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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
The Best of the Lustbader Books to Date About Jason Bourne, 21 Aug 2008
This is the third book written by Eric Van Lustbader about Jason Bourne. As I've commented before, this isn't the same Jason Bourne as Robert Ludlum wrote about. If you want that Jason Bourne, skip this book. It's also different from the wonderful ninja stories that Eric Van Lustbader is known for. So don't look for that either.
If you are interested in meeting and following a new Jason Bourne, read on. If you do decide to read The Bourne Sanction, I strongly suggest that you read The Bourne Betrayal first. The characters and the situation won't make much sense to you otherwise. I suspect that you will see this book as a one or two star effort.
As the book opens, there's a deadly secret being passed along to help foil a dangerous terrorist plan. The U.S. intelligence community is in great turmoil, and there are lots of people who want to grab the reins of power. Jason Bourne has resumed his David Webb persona and is teaching again. Events quickly conspire to intertwine those plot threads into a huge conflict that imperils even Jason Bourne.
Like The Bourne Betrayal, this book is too long. But it's only 150 pages too long, rather than 200 pages too long. That's progress.
The book's strength can be found in some of the action scenes and in the plot twists that are deeply embedded into the early Bourne stories. The book's weaknesses are that it moves too slowly, Bourne is barely present as a personality, and there's a little too much assuming that readers have read the last two stories.
I get the sense that Mr. Lustbader is beginning to get his sea legs under him in writing about Jason Bourne. I suspect the series will continue to get better from here. But what do I know? I'm just an optimist who is rooting for this series to work. I would miss the idea of Jason Bourne too much otherwise.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Better than Bourne Betrayal (but then ANYTHING is!!!), 25 Oct 2008
Here we go again... another Eric Van Lustbader poor knock-off Bourne Book!
When The Bourne Legacy came out I felt that new life had been brought into (the book) Jason Bourne (I thought it was a great book), and could not wait for more... but when the Bourne Betrayal (Betrayal is the word for sure) came out and was so angry and wish that Van Lustbader had stopped while he was ahead with Legacy.
Anyway, when The Bourne Sanction came out, a part of me wanted to avoid it after the let down of the last book!
TBH, the story is still VERY weak and poor (even Robert Ludlum himself never wrote anything as poor as this and the last book)... but is actually more enjoyable than Betrayal... Bourne again seems to be getting younger rather older (its pretty weired reading about a guy in his late 60's on the dancefloor of a Moscow nightclub, like he is in his late 20's, dancing with a young Russian girl), which makes me think that Van Lustbader has based "his" Bourne on the Matt Damon one rather than Robert Ludlums one!
From what I hear another book is due out next year... hopefully Van Lustbader will move on from the Middle-East Terrorist story that he has followed in the last 3 books, as it is getting old now!
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Starts off slowly, then picks up but a bit too long, 17 Aug 2009
I have read a couple of the Mr Ludlum's Bourne novels, but am more attached to the film adaptations to date, so thought that I would give Mr van Lustbader's book a try for a holiday read. It starts off VERY slowly, lots of long winded chapters, many words that neither my wife or I had even heard of (this might be us though rather than the book!) and long, drawn out scenes. Perhaps this is for the benefit of people unfamiliar with Jason Bourne and the Treadstone Project and Mr VL wanted to get everyone up to speed; personally, I feel he could have this much more succinctly in far fewer pages and chapters.
After the initial struggle to keep going with the book (up to page 104 or thereabouts), the story picks up a bit of momentum. There are many good action scenes that are narrated, in my opinion, pretty well and helped me visualise what was going on. The depth of Mr VL's characters varies greatly; for example we know intimiate detail on JB and Arkadin, but much less, ultimately on Professor Spector and Icoupov. There is also a whole "Jack Baeur - 24" style subplot going on in the background that is almost comical compared to the main plot of the book: the characters in that subplot (Hart, Devon, Tyrone, Soroya etc) are very lightweight and unbelieveable - I personally felt no empathy towards any of those characters and the supposed torture scenes down that subplot were, to me, a complete waste of time.
To try to summarise my review, speed read the first 100 or so pages, get the background, hang in there through the middle section, don't spend too much time thinking about the internal US intelligence services subplot and get to the excellently crafted finale, where the real action is. For me this is a firmly a three star book - it has many good points and many points for improvement but is enjoyable, if ultimately way too long.
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