The Bourne Legacy

It’s been twenty-five years since Robert Ludlum published The Bourne Identity and fifteen years since the third and final book of the series, The Bourne Ultimatum, was published. With the popularity of the new Matt Damon movies, Ludlum’s estate gave the project of resurrecting the series to Eric Van Lustbader. In hindsight, it would have helped if someone had made sure Lustbader had actually read Ludlum’s books. Lustbader’s The Bourne Legacy is a sequel of the worst order; a horribly written dime store novel, filled with characters that are only shadows of their once vibrant selves, full of countless continuity errors as the author gleefully violates the rules of the series, rewriting it to make it his own. Anyone who thinks they can do a better job with an author’s characters than the author himself should read this to see what happens when such material is put in the wrong hands.

As a hugh fan of Robert Ludlum, I found the Bourne triligy to be his finest work and before the movies were made, I had seen Kiefer Sutherland in the role. Sadly that did not become the case but on the back of the sucess of the movies the Bourne Legacy was written.


David Webb (the once renown killer Jason Bourne) is living with his family in a small college town when his past comes back to haunt him once again. After he is attacked by an assassin known as Khan he escapes to Alex Conklin’s home to find both Conklin and Mo Panov have been brutally murdered, and the hastily approaching police sirens tell him he has been set up. For the rest of the book Bourne tries to piece together the plot that involves the death of his two oldest friends, the attempt on his life, discovering the secret of something worth killing over known only as NX 20, a terrorism summit in Reykjavik, a terrorist cell that seems to be always three steps ahead of Bourne, and the assassin Khan who is in fact Bourne’s long lost son Joshua who wants nothing more than to see David Webb dead. Bourne must again defy the odds to personally save the day, eliminate the evil doers, make up with his rather brutal killer of a son, and make it home to Marie and his kids.

The Diagnosis
Lustbader’s major flaw is he takes his character from the novels and the Matt Damon movies equally, and so he cannot be true to either. The Bourne history from Ludlum’s books is basically intact, but our new author brings one character, Bourne’s son Joshua, back to life, kills two rather important characters, Mo Panov and Alex Conklin, in a rather poorly thought out minor plot twist, and completely ignores the character of Marie, who is central to keeping her husband sane in the previous novels.

Another problem is Bourne is no longer haunted by his past, the transition for him to be Webb or Bourne is seamless, a rather huge departure from the novels. We are also confronted with huge continuity errors. By killing Panov and Conklin this book must take place after Ultimatum, yet the Bourne we are presented with is a much younger man than Ludlum described in that book. This also raises the issue of Khan’s age, which we never truly discover. Just how old is our wayward boy? His very appearance in the novel (much alone his huge role) is cringe inducing. By allowing Joshua to live it cheapens David Webb; it also turns the deadly Jason Bourne into something of a deadbeat absentee father. And the fact that Joshua has survived to become the world’s best assassin since Jason Bourne is something you’re more likely to expect from geek boy fan-fiction rather than a novel approved by Ludlum’s estate.

The plot of the book winds around a few too many corners, placing emphasis on shocking plot twists rather than a cohesive novel that can stand scrutiny. Whether the idea to use Bourne’s son to try a relaunch the series was Lustbader’s or someone else’s it fails completely. It tarnishes the character of Jason Bourne. Instead of bringing Khan to the level of Jason Bourne (which was obviously the author’s intent) it makes Bourne seem less special, more ordinary, as so lowers both of them to a more modest level. In the end we are left with a Bourne novel that reads like a pale shallower version of what once was, and what I don’t believe we’re likely to see again.

Scammers

I recieved an email about three months ago from a person claiming to be a young woman stuck in a refugee can in Dakar and that she was the daughter of a wealthy diplomat that was murdered along with her mother, brothers and sisters and that she needs my help to release funds from a bank and that there is 6.5 million waiting for me if I help blah blah blah.

I am not the king for nothing, I knew it was a scam from the first email, so instead of telling them to sod off I decided to have some fun. If you can see a trap then you can avoid it etc. So I replied back and offered by help. It has been three months and counting and the emails are still travelling back and forth. I was going to post there email addresses here but not yet I dont want someone to wreck my fun by warning them.

The attached photo is one "she" sent to me. If you have know her then send details to me.

I will try and see how long I can drag out this scam on the scammers. While they are busy with me they wont be scamming some gullable fool.

The last email detailed a bank in holland so I did a google on it and up with a site warning about scammers. If they have not the brains to change the fake names what are you going to do.

I will keep you posted on this as it developes and if and when it comes to its conclusion, I will post all the details I have on them.