I picked up the three Bourne novels today out of curiosity, hoping for some good bedtime reading over the next few weeks. I don’t generally require these books to be award-winning, just entertaining enough to keep me occupied for the hour or so until I doze off. So Ludlum’s trilogy seemed to be a good choice — moderately complicated spy thriller with late 70’s cold-war feel. How bad could it be, right?
Well it turns out that How Bad was Pretty Damn Bad. I hadn’t gotten more than two sentences into the book before doing a double-take. The writing was atrocious, ladies and gents. It was like reading poetry by Dan Brown.
Some excerpts from the first chapter:
The wounded man screamed, his hands now lashing out at anything he could grasp, his eyes blinded by blood and the unceasing spray of the sea. There was nothing he could grab, so he grabbed at nothing; his legs buckled as his body lurched forward. The boat rolled violently leeward and the man whose skull was ripped open plunged over the side into the madness of the darkness below.
“… there was nothing he could grab, so he grabbed at nothing.” Ho-boy. “The madness of the darkness.” Yowza.
Hold it! It will ride you to peace. To the silence of darkness … and peace.
So not only is it clumsily written, it’s full of annoying attempts at depth too. Needless to say, I had to put it down after the first 4 or 5 pages. It was like rubbing my eyeballs with sandpaper for God’s sake.