More vacation reading from a few weeks ago. After my speculation about who’s writing the Ludlum books that keep coming out, at least The Bourne Legacy, the newest one, acknowledge that the author is someone else: Eric Van Lustbader. The cover screams “Robert Ludlum’s Bestselling Character Jason Bourne,” but does say “A new novel by Eric Van Lustbader.” No surprises here, just your usual international conspiracy foiled by one man. Only real twist is that Bourne meets his son, who he had thought long-dead (boring/contrived backstory). His son is named Khan. All I could think of was William Shatner yelling “Khhhhhaaaaaannnnnnnn.”
Anyway, this is a quick read, and a reasonable 21st century “palate cleanser” before I returned to the 18th century.
Van Lustbader has written many books under his own name, with his own characters. I know that I’ve read The Ninja, sometime back when I was a teenager, but beyond the fact that there were sex scenes mixed in with the obvious martial arts violence, I can’t remember a thing. Apparently, that was the first in a series. Who knew? His biography page doesn’t let on whether the name is a pen name (doesn’t it have to be??), but it does tell us that “He is the author of more than twenty best-selling novels including The Ninja in which he introduced Nicholas Linnear, one of modern fiction’s most beloved and enduring heroes.” My memory failed me, clearly, since despite reading the book, I couldn’t remember the name of the “enduring” hero. Snarkiness aside, I’m sure the rest of the series is good airplane reading, too.
Back to The Bourne Legacy (briefly): I preferred The Janson Directive, whether it was written by Ludlum himself or not. Steve told me a couple of weeks ago, after seeing my curiousity, that he’s heard none of these were written by the Ludlum himself. Guess that estate won’t “kill the golden goose”… even if it’s already dead!