Customer Reviews

Robert Ludlum's The Hades Factor

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(29)
3 star:		(14)
2 star:		(16)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

"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.

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.

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.

I'm a big fan of thrillers and medical thrillers. For straight out political thrillers, I don't think you can do better than Tom Clancy. For medical thrillers, Robin Cook is unparalleled. This book seems to be a great combination of the two authors. I have never read a Robert Ludlum book before, and had no real intention to until I was browsing a bookstore, saw this title, and picked it up. I have always been a fan of fiction dealing with microbes, and especially as biological weapons. This book did not disappoint me. It is fast paced, highly addictive (WARNING - don't being reading late at night - you'll lose a lot of sleep staying up to finish it) and informative without being too hard to understand.

So why didn't I give it 5 stars? Well, I think that the ending plot twist was somewhat predictable, and some of the characters weren't quite realistic enough. Another large disappointment is that the back cover of the book reveals the death of one of the major characters. People don't want to see that - people (or at least I do) want to be surprised by things like that. Overall, those are just minor things, but keep the book from perfection. On the plus side, some of the characters are so intriguing, they just beg for a sequel to continue fleshing out their characters (Marty comes to mind, for those who have read this already).

This is a great read for anyone, but just shy of a perfect biological weapon novel (In my opinion, Executive Orders is unapproachable in that category). It is a worthy beginning to a proposed series, and well worth your time and money.

I have been reading Ludlum for the better part of 25 years. I've read virtually all of his novels. I even suffered through the film version of "The Osterman Weekend". However, while reading "The Hades Factor", I couldn't help but wonder how much, if any, of this mess was written Ludlum and how much was actually written by Gayle Lynds who is listed as co-author.

According to this book, the world is divided into three groups. Group one is made up of an apparently large number of people who would participate in the murder of millions if it would make them rich. Their method of mayhem is the random release of a deadly virus. Since they have no real way of controlling the means of spreading the virus, it means that any of their family or friends could be infected.

The second group is even larger. It is made up of people who are so stupid, they probably deserve to be infected. They are incapable of seeing any relationship between the sudden spread of an unknown virus and group one who will make billions through the use of a "miracle cure" that they just coincidentally happen to have.

The third group is a handful of people who are the heroes of the story. They include a doctor who happens to also be an army commando, a British spy who is sort of a senior citizen version of James Bond, and two characters who are mandatory for this type of book, a beautiful CIA agent and a computer geek. Talk about clichés. The doctor is named Jon Smith. I guess the originality in there was dropping the "h" from his first name.

For those of you who don't know, Ludlum has had heart problems the past few years and has had surgery. Perhaps it has taken something out of him. Perhaps his medical bills have caused him to license out his name to Ms. Lynds. I noted that there is another installment of the adventures of Dr. Smith coming out soon that lists a different co-author. Perhaps Ludlum has decided that he should be more careful about who cashes in on his readership.

This unabridged audio edition(Audio Renaissance) of "The Hades Factor" by Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lynds, and read by Paul Michael had my complete attention for the entire 13 hours it ran. This, the first in the Covert-One series of suspense novels is a fast paced, thriller that kept me involved every step of the way.

When a horrible deadly virus takes the lives of 3 people in different parts of the country, a research scientist tries to put the pieces of the puzzle together to find the connection. She gets close, recalling a strange disease she heard of years earlier as a student. Getting close though, was her mistake, and suddenly finds herself at the hands of murderers. Her boyfriend, Lt. Col John Smith a combat Dr. for U.S.Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, feels he must find the culprits.He is warned by a buddy from the FBI to stay out of it. But the hurt he feels from his loss propels him to get answers. What happened to his beautiful Sofia? The deeper he digs, the worse things get. Pretty soon he is on the run, and he is being chased from all sides. Meanwhile the death toll is steadily rising in huge numbers from the virus. The bad guys can hold the world hostage. Do they really have the cure? Do they also have the virus? What lengths will they go to corner the market on the cure, and can a small group of heroes stop the virus and the monsters responsible?

The characters and the international intrigue and action are great. As Smith investigates, he is in danger at every turn. He picks up a group of friends along the way, each seem to be experts in different fields, to help him.Among them a mild mannered buddy from college who is a whiz on the computer, paranoid and gets a bit spacey without his medication. A cool MI-6 agent who can get in and out of places covertly. The enemies are also well developed characters who are intimidating murderers. Some are even in quite powerful positions, and are able to stop Smith and his team at every turn.

I was very impressed with the Paul Michael's reading. There were many international characters in this story, and Michael's accents were exceptional.. From the Mid-Easterners to the British, there wasn't any question on who was talking. Although, I did think the British agent sounded just a little like Cary Grant! He even did the women well without going over the top. He captured the danger, the excitement, and the roller coaster of emotions perfectly.

The tapes are nicely packaged. It is a two volume set, with 4 two-sided tapes in each volume. Total running time is about 13 hours. The two cases are sturdy and also come in an outer holder as well. The sound was excellent as well. Very clear. The beginning of each chapter is mentioned, and it will let you know when to turn the tape over if you need to. The ISBN of this audio edition is 1559275995. I mention this because there are often reviews of several editions at one site. So if you are interested in this unabridged version, just put that number in the book search.

This was my first Ludlum novel,and I had a great time!I found this to be a fabulous thriller. I enjoyed the danger, the twists and turns, the action, and the international intrigue, and there were even moments to make me smile. Recommended for a long trip or for some great company around the house or stuck on the freeway! I'll be reading other of his soon.

Enjoy....Laurie

some more good thrillers on audio:
Carrie
Winter Prey

'Hades Factor' is the first Ludlum book I have read in a very long time. I greatly enjoyed his early books but stopped reading the late Mr Ludlum's novels after his stories became too incredulous to believe. 'Hades Factor' has many of the fine characteristics of an early Ludlum but seems to have been hastily written. After I was half way through the book, I had to look back to find where the story lost me as a reader; where I started to back away from the story and no longer believed any of the characters. It was around page 70.
Sophia, Jon Smith's love of his life, dies in his arms after being injected with a virus, and in his grief, Jon ... performs an autopsy on his beloved, removes tissue samples and travels the next day to California? Huh? Wait a minute. From this incredibly unbelievable response to death onward, I read this novel from a critical distance, noting the inconsistancies in plot and lack of logic of character motivations. Yet still, I recommend this book for a quick read. Not a great Ludlum, not even a very good one, but some of the good stuff that made a Ludlum novel so appealing still manages to peek through every now and then.

This simply was a great and intense book. Lots of action and likable characters. Although this was not as good as Vector from Robin Cook as far as introducing a lot of good knowledge about bio-war, it is still a great read. I don't think it's one of Ludlum's best but it is worth the read.

Ludlum and Lynds team together to create one awesome bio-terrorist thriller. The great thing about this story is that it has all the earmarks of Ludlum's expertise of espionage at the highest levels combined with the flavor of Lynd's storytelling. One can only hope these two team up again.

This was my first Ludlum book, and I thought it was an exciting read. Although the writing is not as tight and compact as I like, it was a page-turner nonetheless.

The characters are interesting and the plot pushes forward at a quick pace. My total reading time was 6 and 1/2 hours.