The Bourne Legacy

I just finished listening to the unabridged recording of the Bourne Legacy, starring Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne but written by Eric Von Lustbader. It was as gripping a tale as the three that precede it, and equally as forgettable. Just a ripping good and highly enjoyable yarn that will be forgotten as soon as it's back on the “shelf”.

I listened to the first in the series, The Bourne Identity, after watching the film of the same name. The film and novel are the same in name only; I thought for a few minutes that I had the wrong book – it's that different!

Since then, I've listened to all four and enjoyed them all. Great for long car journeys, short car journeys and any kitchen work (dishes, cooking, etc.)

I went for a Hogmanay walk with the last chapter, listening to it as I wandered along a country path with my iPod. No distractions; just a chilly winter's day.

I'll probably get tore into the second in the series of George R. R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series, A Clash of Kings next. If it's as good as the first in the series, I'm in for a treat!

TL;DR

Not a terrible action thriller book but a bad Jason Bourne story. My major dislike is how many perspective there are, we switch from three different ones in a single chapter constantly. Jason feels like a side character in his own book. I get into detail in my extensive section but I'm not optimistic about the next book.

My Scoring System

I have five things I look for in a book, if the book checks all five it's a 5/5 stars book, if it checks none it's a 1/5 stars and everything else is a combination:

X - Main Story: It's not as interesting as the previous books because those stories were personal to Bourne, this one he just gets dragged into it because of who he is. No other particular reason. So it doesn't feel as important and quite frankly he didn't have any personal stakes in it.

X - Side Stories (if it applies): One of the problems of this book, I didn't care about the Chechian's war with Russia or the Agency's preparation for a summit with the world leaders. Those side stories were very boring and unfortunately it's a very large portion of the book.

✓ - Characters: The main villain I liked because he was capable, not on par with Carlos but he wasn't just ordering people around he actually got in the field and did the dirty work himself. Khan was good as well, a nice addition in my opinion. Unfortunately from the agency side there wasn't any one I really liked.

✓ - Setting/Ambiance: Just like in the other books we get to see a diverse set of interesting different places.

✓ - Ending: Average ending, nothing spectacular but it wasn't as bad/anticlimactic as the previous book. Everything gets resolved by the end.

Extensive Review

Okay so lets get the obvious out of the way. Different author who wants to do his own thing with Bourne. But we can't ignore the fact that one of my favorite characters from the previous books will never appear again and that does not spark joy. Also it's very jarring how we go from the previous books of Jason's constant obsession with Marie and being so protective and worrying about her to "Gotta go do a thing, go to our safe house." in the first chapters and we never see or hear from her ever again until the end. Now that I think about it the only time Marie talks to Jason is to ask him "Confirm that you want me to go to the safe house." that's it.

If you're going to get rid of my favorite characters at least give me some that are on par with them. The only good one we got here is Khan, the rest are forgettable. In terms of allies, the villain was interesting in my opinion. He was resourceful, clever, and experienced in the field. He didn't just wait in the sidelines and ordered people around, he got his own hands dirty. Not as cool as Carlos though.

I didn't like how Jason feels like a side character in his own book. We get more time with the villain, the agency and the Chechians than we do with Bourne. It's very frustrating how in one single chapter and in the span of two pages after a paragraph we switch perspectives from Jason to the villain, then to the agency then to the Chechians and then back to Jason.

How on earth are we suppose to believe that after a major event happens in the story that Jason was responsible and now the entire agency even the president wants him dead? Literally in the previous book every single person in a high position of power was thankful and said how much of a service Jason did for the world. Now we're back to "I don't know who this Jason is but I want him dead, start a world wide manhunt on him right now." This is absurd.

There were a lot of instances in the previous books where Jason did something and I was like "damn, that's so badass. Jason is so cool." or "Wow I didn't think about that, he really had everything planned." I don't think I've ever felt that here in the entire story. Jason's inner monologue with him trying to take over David and tell him what to do and how to act? Gone. This isn't a Jason Bourne story, this is a David Webb story. I'm not even going into how in the previous book Jason was fifty years old and was constantly struggling and thinking how old he is and how he can't do the same things he was able to do. None of that is mentioned here and I get it's because this author wants to keep making more stories about him so we just have to ignore his age from now on I guess.