Wednesday, August 21, 2013

icarus agenda

I've read a few books by Robert Ludlum but not a lot of them. The Icarus Agenda is a little dated but holds up pretty well. I didn't love this book but it was pretty good.

The beginning was a little wonky, as was the end. In fact the whole thing was a little screwy in its construction. Our man Evan needs a little juice, a little je ne sais quoi, in order for him to be taken seriously, further on in the novel. Many writers would bang out a prelude or something, just to give us the flavor. A litte tasty-taste of our man's bad-assery. Elude to some adventure so we could see that Evan's not a puss. Not Ludlum tho. Ludlum writes a story within a story. The prelude is book in itself. It's like 150 pages. Then I'm like, so that happened... and we pick up Evan chillin' back at the ranch a year or so later until something from his past comes to bite him in the ass.

Can you guess what it is?

Ya, so, Evan's back at it. Drawn back in to be the reluctant hero and save everyone and everything he loves. Which includes... America.

The last part of the story is one final escapade. It needs doing, but contrary to the first operation and certainly the second, this mission wraps up in one or two chapters. Certainly as complex an objective  as the first one, but Evan bangs it out in about 20 pages and is home for dinner and a glass of Canadian whiskey by 7:30 and all is right with the world.

Maybe Ludlum originally intended to write a trilogy similar to the Bourne franchise but his editors didn't think it had the legs so he consolidated into one volume. That's what it feels like anyway.


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