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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
56 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Hopefully Covert One is the one and only.,
This review is from: Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor: A Covert-One Novel (Paperback)
"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.
25 of 29 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Hades Factor,
By Mark A Robert (Nashua, New Hampshire USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor: A Covert-One Novel (Paperback)
I am a Ludlum fan (read them all) who loves a good story...not one of those fans who thinks they are a book critic and nitpicks every phrase or fact. If you like a good suspense/espionage story with solid characters that is hard to put down then you will enjoy this book. Lt. Col Robert Smith, MD. is a strong lead character and Marty Zellerbach is an extremely interesting supporting character. Watching Marty battle his Asperger's Syndrome (type of autism) really adds an interesting wrinkle to the story. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to read a good story that is hard to put down..I read it in three days! I look forward to the second book in the series and to reading co-author Gayle Lynds other works.
29 of 37 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Derivative, but with potential,
This review is from: Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor: A Covert-One Novel (Paperback)
When THE MATARESE COUNTDOWN appeared, I wrote a scathing (and well-deserved) review of the worst book Robert Ludlum had ever written. In that review, I suggested that Ludlum either retire or rediscover the passion and inventiveness that marked his early work. With the help of Gayle Lynds, he seems to be making a comeback.THE HADES FACTOR will be familiar to long-time Ludlum readers. The protagonist, Lt. Colonel Jonathan Smith, M.D., faces a conspiracy of monumental proportions aided by only a few long-time acquaintances and a beautiful sidekick. Yet the Ludlum-Lynds tandem breathes new life into this somewhat stale framework. The result is a story that moves along fairly well (although too hastily at times) with much better character development than his most recent work (although one would like to see a little bit more of Smith's background, it will likely be covered later in the series). In particular, I very much enjoyed Martin Zellerbach, the computer genius with Asperger's Syndrome who I sincerely hope will make appearances in other Covert-One novels. Unfortunately, the plot remains problematic. Indeed, THE HADES FACTOR's storyline is almost a mirror image of the most recent Tom Clancy offering, RAINBOW SIX. Without giving too much away, you have a killer virus sprung on the world with ulterior motives (profit this time, not ecological purity as in Clancy's novel). The derivative plot is not the only problem here, but the others are minor in comparison--for instance, the Zellerbach character is drawn a bit too cartoonish despite Ludlum and Lynds's best intentions, but again, this could be touched up in later books. The book is obviously intended to be a jumping off point for a new series of books (all collaborations between Ludlum and other authors one suspects) a la Tom Clancy's OP CENTER. There is definite potential here for sequels, but let's hope that Ludlum and his future partners become more imaginative with their plotlines.
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