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Summary: GOOD OLD FASHIONED NON-STOP ACTION FUN!
Review: What a terrrrrific collaboration of two realllly fine writers! I cannot wait for more from these two....and soon! This has it all.....biowarfare, twists and turns, the foreign locales and truly awesome characters....sort of stallone meets arnold in the hot zone! grab it ... read it on a plane trip, on the beach...you'll be glad that you did. While it starts out rather slow, the tension mounts quite fast and soon it's a total page turner!
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Summary: The Hades Factor (Robert Ludlum)
Review: I am a big Ludlum fan. I only purchased this book this afternoon and I plan to set aside the weekend to hopefully enjoy it. I am very concerned though that I may have spent $16.00 on a flop as I consider Tom Clancy's Op-Center series to be. I've always enjoyed Clancy but have been very disappointed with his recent collabarations. I dearly hope this will not be the case here but I've enjoyed Robert Ludlum for so many years that I would hate to be dissappointed. Normaly I would wait until after I have read the book to review it but the premise seems so tired that I already know what to expect. I hope I'm wrong. If by chance Mr. Ludlum you read this if it doesn't work out please don't pull a Clancy, NOTHING IS BETTER THAN DRIVEL! Here's to a fair shake! BILL
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Summary: Hopefully ¿Covert One¿ is the one and only.
Review: "He yanked the steering wheel, turned the RV around, and blasted it out of the forest like toothpaste from a tube." I do not believe that Mr. Ludlum would write that wretched a metaphor.I am about as loyal a reader of Mr. Ludlum as I could be. I have read all of his books, and certainly some have been better than others, however this breaks new ground and then sinks into it. The only bright spot is that he has what I hope will be a great novel that is shown on the inside cover, "The Prometheus Deception", arriving this fall. This next work will carry only his name, and I hope it restores him to the top of the list in this genre. Reviewers did not greet his last full novel with great enthusiasm. Read the description of the book's storyline on the back cover, think for a moment, and if it sounds familiar, don't be surprised. The same description could be used for one of this summer's movies, and a ticket to it costs less. The mechanics of how the story is carried out, again from another movie from the not too distant past. I lived in the town and worked in one of the Cities that are used in the book. No one involved with this book knows anything about the City in question. They mention a prominent structure and it's newness. I don't now how you describe a structure that has stood for decades as new, or recent, or in the last 20 years. The book is riddled with factual errors; the story has been done many times, and done many times better. Mr. Ludlum evidently produced this as a joint effort with Ms. Gayle Lynds. I have no idea who wrote what, but the result is not worth your reading time. At one point during the story President Castilla of the United States says, "Are we all to perish under our own stupidity". The answer Mr. President is yes, if you believe a massive Pharmaceutical Campus can be built in a National Park. Buy and read almost anything else.
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Summary: Ludlum's back and he's got reinforcements!
Review: This book is fantastic. It came out yesterday and I read it in one night (I am suffering slight sleep deprivation today). I am a big fan of Ludlum and I have actually read some of Lynds' other books. They really make a great team. They both share the same strength--research and accuracy of research. I am not sure if one of them has a medical background, but I was amazed at the depth this book goes into, I not only enjoyed the action but felt like I learned a few things. The action scenes are classic Ludlum (the scenes on the eastern slope of the sierras were great, they made me miss backpacking). As much as I love Ludlum's work, Lynds seems to bring an extra dimension to the characters, she takes the typical action-hero and makes him believable. Marty, the guy with asperger's syndrome, was particularly entertaining. Of course, any good action book needs villains, and theirs are not only well-developed, but particularly depraved.
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Summary: Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor
Review: "The Hades Factor" is a unique spy thriller unlike any other book or film. Like Bourne (movies), Robert Ludlum has given an unique twist to the spy thriller genre in creating quite complex twists and cliffhangers with deep character development instead of cardboard-like characters you see in James Bond films or novels. An unique story of a doomsday virus of no name and mystrey to others which threatens the entire world and that of every-day life. Great characters, plot twists and overall suspense make "The Hades Factor" a great novel.
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Summary: The start of what could be an exciting series
Review: In the prolog three seemingly unrelated people dye of a uniquely fast acting virus. Prepare for gushing blood and more.
Our hero, U.S. Army Lt. Col. Jonathan ("Jon") Smith M.D. from USAMRIID, is warned by an old friend to be ware of the Ides of March. Oops I meat that the friend xxx warns him that he is in trouble. Evidently the warning is too little too late to save the love of his life. He spends the rest of the story with the help of some extraordinary friends, tracking down the culprits.
All the characters are bigger than life. They can go anywhere and do anything whit out the annoying details that would make the story impossible. Of course Robert Ludlum is a tad over descriptive and fluffs a 100 page tale into a 400 page tale mostly with gushy stuff (I suspect the influence of Gayle Lynds). The very thing that makes this story surreal is the very thing that makes this story fun. I am looking forward to the next book in the "Covert-One" series.
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Summary: Don't Be Fooled By A Cheap Imitation
Review: Robert Ludlum fans will be greatly disappointed. I know this wasn't written by him, I'm guessing someone found an outline of his or something like that. The idea is very Ludlum but the characters and dialogue are straight from a grade school easy-reader. Read a true Ludlum book and you'll notice the difference immediately.
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Summary: Hades Factor a quick start to the Covert One series
Review: Despite being a long-term Ludlum fan, I had previously been hesitant to jump into the Covert One series. This changed when I picked up Cassandra Compact in an airport bookstore. Having enjoyed Cassandra Compact, I decided to go back to the beginning of the series. With The Hades Factor, I was not disappointed. The tale, although lighter and clearly not nearly as complex as the typical Ludlum, kept me turning the pages. This book, which grabs the reader early and does not let go, contains much of the suspense and plot twists that Ludlum aficionados have come to love in the conspiracy-thriller genre. If you are considering picking up the Covert One books, I would recommend starting with The Hades Factor. It is a very quick read and provides a nice foundation in terms of character building for future works in the series.
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Summary: There ain't no such thing as a free vaccine
Review: The Hades Factor is the first in a series written by Gayle Lynds with perhaps some creative input from the late Robert Ludlum. Lynds has crafted a suspenseful thriller with solid, though perhaps stereotypical characters, and a good story line, though the ending was not that strong. Our band here consists of Smith, a soldier-doctor-medical researcher, his CIA agent almost-sister-in-law, his best friend from high school-millionaire computer geek, and an aging British secret agent, living alone in the California mountains with only a trained mountain cat for company and protection. This is the first in the Covert-One series, as the government decides to formalize this group after their stunning success here. The protangonist, Smith, finds himself AWOL, on the run from Arab killers, set up by another high school friend, grieving over the murder of a fiancee and several colleagues, and seemingly on his own to contain the world's worst outbreak of a deadly virus. Also, it seems that the evil plot has been hatched by a conspiracy of greedy businessmen, government and military officials, that goes all the way to the pinnacle of power. And that is only the first two chapters. Forunately, Smith manages to suppress his grieving, outrun the bad guys long enough to assemble his team in a armor plated Winnebago, and escape down a California logging trail. Here the team splits up with the commando and the geek heading east, hacking every computer on the trail of the criminals, while Smith heads to Iraq on the trail of the virus, where he meets up with Russell, the sister of his late fiancee. Ultimately, the team determines that a pharmaceutical firm has been spreading the virus for many years, simultaneously developing and stockpiling the vaccine, in order to prosper from the worldwide disaster they created. The science and technology descriptions are masterfully revealed, a true strength of both Ludlum and Lynds. Finally, this thing comes to a rather weak conclusion, with the perpetrators being revealed and caught in a formulaic fashion.
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