The Prometheus Deception

[vraiblonde]

It annoys me when a book's plot summary has so much promise, but the writing is just so bad that it spoils everything. Supposedly Robert Ludlum is a classic spy novelist, but if this book is any example...

Plot goes like this:

Nick Bryson is a deep undercover agent working for a super secret US spy organization. He screws up a mission and gets retired with a new identity as a college professor.

One day the CIA shows up and informs Bryson that the organization he was working for was actually a Russian intelligence organization, the ultimate spy penetration operation working from within to destroy the US, and Bryson's trusted mentor and best friend, as well as his own wife, is really a Russian agent.

Various plot twists follow - who is really the bad guy, the organization or the "CIA" agent?

Sounds pretty good, right? And in the hands of Nelson DeMille or Vince Flynn, this would have been a page-turner. But Ludlum's writing style is juvenile, with silly dialogue and !!too many!! exclamation!! points!! Then he wants to delve off into pages of minutia that has very little to do with the plot and reads like a weapons manual :boring:

This is an older book - 2000 - so it's unlikely that anyone will pick it up, but I just wanted to complain.

[Larry Gude (Premo)]

Originally Posted by vraiblonde

It annoys me when a book's plot summary has so much promise, but the writing is just so bad that it spoils everything. Supposedly Robert Ludlum is a classic spy novelist, but if this book is any example...

Plot goes like this:

Nick Bryson is a deep undercover agent working for a super secret US spy organization. He screws up a mission and gets retired with a new identity as a college professor.

One day the CIA shows up and informs Bryson that the organization he was working for was actually a Russian intelligence organization, the ultimate spy penetration operation working from within to destroy the US, and Bryson's trusted mentor and best friend, as well as his own wife, is really a Russian agent.

Various plot twists follow - who is really the bad guy, the organization or the "CIA" agent?

Sounds pretty good, right? And in the hands of Nelson DeMille or Vince Flynn, this would have been a page-turner. But Ludlum's writing style is juvenile, with silly dialogue and !!too many!! exclamation!! points!! Then he wants to delve off into pages of minutia that has very little to do with the plot and reads like a weapons manual :boring:

This is an older book - 2000 - so it's unlikely that anyone will pick it up, but I just wanted to complain.

...that's part of the plot! Part of the triple extra deception is it has you thinking it is this dumb, poorly written book when, in fact, the way the words and extra exclamation points work, phsycologically, on your sub conscious, you now have super secret instructions imprinted deep in your psyche!
When the time comes, you will be called upon to perform a service. That time may never come, but if it does, you will be summoned to use all you skill, all your powers to perform this service.

And there is the kicker; figuring out what that service may be. You're now a double, triple agent primed and ready to do it...

What could it be? Assassination? Cure a disease? Rid the world of bad writing?