The Bourne Ascendancy

Jason Bourne #12

by Eric Van Lustbader, Robert Ludlum (Creator)

Jason Bourne is one of the most popular and compelling characters in contemporary fiction. Originally created by bestselling author Robert Ludlum, the Jason Bourne series was later adapted into films that have become modern classics. Now, New York Times bestselling writer Eric Van Lustbader carries on Jason Bourne's story with a new novel about the rogue secret agent who has lost his memory . . .

The Bourne Ascendancy In this thrilling and absorbing new novel, Jason Bourne is faced with an impossible mission. He has been hired to impersonate a high-level government minister at a political summit meeting in Qatar, shielding the minister from any assassination attempts. Suddenly, armed gunmen storm the room, killing everyone but Bourne. Their target, however, isn't the minister Bourne impersonates....it is Bourne himself.

Kidnapped and transported to an underground bunker, Bourne finds himself face-to-face with an infamous terrorist named El Ghadan ("Tomorrow"). El Ghadan holds as his captive Soraya Moore, former co-director of Treadstone, and a close friend to Bourne, along with her two year old daughter.

Meanwhile, the President of the United States is in the midst of brokering a historic peace treaty between the Israelis and the Palestinians-an event that El Ghadan is desperate to prevent. He demands that Bourne carry out a special kill the President. If Bourne refuses, Soraya and her daughter will die.

Bourne must make a monstrous save Soraya and her daughter, or save the President.

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Action, Audiobook, Spy Thriller

400 pages, Hardcover

First published June 10, 2014

About the author

Eric Van Lustbader was born and raised in Greenwich Village. He is the author of more than twenty-five best-selling novels, including The Ninja, in which he introduced Nicholas Linnear, one of modern fiction's most beloved and enduring heroes. The Ninja was sold to 20th CenturyFox, to be made into a major motion picture. His novels have been translated into over twenty languages.

Mr. Lustbader is a graduate of Columbia College, with a degree in Sociology. Before turning to writing full time, he enjoyed highly successful careers in the New York City public school system, where he holds licenses in both elementary and early childhood education, and in the music business, where he worked for Elektra Records and CBS Records, among other companies.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/ericva...

Reviews

[Jill · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another good page turning adventure with Jason Bourne. I've read two in the Lustbader series and although he's certainly not Ludlum, he still spins a decent story.

[Mark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eric van Lustbader is certainly a accomplished thriller writer which he proved with his own thrillers. He is certainly a different writer than Robert Ludlum who wrote many great thrillers and of course the Jason Bourne trilogy about an American assassin who lost his memory and became a threat to the US security services.
The Jason Bourne of Lustbader is certainly not the same person but a re-invention and updated person for our own times.
Lustbaders Bourne is a actioner with a lot of speed in his stories, also his background in the novel feel accurate and well investigated.
In this novel a well known terrist acquires Jason Bourne as does he gets a friend of his with daughter and husband. He wants Bourne to kill the president of the US while visiting a peace conference in Singapore. If Bourne does not live up his side of the bargain he will kill the family.
At the same time the aides of the US president want Bourne killed as well and have set plans in motion as well.
Bourne travels from Qatar to Syria and then Waziristan to Afghanistan to end his travels in Singapore.
Bourne wants to stop this fanatic terrorist, of whom little is known, and save his friends.

You get a lot of information and action in this Bourne novel that never lets up steam until the last pages.

Like Ludlum once delivered the greatest novels to read on vacation on the beach or backpacking, so does Lustbader deliver an excellent thriller with a dark hero who becomes more and more a mystery for most security services around the world. His shenanigans does fill bookcases by now, and the Treadstone and Blackbriar series in the same universe show that Ludlums world still gets a lot of readers.

[(NurseLisa) Square Granny from Ohio · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is 1000% FREE for the month via Barnes and Noble's Readout serial reading program! I only wish I had read all of the books before this one!

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Van Lustbader injects Bourne into new and highly challenging mission; to impersonate a government minister at a summit in Qatar. When armed gunmen storm the room, the bodies pile up, leaving Bourne as the only survivor. It is only when the terrorist El Ghadan has Bourne taken into custody that the larger plot can be seen, where Bourne was the target all along. El Ghadan has a woman and her young child in his custody and intends on using the elusive Bourne to do his bidding, or more people die. While the President of the US is brokering a key peace deal, El Ghadan is set to use Bourne to derail the process and kill POTUS at the same time. Bourne is torn between a long-time friend and the leader of the Free World. Whom will he save and what happens to the person left in El Ghadan's crosshairs? Van Lustbader has spun quite the web in this thriller, but still has not clued in to the issues with continuity after being handed the reins of the Bourne project by the Ludlum Estate.

For the second book in a row, van Lustbader has a grip on what makes a good thriller and keeps the reader attentive from beginning to end with a plot that does not let up. This differs greatly from some of the earlier instalments of the series, where Bourne began to sag like heated lettuce. Having tackled the entire series in the past few years, I saw some of the bruises in the character arc that are lost on those who simply tune in annually for the newest book in the series. Piecing together these arc blips, I find myself more critical that the average reader, perhaps. I will not rehash the issue I chipped away at in some of the previous novels and that received much ink/web time in the review of the Bourne Retribution, but they cannot be swept under the table for convenience's sake.

Good novel, Mr. van Lustbader, so for that a 'kudos' is owed to you. However, I continue to struggle with the larger series flaws since you have taken over.

[Sally · Rating 1 out of 5]

Summary
Bourne's money has run out so he has to take a job, and what job is that? To be a "blacksmith" that is, he is hired by prominent persons to impersonate themselves, so they can remain safe. In the course of one such assignment, he is kidnapped by "Al Ghadan" who takes him to meet a friend and her daughter who have also been kidnapped. Bourne is threatened, and let loose to kill the president of the United States or his friend and daughter will be killed.


Ok, so I am not sure how this book got such good reviews. The reviewers were very generous. I did not like this book very much. The overall plot was not bad, but the writing was just a turn off. A lot of cliches and a very weak female head of Secret Service. I listened to the audiobook, so I was not able to go back and include more quotes.

The Good
Some elements of the plot are good, I like the reveal at the end regarding the true aim of Al Ghadan.

The BadCliche after cliche. Head of Secret Service is a female, Cam, who is totally clueless and very attractive with red hair and green eyes (because being the head of secret service is exactly where hot women end up). Not that it is impossible, just.. "Really?" Ditto, that the female horse trainer, who is gay, would end up getting some girl on girl action with Cam. "Of course, why not?"
I wanted to scream with fury.


Recommended for
I've read the original Bourne trilogy and this is nothing like that. This book is recommended for anyone who has not read the originals by Robert Ludlum, but frankly if you are looking for a Bourne-ish thriller, you'd be better off spending your time reading Daniel Silva (Gabriel Allon series).

[Gustavo Rossi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was about to leave the series after the bizarre Retribution, Dominion, Imperative....and others in which the plot was completely unfeasible with Bourne dealing with strange people (some weird Mexican drug dealers, their wives, daughters, Chinese politicians in alliance with rogue Mossad officers...), with even more bizarre friends...I was wondering where was the spirit of the series and decided to read Ascendancy just to say good bye, and it was not bad. Moreover it was good; some old characters like Soraya are welcomed (in the previous books she was completely misused in the story) and Jason Bourne is again similar to what he was. Yet, the book has many (too many) sub-plots in which we end knowing details on the personal life of completely marginal characters and there are very long digressions (like Soraya's stories to her daughter) which make the reading slow and perhaps unnecessarily polluted with non important issues. Also, some characters are carried to some completely unlikely extremes (the last reactions of Magnus both with Cam and Asshir are out of place).
I would say that there is hope in the series if the author tries to keep the stories like this one, instead of introducing bizarre enemies like Maceo Encarnacion or Severus Domina...my god!!!

[Ric · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very entertaining. Bourne is now a hugely-complicated character though it seems he might have been able to do certain things in an easier way. But then, where's the fun in that. The randy US president named Bill gives this some comic relief from all the bloody mayhem. Lots of good, strong female focal characters and in-depth explorations of Afghan mountain sub-cultures and the Doha wealthy/poor Arabian juxtaposition make this a nice addition to the series.

Very good writing, though the author does manage to drop in political and social proselytizing that could be distracting. Anyway, I still enjoyed it.

[Greguś · Rating 4 out of 5]

trochę bałem się że się pogubię w tej historii, a jednak zgrabnie zostało wszystko domknięte, przyjemnie się czytało

[Scott Parsons · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another riveting page turner from Eric Van Lustbader featuring Ludlum's Jason Bourne. Van Lustbader is a superb writer, better than Ludlum himself. I say this , having read and enjoyed all of Ludlum's novels. This is one of the rare instances where a franchised character continues to appear in novels written by another author and the suspense equals or exceeds the original appearances. This is a tribute to Eric Van Lustbader's excellent skills which were already evident in his own fiction.

This novel like many today is set in the Middle East. Jason Bourne, now on a US blacklist, has become a "blacksmith". He impersonates prominent figures and attends important meetings disguised as them. In this instance he is attending a meeting of an oil cabal in Quatar, as a high-level government minister. A bunch of terrorists crash the meeting, kill all the other dignitaries but capture Jason Bourne. Bourne meets El Ghadan, leader of a major jihadist group. He demands that Bourne assassinate the US President during an upcoming Middle East peace conference being held in Singapore. Bourne is blackmailed into promising to do this in order to save his ex-girl friend, Soraya Moore and her daughter who are in captivity awaiting death unless Bourne performs this mission.

Bourne teams up with some Israeli operatives to penetrate the terrorist network.

A great yarn!

[Kevin Stumpf · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eric Van Lustbader has done it. He has taken Robert Ludlum's Jason Bourne and made Jason his own...FINALLY. I love the new direction that Bourne has gone.

The Bourne Retribution and Bourne Ascendancy are not the Bourne Trilogy. BUT, that is OK. After the uncomfortable transition of the Bourne character during the middle Bourne books (Deception, Objective, Dominion, Imperative) Mr. Van Lustbader has realized that the Bourne books will go where he takes them and I am glad he is taking them where he is.

I still get the Ludlum character development and plot twists/angles but Retribution and Ascendency have been written in a way that no longer seems as if the author is writing in someone else's shadow.

I cannot wait for the next installment.

[Tom Tischler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jason Bourne is now known as a blacksmith. This is someone
who is hired by high level ministers fearful of assassinations
He is paid to impersonate them at meetings or places of
uncertain security. He is at one such meeting when armed
gunmen storm it but the target is not the man he is impers-
onating but Bourne himself. He is kidnapped and taken to an
underground bunker where he finds himself face to face with a
well known terrorist known as El Ghadan. He demands that Bourne
carry out a mission for him. One that if completed will have
dire consequences for the entire world. Probably another
movie for Eric Lustbader but if anyone can make this book click
it's him He tells a pretty good story and manages to keep it
moving right along.

[Daniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just wasn't excited by this one. There wasn't much action and the ease in which Bourne can blend in with the enemy is a bit much. The story didn't work for me either. I finished it and didn't hate it, but it wasn't a favorite. 2 1/2 stars.

[Milton Louie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Page turner. I wanted to know what happened next. How will Bourne do the impossible - saved his friend and her child. (OPL) B+

[Randy Tramp · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fast moving action with a complicated plot. The stuff that makes a book great.

Jason is faced with a life or death choice. Assassinate the president of the United States or your friend with her child will die.

I found myself racing through the pages trying to figure out what was going to happen next. This one had less of Jason, and more of other interesting characters. Camilla being one, Sara being another. Strong female roles.

Twists came in spurts. PONTUS needed to be protected from himself, or so thought his closest aides.

I didn't give this the highest rating because of the sexual content. It's rated "R" due to scenes.

[Speesh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could be wrong, but I think this just might be the best Bourne, at least since Ludlum, erm…’didn’t achieve his wellness potential' shall we say. It’s one of the few, maybe Ludlum’s own first three apart, that I’d certainly read again. Of course, some of the surprise would be missing, knowing what happens, but maybe a second reading would help me appreciate even more, the mastery of (especially) the final phase this book. There’s no way I can give it less than 5 stars. It deserves more, but there you go, them’s the rules.

The action takes place largely in the Middle East and the middle eastern area. Bourne has actually been there a while. After finishing up the last story, he has been replacing his funds, by hiring himself out as what is referred to here, as a ‘Blacksmith.’ I’ve never heard of this before, but the book assures us that it is someone who hires themselves out to impersonate people in places where that other person would really rather, for whatever reason, not be. And he's done really rather nicely, money-wise, thank you very much. So, that is why he finds himself at a top-secret meeting in Doha, impersonating a Syrian minister. He's also passing on what he has learned at this meeting, to the current love of his life, Sarah, who just so happens to work for and be the daughter of, the head of Mossad. An unfortunate combination, should the Arab leaders who surround him find out, obviously. As the book starts and as Bourne, finds ‘himself’ in the middle of a hail of bullets, you can see the attraction of using a ‘blacksmith’ if maybe not quite see the attraction of being one.

The plot from then one, is…well, it’s complicated. But in essence, Bourne’s old Treadstone colleague Soroya Moore and her husband and child, are kidnapped by Bourne’s (latest) enemy, the terrorist leader, ‘El Ghadan.’ EG, uses Soroya and family, to blackmail Bourne into taking on the task of killing the President of the USA at a forthcoming conference in Singapore. There’s a lot, lot more involved of course. Old enemies and relationships surface, other people have other agendas and Bourne has to try and pick his way through. He doesn’t seem to have a plan, but the genius of his plan is, that he doesn’t seem to have one.

What Bourne really doesn’t have, is trust. That’s what is lacking on both sides. The US Administration, or the ‘dirty’ part of it anyway, who set up a ‘Bourne,’ don’t trust him now he’s not under their control. Don’t trust what they themselves have created. They clearly never expected him to become sentient. And Bourne, after 11 books filled with the US administration trying to kill him, doesn’t trust them. Still, Bourne doesn’t really trust anyone. He’s learned the hard way. He doesn’t trust some, intentionally and because those he has trusted, even if they haven’t subsequently let him down, have more often than not died as a result of contact with and trust from, him. He’s learned not to trust anyone, to spare them from the dangers he faces. “Bitterness squeezed Bourne’s heart. It was a fact, hard but true, that everyone who had ever mattered to him had been either exposed to mortal danger or killed.” In essence, what causes the doubts, regret and any uncertainty, in the post-Treadstone Bourne.

The problem with making these sort of thrillers so up-to-date, is that they’re consequently so quickly out-of-date. However, being set in the Middle East, or having that main plot revolving around their hatred for each other down there - it isn’t going to risk being dated any time soon. ‘Not in your lifetime,’ as Chief Justice Earl Warren once said about something else. EvL though, is probably if not bang up to date on US thinking about the Middle East, at least anticipating, based on past history/fuck ups, future policy - should the lunatics take over the asylum at the next US Election. Think p189 and some in the back corridors of the US administration are thinking ‘intervention in Syria’ “We’re all but out of Iraq and we’ll soon be leaving Afghanistan. We have six hundred and fifty Billion Dollars’ worth of high-tech weaponry at our disposal. It’s high time we used it against a target that truly must be crushed.” Can’t argue with that. Maybe Syria have the WMD?

If I had to criticise one tiny little thing, it would be the name the International Terrorist El Ghadan has chosen for his terrorist group. When translated into English, it is ’The Tomorrow Brigade.’ That is a bit weak, I think. Maybe they should have stuck with referring to it as (whatever is) the Arabic version. Might sound a bit more menacing, a little less, well…like a group of ’hippies.’

But what made the book, what made all the previous pieces fit, was the end. The end third maybe. Multi-layered, complex, surprising, shocking, fitting, satisfying. Thought-provoking. Worth the admission price, for me. I never saw it coming (but then, neither did Bourne, to be fair to me). Why? I’m not Arabic. I didn’t see it coming, but I see how he did it. I was lulled, due to my being European, into thinking ‘this, then this, then that.’ I was wrong. EvL was 100% right. Wow! Cannot WAIT for the next one! Isn’t that how it should be?

And yes, I did spot that the two US women just so happen to share EvL’s taste in TV shows and music.

[Wendy · Rating 2 out of 5]

If you like cliches, gross stereotypes, and dirty old men...then you might like this book. If you don't, I'd say skip this one.

[Angela]

Already Read

[Jeff · Rating 2 out of 5]

In a nutshell, I miss Robert Ludlum's fabulous character and classy writing. The plot in this one is just "OK" - interesting premise, but largely predictable. Other than that, although Jason Bourne still lives on in my mind as a great character, since Ludlum's passing, this franchise has degenerated into distasteful sex scenes and the all-too-common profane language of the 21st century.

[Violet Tsirblou · Rating 3 out of 5]

For a manhandled and weatherbeaten book lying abandoned on a bench, this was pretty decent

[The Elves · Rating 4 out of 5]

We received this book as a Goodreads First Reads, but we requested it because we have read quite a bit of Eric Van Lustbader, particularly his Nicolas Linnear novels and his Sunset Warrior series, which in our opinion, are much better than this Bourne series. However, at the same time, we still think these Bourne books are quite good and in fact better than Ludlum’s original books whose relationships and dialogue we always found to be somewhat stilted and artificial, but that may be because Ludlum came from that generation of folks who wore suits and ties to college everyday and the dialogue in his books may actually have been an accurate portrayal of the relationships of his time. This particular book in which friends of Bourne’s are taken captive to coerce him into working for terrorists is interesting yet it doesn’t intrigue us enough to wish to read more in the series.

The Silver Elves

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

As with most Jason Bourne novels, there is a lot of action and this novel goes from the forests of Virginia to the stark mountains of Iraq and Afghanistan to Singapore. Bourne’s friend Soraya Moore and her family have been kidnapped and their lives have been threatened unless Bourne follows instructions from a terrorist by the name of El Ghadan. In order to save Soraya, Bourne has been ordered to kill the President of the United States at an upcoming peace conference. Bourne is also the target of the head of the Secret Service as she has been ordered to take him out when rumors abound that Bourne is to try and kill the President. There is also another assassin who has been ordered to take out the Secret Service head as well as Bourne.

[Shrihari Chakrapani · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is special to me in two ways:
a) first bourne series book I read in almost 2 years now.
b) first e-book which I completed in my new Zenfone 5 mobile.

As per the feedback on the storyline, I still miss the old characters except for Jason and Soraya and the kind of the universal character Jason fits in. But overall the story is neatly woven with some unexpected twists but somehow I felt the climax was not upto the mark as what you find in original Jason Bourne series.

Definitely a page turner and good read.

[Kay · Rating 3 out of 5]

Thumbs down. Great for a comfortable read while recovering from exhaustion or a tedious plane trip, but the prose in this one is so purple it seemed bruised, slowing the pace of the whole thing to a crawl. I got tired of people getting tied up all the time, I waited for the hold-your-breath moments, and I wanted to really care about somebody--well, yes, I cared for Aashir. Otherwise, blah. Disappointing for Bourne fans!

[Jon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A decent enough read as a standalone but disappointing for a Bourne novel. The plot is a little thin, not enough action and Bourne himself doing very little throughout. And what's with the whole Camilla learning to ride a horse storyline? It adds so little and leads to not much more. This is the first Bourne novel I've rated less than 4 stars. I hope this is just a blip in Lustbader's Bourne-rein, otherwise we may need a new writer to take on Ludlum's franchise.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

THE BOURNE ASCENDANCY is exactly what you would expect from this series of books. There is a defined plot, and subplots galore. The action around every corner results in a very high body count. There do seem to be a couple of loose threads at the end, so Jason Bourne and his cohorts may be back sometime in the future.

[Keenan Wells]

I love this series because as I read I feel instantly swept into the world of Jason Bourne. The author brilliantly adds more detail than thought necessary as to fully amerce the reader. this book is a lot like an intense cardio workout, your heart rate rises and falls as Jason Bourne runs through the streets of the world.

[Hillingdon Libraries]

Find this book at Hillingdon Libraries

[Len · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed the book, since I'm a Bourne fan from the original Ludlum to today. But, this book struck me as odd. It appeared to me that the writing style and language used in the last 50 pages or so was very different from the rest of the novel.

But that neing said, it was a fun read.

[Jacob Baron · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have read all of ludlum's books. I can only imagine that he is rolling in his grave knowing that such writing has his name on it. It seems that someone had a publishing deadline and no one bothered to read or edit this book. Eric's other Bourne books weren't so bad so what happened?

[Devinderjit Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good thriller

A good thriller

for all the Bourne and Ludlum fans - this is a good read. good suspense. I liked the dramatization of various scenes and could imagine this being made into a movie.