased, though i saw it coming when janson and kincaid went to hungary to look into peter novak's past. i was not pleased about some of the details, and where the story went from there. parts of the plot became too damn handwavey.

but overall i don't regret reading this one. there's one bit player, a russian mobsters, who's a small work of art character-wise. luckily he doesn't even get killed off right after doing janson a favour, only wounded. *rolls eyes a little at the red-shirtedness of so many of ludlum's characters*.

knit a womb for roe vs wade

yarnygoodness had this fabulous idea in punk_knitters. i am in, and i am spreading the word.

knitty uterus pattern. go see. i laughed my ass off when this knitty came out. i still want to knit a whole bunch of internal organs, but first come some uteri for the supreme court. i am on a mission.

will eisner 1917-2005

damn.