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Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Objective (2000)

by Eric Van Lustbader(Favorite Author)

4.05 of 5 Votes: 3

ISBN

1409101630 (ISBN13: 9781409101635)

languge

English

genre

Mystery & Thriller

publisher

Orion

series

Jason Bourne

review 1: The Bourne Objective continues the Bourne vs. Arkadin story arc. While it was a good summer read, it wasn't as good as it could have been.Minor spoilers ahead.The first part of the novel seems to resolve the fallout of the previous novel. We learn that Leonid Arkadin has taken over a vast arms dealing operation. He's made powerful enemies in Russia and narrowly escapes one of their kill team in India.Bourne begins to explore the mystery surrounding an engraved ring and its connection to a laptop belonging to the mysterious Jalal Essai -- a member of a secret society who has gone rogue.In Washington, Soraya Moore has been drummed out of CI but is soon recruited to join a revamped Treadstone. Willard, introduced in "Sanction", has engineered an operation that will bring Bour... morene and Arkadin together into a final conflict. Both are trained by Treadstone, but under different training protocols. Willard's hope is that whoever prevails will set the template for future operatives. Somewhere in this scheme, he persuades Soraya to get in contact with Arkadin to try to lure him towards Bourne.The first thing to remember about these novels is that Ludlum's universe is well behind us now. This Jason Bourne has his own agenda, which turns out in this novel to be uncovering more about Severus Domna and the location of King Solomon's gold. To what purpose, to what end? If you're looking for the answers to that, you'll likely have to read the following novel, "Dominion".It still amazes me that Soraya is considered a top CI operative, but comes up with amateur schemes. Her latest operation - to try to entrap Arkadin in Mexico - hardly seems professional and Arkadin can't be fooled. Suspension of disbelief applies whenever Soraya goes undercover. Moira resurfaces, but like her pal Soraya, she seems to have forgotten her basic Espionage 101 training.While the conspiracies involving this Illuminati-like Severus Domna group are intriguing, Arkadin's connection to the plot is tenuous at best. He wants the laptop but can't access it without the ring (a sort-of key to a ghost drive on it) that Bourne has.Bourne and Arkadin clash, but their confrontation didn't seem as epic as I thought it would be. Their collision was secondary in this novel to setting up the Severus Domna/King Solomon's gold(!) story arcs."Objective" is a good summer read - especially if you've been following the Bourne vs. Arkadin arc - but it's not as good as "Sanction". It was more of a typical thriller than a spy/political intrigue novel.(King Solomon's gold ... really? I'll reserve judgment on that as a plausible Bourne "mission" - for now.)
review 2: Eric van Lustbader is not a writer. A writer would use words appropriately. In the first few pages of The Bourne Objective, van Lustbader uses logarithm when he means algorithm, twice (at least), and he uses precipitously when he means either vertically or perpendicularly.Pellet-sized ultrasonic screamers that paralyze large rooms of people, files locked using "logarithms", burner cellphones a "local call" then one using a 10-digit number, laptop computers with ejectable drives and netbooks that can be massively upgraded by an agent in the field litter this inconclusive chapter of David Webb's life, conflict with reality, adding nothing except length to the book.-Jason's world used to revolve around Marie. Suddenly, in Van Lustbader's second Bourne novel, Marie caught a cold, died and Jason decided to dump their kids with her parents in Canada in the first 25 pages of his 2nd novel and has not seen, mentioned or thought about them since.-Ludlum built some great supporting characters over his 3 Bourne novels and they fleshed out who Jason was. Van Lustbader killed off the remainder of those characters in his 2nd and early pages of his 3rd books. Now, he has introduced a much different supporting cast that dominate, rather than compliment Jason, in his books.-In Van Lustbader's first Bourne novel he told a pretty decent story about Jason, seemingly in his early 40's, finding his long lost son, Khan. Thinking Khan would be a featured character going forward, he has not been heard from since.-Jason, in Ludlum's books, hated Jason Bourne and wanted to be David Webb. Within the first few chapters of Van Lustbader's second novel, Jason gives up being David Webb and little more is mentioned of his life as David Webb.The problem may have been that after having started his series pretty true to Jason Bourne ,due to poor reviews, publisher feedback or trying to fit better to the fans of Matt Damon's younger/edgier Jason Bourne, Van Lustbader then threw away Jason's life and identity, as well as, began killing off Ludlum's supporting characters and introducing his own by the his second book. Not to mention de-aging Jason. Then, he seemly started over from scratch for the next 3 books. Basically reinventing the character with an overhaul of his life and personality. In my opinion, this is where he went wrong. He should have simply did his best to stay with Ludlum's character for Bourne books and write this character as his own character (different name and background) for these last three adventures. less

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