CBR-III: Book #37: A Walk in the Woods

For those of you who are friends of mine on Facebook you’ve seen the pictures I post when I go hiking. For those of you who only read the blog you might notice a couple of posts where I talk about hiking…I even have one completely dedicated to it. When my Army buddy Chris had leave from his post at Fort Stewart he called me up to do some drinking. During the course of that drinking with him and his sister we got into the conversation of hiking. His sister apparently does a lot of hiking and I mentioned a desire to hike the AT. She immediately began to barrage me with a list of everything that I would need, how much said gear would cost, and how I would logistically go about it. During the course of the bombardment she mentioned a book she really liked by a guy named Bill Bryson called A Walk in the Woods. It was his attempt at hiking the AT with a buddy of his. I’ve never heard of Bryson before but he is a non-fiction writer that has, apparently, written several well liked travel logs. I…for one…thought travel logs were all but extinct. He’s also known for his humor. Which is well used in A Walk in the Woods.

I’ve always heard that hiking the AT is fucking hard. You have to manage around 15 miles a day, it extends from Maine to Georgia, and you have within a certain time window to actually complete it (before the trail is shut down due to weather). Bryson manages to describe the details of the trail without overwhelming you. He mentions murders that have happened on the trail, of attacks by wild animals, and yet his attitude is basically…fuck it. He tells you these things, and then basically says he didn’t really give a shit. I think that’s the attitude that most people on the trail would need to have. Yes, you have the possibility of blah, blah, blah, but you basically just need to ignore it. It’s all about will power.

The book begins with him getting ready, then the addition of an old friend, Katz, who is going to go on the trail with him. While Bryson is in relative shape, Katz is the exact opposite. Remember the story I told you about Tim when he went hiking with me? Bryson almost gives the exact same description in his book. I would honestly say I also like the beginning of the book better. In the beginning it is more story, often humorous. In the end the book becomes more about a history lesson. This is due, mainly in part (and what seriously disappointed me in the book), to the fact that Bryson doesn‘t actually complete the entire trail. In fact, he doesn‘t even do half of it. There are times when him and Katz skip entire sections because they, “Don‘t feel like it.” By the middle of the book they just quit, and when they do go (way farther up the trail) to hike again…they quit again. Yet Bryson proudly declares that he still feels he “hiked the AT.”

An example of a humorous portion would be like this: “All the books tell you that if the grizzly comes to you, on no account should you run. This is the sort of advice you get from someone who is sitting at a keyboard when he gives it. Take it from me, if you are in an open space with no weapons and a grizzly comes for you, run. You may as well. If nothing else, it will give you something to do with the last seven seconds of your life.”

Interesting accounts like this: “There is one recorded instance of a woman smearing honey on her toddler’s fingers so that the bear would lick it off for the video camera. Failing to understand this, the bear ate the baby’s hand.”

Historical accounts like this: “To that end, biologists dumped several drums of a poison called rotenone into fifteen miles of creek. Within hours, tens of thousands of dead fish were floating on the surface like autumn leaves, Among the thirty-one species of Abrams Creek fish that were wiped out was one called the smoky mad tom, which scientists had never seen before. Thus, Park Service biologists managed the wonderfully unusual accomplishment of discovering and eradicating in the same instant a new species of fish.”

Or this: “Alden Patridge…On a typical trip he strode 110 miles over the mountains from Norwich to Williamstown, Massachusetts, trotted up Mount Greylock, and came back home the same way. The trip there and back took him just four days--and at this time, remember, when there were no maintained footpaths or helpful blazes.

He complains about the laziness of modern people…like this: “I know a man who drives 600 yards to get to work. I know a woman who gets in her car to go a quarter of a mile to a college gymnasium to walk on a treadmill, then complains passionately about the difficulty of finding a parking space.”


I can’t really tell you, therefore, if I truly liked the book or not. I mean…I liked it, but I was also intensely disappointed in it. Other than the fact that Bryson doesn’t even complete half the trail I was also looking for something less ecology based. Toward the end of the book, like I said, he goes on huge tirades about environmental issues and how humans are destroying everything. That’s not what I was looking for, especially considering the beginning of the book. I was looking for more of an internal perspective. I wanted to see if, after completing over 2,000 miles of trail, how it had changed him. I wanted to see how his view of nature changed. Sure, we get some looks at other hikers. He describes which shelters are awesome…and which ones suck. He talks about what it’s like to run into civilization again after being away from it for days. He even mentions how much a shower and an actual meal really matters. There are several times where his comments irked me though. I never really got the feeling that Bryson likes nature (considering all the times he ran for a hotel when given the chance). Some of his attitudes and perspectives were the exact opposite of the reasons I hike. He discussed how every tree started to look alike. How he didn’t like the solitude of being surrounded by nothing but trees, etc. That is the exact reason I hike. I like to be away from it all.

CBR-III: Book #20-36

Uhhhhh. I’ve been debating for the last hour about how to actually write this. Much like when I did the Women’s Murder Club; I’m about to attack an entire series. Sixteen books…to be exact. I suppose I should start this, ideally, by saying that there will likely be plenty of spoilers. Not because I want to spoil anything for you, rather, it will kind of be hard not to. The series? James Patterson’s Alex Cross series. Along Came a Spider, Kiss the Girls, Jack & Jill, Cat & Mouse, Pop Goes the Weasel, Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue, Four Blind Mice, The Big Bad Wolf, London Bridges, (Mary, Mary), Cross, Double Cross, Cross Country, (I, Alex Cross), and Alex Cross's Trial. I was actually finishing I, Alex Cross at the bar last night and every time someone asked me what I was reading I would respond with, “The next to last book in the Alex Cross series.”
Naturally, they would give me a confused look. My next response was, “Have you ever seen Kiss the Girls with Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd? How about Along Came a Spider with Morgan Freeman.”
“Oh! Yeah!”
“Yeah. Freeman plays Alex Cross. Those films were based on the first two books in the series.”
I guess I can start by saying that, once again, Hollywood fucked up. They fucked up first by doing the films out of sequence. As listed above, Along Came a Spider should have been the first film. Also, while I love Morgan Freeman, he was entirely miscast as Cross. Did he have the wisdom/personality that Cross carries with him? Somewhat. Well, let me describe Alex Cross and maybe you’ll understand.

Dr. Alex Cross, the Dragon Slayer, homicide detective in Washington, D.C. He grew up poor. Raised by his grandmother, Nana Mama, from a young age. Nana Mama was a teacher, stands five feet tall, and has more authority in Cross’s life than anyone else. She’s the ruler of her house and she rules it with an iron fist (Alex still lives with her in the same house he grew up in). She’s also supposed to be an amazing cook and extremely cultured and knowledgeable. Coming up with him since childhood is his on again-off again partner, Detective John Sampson, the Man Mountain. Sampson himself stands 6’9” and weighs around 245lbs. Even he is afraid of Nana Mama. He has a habit of calling Cross, “Sugar.“ Cross himself is 6’3” and weighs around 200lbs. He is often described as looking like a young Muhammad Ali. Before becoming a cop he went to college and got his PH.D. in Psychology. He is, currently, the father of three children: Damon, Janelle, and Alex Jr. He has also been widowed and recently remarried. In the first books he would be in his late 30’s/early 40’s and by the last book he is in his mid-to-late 40’s. Hence why the 60 year old Morgan Freeman wasn’t a very good choice. In many ways the boxing trained, piano playing, Cross, relies on his power and athletic abilities. He also plays heavily on his charm. Even though he is supposed to appear relatively modest he is constantly being hit on by women…and hits on them back. The only thing I would say that has become considerably annoying with Cross is repetition.
In every book he “realizes” that he needs to be there more for his kids. In every book he “realizes” that his job is too dangerous. In every book he “realizes” that he doesn’t want to answer the phone. In every book he “realizes” that he is not giving his relationships enough attention. In every book he “realizes” that he doesn’t know if he wants to be a cop anymore. Get my point? The repetition is annoying. By the end of the third book I wanted to punch him in the face.
It’s not just in his mind though…Cross is repetitious elsewhere…particularly with the ladies.

Cross is a hopeless romantic. He wants to find love, desperately. His children want him to also. In fact, every single fucking woman he brings home they love and want him to marry. For real. Also, despite his romantic nature and general sense of “I suck” that he seems to portray, he constantly has a lady friend. Not only that, but every single one is either the most beautiful woman he has ever seen, or the smartest, or both. For a guy that would certainly consider himself to be a romantic loser…he sure has no problem getting the ladies. The dude never strikes out. Ever. If only those ladies knew that dating him would basically be a death wish. I feel the need to take you down the Cross lady tree. Let’s begin.
Ellie Randall/Cox: while you technically aren’t introduced to her until Cross Country I felt the need to throw her in here first. She dated Cross in his academic days. Oh yeah…she gets murdered.
Maria Simpson Cross: His wife. Mother of two of his children. Murdered.
Jezzie Flanigan: An FBI agent…who wasn’t what she seemed. They did some love making. Executed.
Christine Johnson: The principal at Damon and Janelle’s school. They get it on…he wants to propose to her…she gets kidnapped by a serial killer and disappears for around a year. During that disappearance she has Alex Jr. She comes back pretty fucked up.
Betsey Cavalierre: Worked with Cross. They get it on. Murdered.
Jamilla Hughes: A detective on the West Coast. They date for a little while and break up because they can’t do the long distance relationship. She’s a lucky one!
Kayla Coles: A doctor who treated patients door to door. He was technically still dating Jamilla when he started flirting with the good doctor. During their relationship she is almost murdered by a crackhead. In the aftermath she moves back home to North Carolina. Does he fight for her, try to stick it out? No. He’ll date a woman that lives across the country from him, but he won’t go after one that lives 4-5 hours away.
Bree: A fellow detective with the MPD. He’s actually married to her now.
Adanne Tansi: While technically still dating Bree, cross traveled to Africa in Cross Country. While he never had sex with her they did become quite intimate and even sleep in the same bed together a few times. She was tortured, murdered, and then raped.
The ladies sure know how to pick em. I pretty sure that if I was Cross I would never date…ever.
Don’t forget his nieces. Naomi Cross (kidnapped) and Caroline Cross (murdered).

The killers.
I think I mentioned when I reviewed the Women’s Murder Club that I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to face serial killers…all the fucking time. I also didn’t see how it was realistic. Oh, sure, I understand that Alex Cross is the Dragon Slayer. He’s the dude that fucks up serious criminals. He always gets his man. But…he’s a fucking cop. Sure, for like a three book stretch there (from The Big Bad Wolf to Cross) he’s no longer a detective but works for the FBI. I also understand that he “helps” the FBI in some cases when he is a detective (and that little stint as a psychologist when he still worked for the FBI and MPD as a consultant). No dude goes after what appears to be every fucking serial killer. From East Coast to West Coast and everything in the middle.

He’s a detective, Patterson. Why don’t you, I don’t know, have him solve multiple, individual, murders in his city? You know, instead of spending a whole entire book where he tracks down another serial killer (in some cases, fair enough, you’ve had him go after numerous serial killers in the same book…at the same time.). I mean, a quick search on the internet just pulled up that almost 200 people are murdered a year in D.C. I’ll get off my soapbox though.

There are three notorious killers in the Alex Cross series; The Mastermind (Kyle Craig), Weasel (Geoffrey Shafer), and Gary Soneji. These are the only killers to have a multiple book arch. The longest running would be The Mastermind…what with Kyle Craig actually making his appearance in the second book of the series and currently still going. Two of them, The Mastermind and Gary Soneji, even escape prison to come after Cross again (although it takes The Mastermind 5 books to do so).

Some other little things of note that I found interesting?

In the book Cross Country the villain goes by the name of Tiger. Tiger is listed as being 6’6” and 250lbs. In other words he’s almost the same size as Sampson…in fact, he’s just 3 inches shorter. Yet, even with them being in the same vicinity of each other, Patterson neglects to give us a brawl. Damn’t. I was waiting the entire novel for that fight to happen. Way to disappoint.

"The great jazzman Hilton Fenton came over to our table and told us a funny story about the actor Morgan Freeman." -Cross
"Or maybe some choice line of Morgan Freeman's from The Bucket List." -I, Alex Cross

If he mentions Morgan Freeman more than that I didn’t realize it. I tried to take a note every time his name was mentioned, but I read some of these books, while drinking, to the point that I got double vision.

"Tom Clancy had mentioned the bar in Patriot Games, but in the novel he said there was a picture of George Patton on the wall, which upset the bar's regulars, especially since Clancy had made a career out of being in the know. The Command Post was a Marine's bar, not Army." -The Big Bad Wolf (which is after Four Blind Mice).

Was that a burn? It feels like a burn to me. That you would pick out a singular offence like this and call it out in your book. Not to mention it wasn’t some huge error…it was a picture hanging on the wall in a bar. Now, the reason why I made a note of Four Blind Mice to go along with that quote is this. In Four Blind Mice Cross is on the trail of a group of killers. The killers like to hang out in a cabin in the woods, where they have nice games (where people can’t be heard screaming), and where they go hunting. That place was Kennesaw Mountain in Kennesaw, GA. I live about twenty minutes away from Kennesaw Mountain. It’s a State Park…which means there is no hunting. It is surrounded by roads…think of it like an island. Surrounding the park are sub-divisions and smaller roads that are lined with houses. In other words…there are no rural areas of Kennesaw Mountain where someone can hunt and no one can hear you scream. Kennesaw itself is a college town. So, Patterson, before you go insulting someone about a little error about a picture in a bar…maybe you should make sure that on of your major plot settings is…I don’t know…actually feasible.

I waited to discuss Alex Cross’s Trial until the end because it is kind of a stand alone book. It’s supposed to be written for you to believe that Cross himself is writing it. The story follows Ben Corbett (6‘4“ height always seems to play a role in the Cross series), an often times pro-bono lawyer who specializes with trials regarding racism. He is tasked by President Roosevelt to go to Mississippi (Ben’s hometown) to see if an overwhelming number of hangings were occurring (as he'd been hearing). There he is told to find Abraham Cross (Cross's 6'7" great-uncle) to aid him in his task. I think I liked this story the best because of the time period; otherwise it’s like every other Cross story. All the women want Ben but he’s got a wife and two kids back home that he really loves. Basically replace Cross with Ben…they’re pretty much identical. Except Ben is white.

So that’s the Alex Cross series in a nutshell. If you actually finished this entire review…I salute you. The books aren’t bad, honestly. I could read one in about 4 hours. I have no doubt that they would make for an excellent vacation/airplane read.

A Look At The BBC Show Robin Hood

I’ve been in a kick lately of watching BBC shows. I don’t know what it is, and no, it’s not Doctor fucking Who. I’ve been watching shows like Primeval, MI-5 (or Spooks in the UK) and Robin Hood. Not to mention the show Survivors that I decided to get into.

I really got attached to Robin Hood and Primeval…which included me watching every episode from both shows. Now my UK friends have yelled at me for watching Primeval but that show is like watching an episode of the movie Lake Placid every time you tune in. It is so bad it’s awesome. This blog, however, I don’t really want to talk about any of the other shows except for Robin Hood.

I can’t really say I’m a fan of the story of Robin Hood. Although I have seen many incarnations of it: Robin Hood, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Robin Hood: Men in Tights, Robin Hood (Russell Crowe is fat), and the animated Robin Hood where Robin is a fox. I liked this BBC version of it though. It reminded me of growing up watching Hercules: The Legendary Journeys and Xena: Warrior Princess…especially when I got older and developed a huge crush on Gabrielle (Renée O'Connor) at least before she got uber buff. I even watched Young Hercules that starred Ryan Fucking Gosling as the man, er, boy, himself.

Robin Hood aired in 2006, 2007, and 2009, but maybe the BBC just likes doing that (Survivors aired in 2008 and 2010). I don’t know why it had a year hiatus, and I can honestly think that it might have had something to do with why the show didn’t get picked up for a fourth season. I mean in TV if you’re gone for a year you might as well be gone for good. I also noticed something else between season two and season three…the production value.

The production value was actually something that was rather hilarious in the first two seasons. In particular Richard Armitage's outfit as Guy of Gisborne. That outfit was a fucking joke. It looked like something out of a reject 80’s hair metal band crossed with an S&M wannabe. The shoulders alone made me laugh every time I saw them. It wasn’t just Guy either, you could tell it in all of the characters. I wondered as soon as the first episode of season three came on about why the sudden influx in costumes. In the first season I can remember several scenes that caught my attention. One being a guy wearing a pair of pants that actually had a zipper. Another was the belt buckles, several of them were entirely too modern. Then again there was the scene where Will Scarlett (played by Harry Llyod who is now Viserys Targaryen on Game of Thrones) is laying on top of a roof and you can clearly see the rubber soled hiking boots he is wearing. The sets were similar to this change of play as well. In seasons one and two they tended to rotate between the same 3-4 sets, rarely deviating. In season three they even took the viewer to new cities (although we did travel to Acre at the end of season two). Instead of just Nottingham we were treated to a view of York. The CGI, while almost nonexistent in the first two seasons (and when used was incredibly SyFy channel worthy) also made more of an appearance, to better effect.

The cast was also spectacular for what they were doing. I already mentioned Richard Armitage (who will be playing Thorin Oakenshield in The Hobbit movies and makes an appearance in Captain America: The First Avenger) and Harry Llyod, but it also included Jonas Armstrong as Robin Hood, Gordon Kennedy as Little John, Sam Troughton as Much...Robins best friend/once servant (who, if I remember correctly, was the first person to get infected in the AvP movie), Joe Armstrong as Allan A Dale, Lucy Griffiths (so hot) as Marian, Anjali Jay as Djaq (a foreigner who joins the group as their somewhat doctor), and Keith Allen as the Sheriff of Nottingham. Of all of them Keith Allen was the only one that drove me nuts. I don't know what it was, I guess he either hammed it up too much or I just couldn't stand him. I mean, I don't think you're supposed to like the Sheriff of Nottingham, but Alan Rickman was fucking awesome. In season three they added Friar Tuck, played by David Harewood, and he's black...I guess that's how they added color. They also brought in Joanne Froggatt as Kate, Lara Pulver as Isabella, and Clive Standen as Archer (who is currently playing Gawain on Camelot). Shit, how can I forget the wonderful role of King Richard was played by Steven Waddington who was in The Last of the Mohicans and Sleepy Hollow. He was only in one episode, but he fucking nailed it.

I could tell there would be changes when we lost several of the main characters at the end of season two, and I felt it again at the end of season three. In fact, season three kind of sealed the shows fate. SPOILERS: At the end of two they kill off Marian and eliminate Djaq and Will Scarlett. At the end of season three they kill off Robin, Allan A Dale, The Sheriff, Isabella, and Guy. They not only just eliminated Robin, but they dropped the cast down to two people who had been with the show since the beginning. I know the intent was to have Archer become Robin Hood, but come on…that’s why The X-Files bombed…you got rid of Scully and Mulder. /END SPOILERS.

The writing for the show got a bit ridiculous. There are only so many times you can run away. There are only so many times one of the members of your group can get captured and you have to rescue them. There are only so many times you can rob from the same fucking person before it gets old. They also decided to up the anti by throwing in a lot of things that are more modern…like booby trapping a room with rope like they were lasers. Let us not even mention another trap that ridiculously drops to some raging inferno of hell. I mean, I can understand how writing the same shit every day could get old, but come on. Instead of having the merry gang rob someone every episode, instead of having them run from Guy, or rescue a comrade, they could have just…I don’t know…played with character interaction, or had them just sit around the fucking campfire for a day and trade stories of war and life. They kind of tried that plot in the episode “A Good Day to Die,“ but they completely fucked it up with too many other plot points. I really would have liked to have seen how Robin and Much became the way they were. Why Much was so dedicated to following and protecting him. We’re only even given, I think, one glance of them when they were actually in the crusades. Did I forget to mention that in the first two seasons Robin Hood wouldn’t kill anyone? Totally. Third season? Fuck that shit he arrowed people left and right. I’m also wondering how fucking easy it was to get into a castle. They seriously do it like every other episode. You think they could, eventually, keep wanted criminals (whose faces were pretty damn well known) out. The “cover your head with a hood” trick…would only work, maybe, once. I can also understand deviating from the legends and other source material, but sometimes I think they went a little too far. Like…not introducing Friar Tuck until the third season? That’s some bullshit.

Through it all though I loved it. Would I have liked it to continue? No. The show ended where it needed to end. Unlike some shows I’ve fallen in love with. I’m looking at you Harsh Realm, mini-series my fucking ass. In David Bentley's article about the cancellation of Robin Hood (which you can read HERE). He says "The finale of the third season had been shunted from BBC1 to BBC2 to make way for Andy Murray's overrunning game at Wimbledon." That, my friends, is a sad way to go. Was it better than the overabundance of reality television that plagues our screens? Hell yes. Did you know that Survivor is still going? Survivor. Eleven fucking years, people. How the hell is that goddamn show not gone? Would I recommend Robin Hood? Like I said, I’m not a big fan of the Robin Hood character, but I enjoyed the shit out of the show. It brought me back to that time where television shows were just meant to be entertaining, and didn’t cost enough to feed a small country.

The Tale of Tim

Let me tell you about Tim.

I’ve known Tim for about 9 years now. Originally I met him through a guy I worked with and over the years we’ve become best friends. He smokes Camel menthols? Crushes? Turkish Silver? I know he smokes camels, and they‘re not a regular cigarette…because I can smell them. He drinks a lot of soda’s, prefers a good comic book or horror movie, loves fantasy, and plays video games. He’s a metal head who tends to stick with a certain sound/type of band, and he doesn’t really drink. He’s also an angry fucker. No, really.

He’s a nice guy, however, when he gets angry (usually this is directed at a girl…in the sense of infidelity or stupidity) he has to let that anger out. How does he let that anger out? On his hand. Seriously, I think he’s broken his hand more times than the years I’ve known him. He likes to punch inanimate objects. I think the last time he broke his hand he punched a newspaper dispenser. You know, one of those steel ones? The time before that I think it was his spare tire on the back of his jeep. He’s also lazy.

Now coming from me calling someone lazy is a serious matter…because I’m fucking lazy. He’s seriously fucking lazy. There have been times where I’ve called him at 3 in the afternoon and he was still sleeping. I don’t know how he does it. Rarely can I sleep past noon anymore, and that’s even after I got to bed at 5 am. He’s also not really sociable.

Most of the times I get him to come out it’s like pulling teeth.
“You want to go to the bar tonight?”
“Not really.”
“Wanna go get something to eat?”
“Eh, I’m not that hungry.”
“Catch a movie?”
“No. I think I’m just going to stay home. I’m not really in the mood to go do anything.”
“What if I pay? I can spot you a few drinks.”
“Nah.”
“I’ll drive.”
“Eh.”
“I’ll come pick you up, drive, and pay. It’s like I’m taking you on a fucking date.”
“Naw. I really just want to stay home.”
“Dude.”
“What?”
“I fucking hate you.”
He also, pretty much, absolutely, will not go to Atlanta.
“Hey man, want to come to Atlanta with me?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I hate Atlanta.”
“Why?”
“Eh.”
“Dude.”
“What?”
“I fucking hate you.”
Every so often he will call me and ask me to go out. Saving me the trouble of having to convince him to go out.

A while back, when I started hiking, I would ask him to go with me. He literally lives, like, 3 minutes from my usual hiking trail. How many times has he gone with me? 3 times. I’m pretty sure it’s three times. Twice on the Homestead Trail and once on the Ironhill Trail. Anyway, once I got the GA Park Pass he seemed to be more interested in going out hiking. Not on my usual trail though. No. He wants to go check out the other parks. Not a problem, I’m a fan of road trips.

The first time we went out we went to Amicalola Falls in Dawsonville, GA. His idea. He chose the place. How far did he make it up the trail? About a quarter of the fucking way. I finished it, constantly yelling down at him that he was a bitch…because those steps were a fucking bitch. 600 of them to be exact. On the trip home he tells me that we should do this more often. Check out a new park say, every Monday (because we both had Mondays off). THREE months later (and both of us now unemployed because both restaurants we worked at shut down) he hits me up on fb chat (I’ve heard from him about going out drinking or hanging out, but this chat was during the day). He wants to go check out Cloudland Canyon in Rising Fawn, GA. Apparently there are two waterfalls at Cloudland Canyon, and the trail to the waterfalls is only two miles roundtrip.

Now, I usually hike a 4 ½ mile trail…so two miles wouldn’t be jack shit. HAHA.

The drive out there takes us around an hour. Most of it is off the highway with a speed limit of 55. The scenery is beautiful, but I quickly realize we are getting the fuck away from civilization. At one point, at 3 in the afternoon, we didn’t see a single living soul for fifteen minutes. What else? Well, with the windows rolled up and the radio playing, not to mention we were in the middle of a conversation, I heard a sound. The fucking cicadas were so loud that I could hear them in my car. We rolled down the windows to a stereo surround sound of these motherfuckers. It sounded like a symphony concert. Loud. It was pretty freaky.

So we get to Cloudland Canyon at Tim is very happy and excited. It’s a gorgeous day
and he’s ready to go. The view is amazing and he can’t wait to see these waterfalls. The first thing I notice is the trail is not like most hiking trails I’ve been on. The majority of them have been beaten down, smoothed out, well worn. This bitch was laced with rocks, steps, loose gravel, etc. There were even warnings posted to not deviate from the path. As we are coming down this guy and pregnant lady are coming up.
“Fuck waterfall number 2 man.”
“Huh?”
“That path is not worth it. There are a shit load of stairs and the waterfall isn’t even that cool. Just check out number 1.”
“Thanks?”
“No problem.”
Waterfall number 2 is .3 miles away. Waterfall number 1 is .1 miles away.
“Let’s check out number 2 first.” I say.
“No, let’s do 1 first.”
“Why? 2 is farther away. We should do that one and then check out 1 on the way back.”
“He said 1 is better anyway.”
“Exactly, so we see the better one after the shitty one.”
“Let’s check out 1.”
“Fine.”

1 is awesome, and Tim is very happy and pleased. On to number 2. As we’re climbing down a shit load of stairs to get to 2 I keep thinking to myself, Tim’s not going to make it. I’ll give the boy this, since Amicalola he’s lost 30 lbs, mainly due to diet. If you look at the two of us he would appear to be in much better shape. However, I remembered Amicalola. We get to the bottom and I can tell he’s nervous.
“Where does this trail go?”
“The map shows that it goes about another two miles up that way.”
“Should we take that one back?”
“Well…it would, hypothetically, add another four miles onto our hike.”
“Yeah, but, would it be easier?”
“I don’t know, our car is way the fuck up there. Eventually were going to have to get back to the top of the canyon.”
“Fuck.”
“You can make it.”
As we look at the path ahead of us Tim does not look very happy, and he demonstrates this displeasure.

About an 1/8 of the way up he starts lagging.
“Keep moving.” I tell him. “Don’t stop. Even if you need to take a break stay on your feet. Pace back and forth. Stopping will just fuck you.”
He listens to me for a while, but then he starts taking more and more breaks. The next thing I hear is that he feels like he needs to puke.
“Drink a little.” I say. “You probably just need to hydrate.”

I go another distance and turn around. Now he’s squatting.
“Oie, what the fuck did I tell you? If you need to break stay on your feet, move around.”
“But this is comfortable. It’s not really my legs anyway, my legs are fine, like I said I just have this urge to puke.”
“…then puke.”
“I can’t.”
“Dude, I can puke on command. If you have to puke then puke.”
“It’s not that easy.”
“How many of your powerades did you bring?”
“Just the one. Why?”
“Well if you had both of them I would have told you to chug one. That would probably make you puke.”
“I’ll be alright.”

Any time someone comes near us I say, “Man up.” You know, so he could at least pretend to be alright. We get another distance and the breaks are coming more and more. Eventually I hear this one.
“Dude, just give me five minutes and then I’ll do the rest of the trail in one big go.”
“Ok, but don’t sit down or anything.”
That didn’t happen. In fact, he didn’t just sit down, he laid down.
“Tim.”
“What?”
“I told you not to sit. You’re not just sitting, you’re fucking laying down.”
He demonstrated his displeasure with me once again.
“Five minutes?”
“Five minutes.”

So I kept pacing back and forth, taking a picture here or there, I even went up the trail a bit and came back down to him. I would have left him, but I remembered Amicalola falls. I left him then and he ended up not seeing anything.
“Five minutes is up.”
“Bullshit, it hasn’t been five minutes.”
“Fine, it’s been three minutes, get the fuck up. Remember, you‘re the one that picked this place”

He did, and we slowly continued our way. Every time he starts to pause again I call out, “Just think what it’ll be like when you get to sit down in the car!” or, “Don’t forget about the AC…imagine how good that’ll feel.”

Almost to the top and he stops again, he sits down.
“Tim, come on, we’re almost there.”
He gets up…and pukes.
I was this close to actually catching it on camera. In the few times he’s gone hiking with me he’s ended up puking on at least half of them.
“Feel better now?”
“Not really.”
“You should feel better, you’ve been bitching about puking for the last hour.”
“Well…yeah, I do feel better.”

The rest of the way back to the car he doesn’t really pause anymore. He gets one pause when I go off the beaten path and stand on the cliff ledge to take a picture, but he didn’t follow me down there…probably because I had to do a little climbing. Then, glory be, the car.
“Thanks.” He says to me.
“For what?”
“For sticking around. You really motivated me to do it. If it hadn’t been for that I probably would have quit.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Oh, and you’re picking the trail next time.”
“Why’s that.”
“Because I apparently want to kill myself.”

CBR-III: Book #12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19

Warning: This review (like the Bourne series) covers a large series of books. Because of this it will likely contain numerous spoilers.

I picked up 1st to Die , opened up a beer, and got about four pages in before I said to myself: Wait. I’ve read this before. Have I read this before?. I didn’t know, so I continued reading. Two more paragraphs and I thought: I’ve totally read this. That’s the problem with James Patterson’s Women’s Murder Club, the story falls out of your head right after you read it. They don’t leave a lasting impression. They don’t make you ponder what you’ve just read. It’s like watching Jumper. It’s pretty entertaining, you’ll likely enjoy it, but will you think about it ever again? No.

The Murder Club consists of a key group of ladies:
Lindsay Boxer is a San Francisco homicide detective (a sergeant, who becomes a lieutenant, who busts herself back down to sergeant). She‘s an All-American girl, second generation cop, devoted dog lover, and the only character in the series that is presented in first person. She‘s also, honestly, one of the least interesting characters of the series. She can do no wrong. Well she can, but it always works out in her favor. Plus, her love life is fucking boring.

Cindy Thomas is a reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle. Originally a go-getter in the first book she‘s just a hot shot after that. She‘s the cute one of the group, and often used for comic relief.

Claire Washburn is the Chief Medical Examiner for San Francisco. She’s also obese. She’s also married. She’s also the most relatively tame one…you know…being that she’s married. Consider her the mother hen.

Jill Bernhardt (spoiler) survives three books. To round out all of the sides of a police investigation you have to have a lawyer. In this case she is/was the ADA She was also the only other married one. Leaving it a tie: two single ladies, two married ones.

Yuki Castellano takes over for Jill in the 4th book. Originally just a lawyer she eventually has to move up the ranks too…eventually becoming an ADA as well. She’s single. Japanese/Italian. She also never gets laid, a fact we become aware to several times.

The books:
1st to Die: A serial killer targets newlyweds.

2nd Chance: A serial killer targets specific people, and they’re related to cops.

3rd Degree: A terrorist group targets rich people. We also start getting into the subplots here. Sure, the other two books had subplots, but they weren’t as distinct. Subplot: Jill’s got an abusive husband.

4th of July: The main plot this time revolves around a shooting incident that leaves Lindsay under investigation. Subplot: A serial killer (or killers?) targets seemingly random people in a small town.

The 5th Horseman: A serial killer is running loose killing people in a hospital. At the same time the hospital is involved in a court case for malpractice because of the “strange” deaths. Subplot: A serial killer (or killers?) is staging crime scenes. Nicknamed “The Car Girls.”

The 6th Target: A random/bizarre shooting incident injures one of their own, and a large court case ensues. Subplot: Wealthy, savant-like, children and their nannies are being kidnapped. Holy fucking shit! There isn’t a serial killer? Praise fucking god.

7th Heaven: A serial killer (killers?)/arsonist is targeting seemingly random wealthy people. Subplot: An ex-governors teenage son is missing. A woman is being investigated, and tried, for the murder. Did she do it? Is she quilty?

The 8th Confession: A serial killer is targeting wealthy people. Subplot: The death of an apparent homeless hero sends Cindy on the hunt. Because of course cops don’t care about homeless people.

My beefs:
If you were going to write about serial killers…research would be good. My first problem with the stories should be evident, and I just now realized it. Anyone who has even looked at serial killers will notice several things. One, they kill the destitute. People who won’t be missed. In the books they kill rich people. The exact fucking opposite of serial killers. I don’t know if the likely filthy rich Patterson has a problem with rich people, but it certainly appears that way. Two, their victims don’t really fit a pattern (other than all being prostitutes, homeless, etc.). In almost every instance in the stories they do follow a pattern. I.e. the killer is committing…Three, never kill someone you know. Ever.

Tattoos. Patterson apparently feels that every bad guy on the fucking planet has tattoos. Most of them have sleeves! It started to get old. Really old. When every person they brought in to question, every “criminal” was layered with tattoos. Thanks Patterson, for sticking to a stereotype.

How about some new ideas? In both 3rd Degree and 4th of July Lindsay (A Cop) busts into a dangerous situation (with killers) without her cell phone, police radio, backup, or a bulletproof vest. And she’s supposed to be fucking smart? That doesn’t sound very smart to me. I think what really cracked me up is that Patterson used the same situation in back to back books.

Learn a little about police work. In the opening to each one of the books there is a thank you to an assortment of doctors, police officers, lawyers, etc. Yet he left a glaring hole in 2nd Chance. They’re after a suspect, a guy who is actually a former police officer, a guy who is out on parole. They want to hold him, thinking he’s a killer, but they just can’t charge him with anything. *cough*…*cough cough cough* The guy is out on parole? He’s out on parole and he hasn’t checked in with his parole officer, he hasn’t given them a change of address notification, he doesn’t have a job, and he’s even using a false identity. Two words. Two fucking words. Parole. Violation. Guess who the fuck is back in jail? Are you telling me all of these police officers and lawyers would conveniently overlook that? Bullshit.

The…give me a fucking break route.
Yuki is finally ready to give it up for the first time in 2 years? The guy is/was a hermaphrodite? *throws up hands*
Serial arsonists are burning houses all over the fucking place and Lindsay’s house honestly, accidentally, goes up in flames? Is that even statistically possible? *headdesk*
A killer is practically handing you a signed letter of guilt and it still takes you the whole book to figure out it’s them? *headhoneybadger*

LOVE. The little subplots of love are actually fairly interesting. I’m curious to find out who Cindy is dating now, because Cindy has fun. Yuki is just too much of a pain in the ass. The woman doesn’t need a man, not really. What she has is the voice of her mother telling her to be a good woman and to marry a nice man. Kind of plays out the interest in her. There is no love story with Claire, and the brief romantic malfunction of Jill was actually interesting…but way to fucking throw that idea out the window. Who does that leave us with? Lindsay. Why do I hate Lindsay? We find ourselves at the beginning of the first book with her ready to blow her head off. She’s just lost her love. I don’t…maybe I’m just a skeptic about the concept of love, but that love was her brief new partner in the book. It was a brief relationship. Yes, I can understand the circumstances surrounding their romance. Ok. Then how are you going to fuck it so fast? By the 3rd Degree she’s hooking up with another “partner.” This time his name is Joe. He’s not really her partner, he works for Homeland Security, but they were partnered up. I can’t care about her relationship with Joe…a key part in the rest of the books…because I can’t understand it. Anytime they are around each other they fuck like rabbits. Yet, in no time, he’s spouting his love for her and asking her to marry him. How? Why? I know this is weird but I don’t get, or understand, the chemistry. Then, out of nowhere, she hooks up (or almost does anyway) with her actual partner, Richard Conklin. So now she wants Joe, and she wants Rick. Yet, there still isn’t a fucking reason for her to want either of them. Then throw in a little jealously when Rick starts dating Cindy in The 8th Confession, and it’s really fucking retarded. I think whoever is writing the “romance” in these books (Andrew Gross co-wrote the 2nd and 3rd books, Maxine Paetro has co-wrote 4-8) is romantically deficient. Or they are just throwing the romance in there because they feel it’s necessary.

In Conclusion:
So what do I actually think of the series? The books are like candy. I could pick one up and read it in 4 hours cover to cover. They’re fun, they’re entertaining, but don’t expect some profound literary experience from reading them.

The Night of the Catfish

My father and I went camping this weekend. Knowing completely well that there were severe thunderstorms issued for Friday night. What did we say to the warnings? Fuck em. The place we went camping is technically my old bosses property. We go out there, rather than a park (or “campground“), for several reasons.
1) We’re not on a concrete pad surrounded by a bunch of other people.
2) We used to not get cell phone reception out there (we do now but turn our phones off).
3) No running water. No bathrooms.
4) No fire limits. I can build a goddamn bonfire if I want to.
5) We can shoot guns.
6) He’s got a stock tank…so we can fish.
7) No children. So I can say “fuck” in as many incarnations and as loud as I want.
8) No problems with alcohol.
So we get there on Friday around 1pm and my dad gets the fire started as I get the tent set up. It was pretty windy (the bitch tried to fly away from me at one point), but everything was set up in about 30 minutes…

I’m losing myself. My goal was not to tell you my entire weekend, but one particular instance. Let me narrow this down for you.

The weekend: A nice hike, big ass fires, sunburn, some gun shooting, lots of reading (I finished 3 books), 48 beers consumed and two small bottles of Jack, rain, lots of rain, water collecting in the tent, a dilapidated cabin, a nap in the sun, cold soup, warm soup…the night of the catfish.

Now for the real story.

The Night of the Catfish:
It’s been raining off and on. Bursts of rain would come, soaking us to the bone, then disappear as quickly as it came. Allowing us brief moments to dry off beside the fire. The there again-gone again, rain has disappeared and become replaced with a steady, slightly heavy, rain. We’ve taken to drinking in the rundown cabin, away from the elements, as the sun slowly declines in the sky.

My father has been fishing most of the day while I’ve read. He’s resorted to his Texas style way of fishing, throwing out the lines and then letting them sit there. Once an hour he goes back to check them, liberally drinking as he does.

It’s during these return visits that he interrupts me reading. My intent to go out there was simply from a point of relaxation. For awhile now I’ve been stuck in my house. My life has become that of a hermit. I sit on the internet from the time I wake up to the time I go to bed. My only foray outside is to smoke the occasional cigarette. In the last two weeks I’ve gone out with friends once, I’ve gone hiking once, but those have been my only lengthy excursions. I wanted to be out in nature, out in the sun. I wanted to go for a walk and be free of my online addiction. I didn’t mind his interruptions…he was like a kid in a candy store, happy to just be away from it all.

The sun is gone, my father goes to check the lines again. I can see the fire still holding on in the rain, flickers of light dancing in the darkness. I brave the elements in my trash bag poncho two sizes too small to get some more beer out of the cooler. I’ve just cracked open another one when I hear it.
“Ty! Come here!” I look around, wondering if I’d actually heard him.
“Dad?” I yell out in return.
“Help!” Comes the reply.

I initially started walking, sipping my beer as I went, but then I started running. I don’t run…ever. Thoughts were running through my head. Did he get hurt? Did he fall in the tank and can’t get out? Did he get attacked by an animal? My dad is getting up there in years. I’ve noticed recently that his equilibrium isn’t that good. When he gets cut he tends to bleed a lot because of blood thinners. When he bruises a small hit turns into something that looks catastrophic. So I ran.

When I get there I don’t see him down on the ground. He’s standing on the side of the tank, a fishing rod in hand. Imagine the scene if you can.

It’s night, but the moon is almost full so there’s that ethereal quality. The rain is coming down not steady now, but pouring. There’s my father. His clothes are soaked to the bone, the rain is sliding off his bald head in sheets, and he’s standing there like a madman holding a fishing pole.
“I just ran.” I told him.
I stood there, pondering if I should slap him.
“Well, help me. I can’t get the line to reel in.”
“So.”
“Well there’s a fish on the end.”
I grab the line with my bare hand and try to pull…it doesn’t move. I look at him.
“Are you sure you’re not stuck?”

I feel the line jiggle in my hand. He’s not stuck. The line is taunt, tighter than a guitar string. With great effort I manage to pull enough to wrap some line around my hand. Not the brightest idea. I instantly feel it dig into my flesh. I already know it’s going to start bleeding. Fuck it. I keep pulling. My dad has moved up the shore, still trying to get the reel to work again. I grab with my left hand, leading the line in so I can wrap it around my right. Over and over. Slowly I feel that it’s coming close to shore.

Through lightening streaked skies and heavy rain, through giant teardrops of water bouncing off the tanks surface, I see it. It churns in the water not ten feet from me. I take a step back. What the fuck? Through my right hand I feel a giant tug and the line snaps. I quickly grab it again at my feet and wrap it around my hand. I pull, taking small steps back as I do. Slowly, it emerges from the water. No sooner did I have it on the shore that the line snapped again. I grabbed again as the big fish flopped, wrapping it around my hand one more time and pulling it as fast as I could up the shoreline. There it sat, the downed beast. It made one last giant thrash before it didn’t move again.
“Holy shit.” I mouthed.
“Now you know why I yelled for help.”

My dad is smiling like a little kid. Even in the dark I can see how lit up his eyes are. We’ve gone fishing many, many times since we moved from Texas to Georgia 12 years ago…this is the first fish he’s caught since we moved here. I wrap the line around a piece of metal that we use to hold the reels. I lift, and the line snaps again.
“What’s the test on the line?” I ask him.
“20 lbs.”
In my hands I can tell one thing. It weighs more than 15 and less than 45 lbs. We guess at 25 lbs, although we don’t know. We only know that to snap the line on weight alone, it’s gotta be over 20. My dad’s still grinning as he picks up the catfish by its gills and carries it to the truck.

That grin didn’t leave his face the rest of the camping trip.



**That last picture is for a reference. I wear a size 14 wide boot.

CBR-III: Book #5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11

The Bourne Series: From Identity to Deception

I saw The Bourne Identity in theatres with my dad. He’d already read the original trilogy and was excited that they turned it into a movie. During the movie he turned to me and said, “This is nothing like the book, but I like it.” Being poor I was looking through my parents books to find something to read for the Cannonball, lo and behold I came across the original trilogy. I set those to the side and kept looking when I came across The Bourne Legacy. What the fuck? Then Betrayal and Sanction popped up…then I got Deception. My intent was to read the entire series and then write a review not of just the individual books, but the series as a whole (I‘m missing two...fucking Eric Van Lustbader). Why? Basically all of the stories are the same, Jason Bourne gets caught up in some crazy government shit, beats the crap out of some dudes, kills some other dudes, and in turn gets the crap beat out of him. In the end though, he’s going to save the US of A. However, Bourne is like Rambo on steroids. I think, if he got in a fight with Rambo, Rambo would be dead in a second. He would step up to Bourne, fists raised, ready to fight, and he wouldn’t even get to swing before he was dropped to the ground. And to think, they were both born in the jungles of Vietnam. Wait, what?

The original trilogy was created by Robert Ludlum. As someone said to me, Ludlum is the master of ! It’s totally true. Jason Bourne is really a man named David Webb. Once an intellectual his Thai wife and two children are murdered by a strafing plane in Cambodia. Enraged and without hope he goes to Vietnam where he joins a group of misfits and outlaws known as Medusa. Through them is where he learns most of his skills, quickly becoming the best with the code name Delta One. With the war ending Bourne is recruited to join Treadstone (which you should know from the movies…if you’ve seen them). His job there is to become the worlds number one assassin (at least on paper and in minds) so he can hunt down and kill the real number one assassin, Carlos the Jackal. This is where he, essentially, becomes Jason Bourne.

The Bourne Identity is basically what you see in the movie…with a few minor details. Bourne has amnesia. He’s trying to find out who he is while an assassin (Carlos) and the CIA are trying to kill him. Carlos, because he thinks Bourne is after him. The CIA, because they think Bourne has gone rogue. In the film Marie is a poor German woman trying to make her way through life. In the book Marie is an intelligent economist who works for the Canadian government. She helps Bourne, the CIA acknowledges they fucked up, she steals several million from them, they give them a home and Bourne returns to being David Webb…a college professor.

The Bourne Supremacy. Marie is kidnapped. The kidnappers tell Bourne that in order to get Marie back he must go to China and kill an assassin that is claiming to be Jason Bourne. Along the way we discover that it’s not just kidnappers, it’s the American government that took Marie. The assassin he’s after is/was actually trained by another former member of Medusa, and the conspiracy is a lot larger than anyone imagined. How so? One man is trying to take over China. Yeah.

The Bourne Ultimatum. Bourne is now a father. Marie and him have had a boy and a girl (parallels to his original wife and children). Carlos the Jackal comes after Bourne. In response Bourne sends Marie and the children to the Caribbean with her brother. There's a side story of a new Medusa? You can probably get the idea of what happens from there.

Ludlum’s Bourne is a rather complex character. Far from the young and energetic Matt Damon from the movies he’s more Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon 4. Bourne is old. In Ultimatum he is 51. As such he doesn’t beat his enemies by being necessarily faster, or stronger, he beats them by being better. Another thing to note of Ludlum’s Bourne is that he, in essence, has a split personality. That split being David Webb. Throughout the books Bourne almost has waves of sympathy, of guilt, of remorse. These come from Webb and Bourne is constantly having to shut Webb out. Marie is also much stronger than she was portrayed in the films. She fights, she get’s dirty, and she’s generally smarter than any of the other people around her…including Bourne. Ludlum also likes reoccurring characters such as Alex Conklin and Morris Panov. His books also take place in the 80’s. Now, we get to Lustbader.

The Bourne Legacy. So how does Lustbader enter the Bourne world? He’s put Jason back to being David, working at the university again as a professor, he’s still got Marie there with the kids. Then…boom…he not only gets rid of Marie and the kids (figuratively), but he kills off Conklin and Panov. What Lustbader basically does in the first two books is kill off everyone that meant anything in the original trilogy. In essence, he wants to start from scratch. Legacy is basically about an assassin who wants born dead. Through the course of the story he finds out about another terrorist plot that he has to stop and eventually gets the other assassin to help him do it. The key? The other assassin ends up being his son Joshua (the one that died). Joshua is damned good too…better than Bourne.

The Bourne Betrayal. Boom. Marie is dead. The only other remnant from the original trilogy, Martin Lindros, is kidnapped. Was she killed by some nefarious means? Nope…girl got pneumonia. This book once again deals with terrorists, it’s also where Lustbader starts tossing around the word chameleon a lot. Now, Bourne was always able to blend into situations. Ludlum would mention it using clothes, the way he walked/talked/moved, etc. Lustbader one ups that by using prosthetics, makeup, etc. Now Bourne (and other characters) can mimic literal people. Change their appearance to look exactly like someone else, alter their voice so they sound like them too. This is what happens here. Two terrorists brothers want Bourne dead because he killed their sister (at least they think) a long time ago. That’s their main driving motivation. The other is to take down the government from the inside. What better way to do that than to become someone important, thus, one brother becomes Martin Lindros. There’s also a little subplot wherein Bourne is brainwashed…it doesn’t last long…and I think Lustbader pulled it out of his ass. Along the way we are introduced to several new characters. Including Bourne’s new love interest, a woman named Moira who works in private security. Moore, a woman who is half Egyptian, and a protege of Lindros. Tyrone Elkins! Woot! Although he’s a ghetto black guy that befriends Moore (technically he's almost like a replacement for a character that was continued from Ludlums Bourne).

The Bourne Sanction. University professor, blah, blah, going after terrorists, blah, blah, assassin hunting him down, blah, blah. So how is this assassin, Arkadin, different from all of the others? Well, he was Treadstones first attempt. That’s right. Treadstones real goal was to create the perfect killing machine. When Arkadin ran away from them they grabbed Bourne. So how do they meet? While Arkadin is going one way, trying to track down some people…Bourne is going the other way, trying to track down some people. New people? Well, Moore is now head of Typhoon. Hart, a woman, former private security, that is now head of CI. Kendall, LaValle, Halliday are a bunch of government fucks with ties to the NSA that want CI eliminated. Indeed Tyrone is tortured by the Kendall and LaValle as Moore attempts to provide proof to have them taken out.

The Bourne Deception. Guess. No, really, guess. Terrorists. Yup. Only this time. Dum, dum, dum, it’s Americans! There is so much going on in this book…I wouldn’t even really know where to begin. Arkadin almost kills Bourne, then Bourne goes after him. In the meantime Arkadin has taken over a terrorist cell that he’s training for…something. The NSA is trying to swallow up all intelligence agencies, deriving much of their intel from a private company named Black River. Black River, in the mean time, is trying to start an international war, because an international war means more money. It’s just…confusing.

Lustbader’s Bourne is the movie Bourne. Not only does he eliminate everyone from Ludlum’s world (with the exception of Bourne himself), but he does so in two books. Never again is Bourne’s age mentioned, nor is it a factor. We’ve stepped out of the 80’s and moved into modern times. After the death of Marie in Betrayal we don’t even really hear of his children anymore, as if they don’t even matter. David Webb? Other than initial introductions of him in the beginning of each book he doesn’t really exist anymore either. That dual personality? Nope. Only Jason Bourne exists now. Lustbader kills characters off with reckless abandon, almost as if as soon as he gets bored with them he just blows them up. I’m also getting the impression that he doesn’t even like Bourne. More and more his novels are focusing on other characters, other aspects…more on political intrigue. Jason is almost an afterthought to keep the fist fighting and gunplay in the novels. I mean really, how many times can another assassin go after Bourne? Are there even that many high caliber assassins in the world? You would think that after a dude kills a gajillion of them people would quit sending them. Even his new love story between Bourne and Moira is…dull. He’s good at writing action, but he’s not good at developing personalities.

Ludlum took 10 years to write the Bourne Trilogy. Lustbader put out his first Jason Bourne book in 2004. Some 14 years after Ultimatum. His next one came out in 2007 and since then he has popped out a Bourne book every year. Lustbader is much better with action and pacing than Ludlum was, but Ludlum has the story. I think the main problem is that Lustbader is trying to do too much in each novel. Rather than focus on one storyline, or even two, he seems to be trying to fit in as many different plot’s as he can. In many ways it just becomes confusing, in others it’s boring. My advice to him would be to keep a core group of characters. Quit killing people off in every book and introducing more. Stop with the endless roundabout of lies. He mentions that Bourne has a son, Joshua, an assassin, and three books later he hasn’t even mentioned him again. I honestly wish the two of them could have worked on a book together, let Lustbader handle the action and Ludlum stick to the story.