Robert Ludlum: Does it get better?

[Steve]

At a thrift store today, I found a box of paperbacks for 25 cents each. It contained a lot of Robert Ludlum novels. I had heard of him, of course, but I had never read any of his work. I grabbed four titles and plunked down a buck.

I started reading with "The Scorpio Illusion," and quit after about 100 pages. The characters were wooden, with melodramatic backgrounds. The plot moved at a headlong pace, with little time to spare for character development. The dialogue was trite, and forced. The action scenes were implausible. The plot was cliche.

I know Ludlum has many novels to his credit, bestsellers among them. Can anyone in this group tell me if I just got unlucky and picked a stinker he wrote in a month to meet a contractual obligation? Does it get better? Or did I waste a dollar?

The other titles I bought were "The Bourne Identity," "The Gemini Contenders" and "The Parsifal Mosaic." Any thoughts on which book I should try next?

[Feliks, Moderator]

You wuz robbed! Sorry to hear your bad experience. But I can't say I'm all that surprised.

The rule with Ludlum is to stay away from his later works. Of the four you purchased, I can only recommend 'The Gemini Contenders' and 'The Bourne Identity'. At least there you will see his original style. Those other ones..who knows what kink in his colon he shat them out of.

Ludlum's problems were always these same ones you mention. Thin characters, hokum, predictability. He wrote a ton of books all according to a rigidly-repetitive formula. It held him back for years, kept him in the supermarket paperback aisle. Still, this fatal flaw was much less apparent in his early career. He was sincerely striving for excellence in his early days.

'Bourne' is really a paradox in publishing: for some fluke reason it became his smash hit; but at the time it was nothing special compared to any of his other titles.

The irony of it all is that when he finally got this success it was almost an afterthought, almost too late; and it arrived due to randomness rather than from any deliberate motion on his part. Ludlum had already begun to get very lazy and 'Bourne' was one the last decent reads from his early-to-middle period.

However--bam! It became a mega-hit and people naturally--but mistakenly--assume that everything else from his hand, is at least of this same caliber. Not so. Not at all. He continued his slide and in fact, even got worse.

[Steve]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Felix. I will tackle "The Gemini Contenders" next. I see from a chronological list that "The Parsifal Mosaic" follows immediately on the heels of "The Bourne Identity," so perhaps it will be OK, too.

[Steve]

I finished "The Gemini Contenders." It is not anywhere near the caliber of Le Carre or Greene, but it held my interest enough to keep me going. It is more of a "beach read" than a "makes-you-think" book, which is OK with me.

It was vastly superior to the first hundred pages of "The Scorpio Illusion." The difference is quite dramatic.

I still found his characters in "Gemini" mostly lacking in depth, but not so bad as those in "The Scorpio Illusion." The plot was predictable in just about every detail. So, while I might give more of his early works a try if they come my way cheaply, I won't seek them out, and I won't pick Ludlum unless I am in the mood to coast through a book.

[Feliks, Moderator]

That's fair. Pretty much how I feel.

[Sanchit]

well... ludlum never gets better, I guess now a days the biggest issue we are facing with Smash hits is whether they are really hits or not, I was able to deduce to factors behind this:

1. Rich Author, Big Marketing budgets, ability to sell cheap paperbacks and gain the profit from large number of books sold.
2. Due to a sudden trend in drastically reducing the cost of paperbacks and flashy covers a large number of new comers are starting to read books when they are traveling or something like that. Which is a good thing though. But it really causes an impact on ratings of a book. They have read nothing of real value which they can compare with works of Alistair Maclean, John le carre, Frederick Forsyth or similar great writers. So they simply give 4 or 5 stars to some stupid books, in the end readers like you and me which are lovers of classic mystery reads, sometime fell for these shining fake gold and then regret later...

But dont worry it happens with best of us...

[Feliks, Moderator]

Good recap there

[David]

I find him to be hit or miss.....The Road to Omaha, was awful. The Bourne books were ok, but read them long ago, so I've really forgotten, but just remember that I read them along time ago, so my memory is faded. Recently read the Holcroft Covenent, but thought it was unbelievable with a superman character. I did like the Tristan Betrayal as it was good story, though a tad longer than need be, which is to me a fault of Ludlum along with supermam characters.

Like the opening post, I picked up about ten of his hardback books at my local book depot (friends of the library) for a buck a piece and threw them on the shelf......if I don't like it after a 100 pages, back to depot they go, well read or not they go back.

I just started reading The Rhineman Exchange, 1/4 the way into it, so far so good.

[David]

The Rhineland exchange was decent, hero had a few faults, but overall an interesting tale.

[Feliks, Moderator]

Glad to hear. I always enjoy a story with neo-nazis as the baddies, myself.

[Bobby]

Now, I read it a long time ago but I remember loving The Bourne Identity. It had the extra dimension of having as its primary villain, Carlos, the real-life assassin. At the time, Carlos was still a pretty shadowy figure. But the set-up is great. I don't remember a lot about it besides that but I was a teenager at the time. I will say, I thought the movie fell short of that initial reading experience. But I think I could stand by a recommendation.

[Steve]

I appreciate all the thoughts, people. I am reading an old-fashioned mystery now ("Rebecca," by Daphne du Maurier) and may give Ludlum a go after that.