The Prometheus Deception

by Robert Ludlum

book

Genres: Fiction, Thriller, Espionage, Mystery, Suspense, Action, Adventure

648 pages, Paperback

First published October 31, 2000

About the author

Robert Ludlum was the author of twenty-seven novels, each one a New York Times bestseller. There are more than 210 million of his books in print, and they have been translated into thirty-two languages. He is the author of The Scarlatti Inheritance, The Chancellor Manuscript, and the Jason Bourne series--The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy, and The Bourne Ultimatum--among others. Mr. Ludlum passed away in March, 2001. Ludlum also published books under the pseudonyms Jonathan Ryder and Michael Shepherd.

Some of Ludlum's novels have been made into films and mini-series, including The Osterman Weekend, The Holcroft Covenant, The Apocalypse Watch, The Bourne Identity, The Bourne Supremacy and The Bourne Ultimatum. A non-Ludlum book supposedly inspired by his unused notes, Covert One: The Hades Factor, has also been made into a mini-series. The Bourne movies, starring Matt Damon in the title role, have been commercially and critically successful (The Bourne Ultimatum won three Academy Awards in 2008), although the story lines depart significantly from the source material.

Reviews

[Pierre Tassé (Enjoying Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

A book of smoke and mirrors. One adventure after another. Take a listen if you’ve time

[Jefi Sevilay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yine kitaplığımın derinliklerinde kaybolmuş, 2001 yılından beri okunmayı bekleyen bir kitap. O kadar eski ki kitabın fiyat etiketinde 12000000 yazıyor.

Ve yine benden başka kimsenin okumayacağı bir diğer kitap :) Fanatiği olmasam da ucuz polisiye ve casusluk romanlarını seven biri olarak ilk defa akmayan bir aksiyon kitabı yaptıklarını düşündüm. Gereksiz uzun, mantık hatalarıyla dolu, hatta Ludlum'un yazmadığını düşündüğüm bir kitaptı.

Tavsiye etmiyorum ama arasanız da bulamazsınız muhtemelen.

Herkese keyifli okumalar!

[Ash]

I had to give it one star as I couldn't give it a half star!

This one must be by far Ludlum's WORST book I have read (in this case listened to). If I hear "God Damn" or "cacophonous" one more time, I think I will stab someone in the eye!!!

All it has are some big words that give the model of a gun, European places, and a story (or the lack of) that is absolutely abysmal. I want the hours of my life back that I had spent listening to this horrible "book". A secret govt. department, hiring on the best, only for the main protagonist Nick Bryson to be told that the secret department was not what it said it was.

The story takes a lot from the Bourne series, and it has all the things Ludlum kept writing back in the day -- the cold war, the Russian KGB, Russians are bad, there is always a "mole", yada yada.

However, after a few chapters, you will realize that it was either Ludlum smoking a pot who wrote it, else someone else who borrowed his name for some money.

I think anyone giving this more than 2 stars is has not read better books, IMHO. If you like this book, I'm sorry, but you must have REALLY low standards! Nothing wrong with it, whatever rocks your boat...

All in all, pathetic, please don't waste your time!!!

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked this one (like 90% of Ludlums). This one was written apparently just before my favorite, The Sigma Protocol (which was the last one Ludlum finished). Leyla reminded me of Khalehla in The Icarus Agenda, another character I liked.
This one is scarily up to date in where it's set - written in 2000, before the whole 9/11 and the shampoo paranoia. So many of the horrors in this book, especially the surveillance, has happened to a scary degree in the real life... I don't think Ludlum thought that could happen.
Anyway, I read this copy in Italian as I was lucky to have it :) will get a copy in English for my other half (later bookcrossable as usual). 9/10

http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/8...

[Alexw · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Title of this should have been" you are not paranoid if everyone is after you." My last count had our hero shot (and recovered next day for a long hike) stabbed in shoulder and ribs, 2 teeth knocked out and ribs broken. But this is Ludlum with no ghost writer, and he always deserves at least 3 stars.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave this book negative three stars for its plot, characters and believability. I gave it five stars for its extremely accurate prediction of how the US government would react to a terrorist attack (the book was published in 2000), and for its prescient analysis and forecasting of the role gigantic tech companies would take in US and global societies. The net result is two stars and a recommendation that no one should read this book for its literary merits.

[Dheepthaa · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Prometheus Deception,is by far, one of the most intriguing and interesting books I have ever read. This was my first go at a book whose author has been acclaimed by adult readers. It did have drawbacks to its name, by being quite long, and the reader assuming that the book would never end. But if patience assists the reader, I feel the reader would truly love the book.
The book revolves around Nick Bryson, a kind of spy working for an agency called the Directorate. The book starts with his boss, Ted Waller, 'diplomatically asking him to leave',or basically firing him. This, plus the mystery behind why Bryson's wife left him sets off the suspense of the book. It is augmented by him coming to many more secrets and controversies about his previous agency, which has apparently been deceiving him. Are the rumours true? Has Bryson really lived a life of deception? The book goes on to quench your curiosity, and the clearness of the water which reveals the mystery truly brings satisfaction to the reader.

[Evelyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a time when I couldn't get enough of Robert Ludlum, but it's been way more than a decade since the last time I've read any of his novels. Like too much chocolate or a day spent in pajamas, all of a sudden I simply lost my taste for the enterprise--in this case his highly formatted, thrill-a-minute, repetitive plot lines.

When I found this book at the back of one of my bookcases recently, I figured it had been long enough since I read any of his material so that perhaps what had previously bored me might once again thrill. And at first it did.

Ludlum's style, though highly predictable, always calls for his novels to go from 0-80 mph within the first few pages, sometimes before the reader even gets to the second page. That's what happened in this book and at the beginning it was fun.

But it appears that during the intervening years since my last Ludlum novel, my palate has gotten more sophisticated and my taste buds more mature; the thrill-a-minute ride only held my interest for about 50-75 pages, after which I could see the next plot device coming at me from a mile away. And pretty much like clockwork, all the suspense/spy thriller cliches came cycling by with predictable regularity. I kept promising myself I'd stop reading, but didn't, mostly because I kept hoping that something about the story or its arc would surprise me. Sadly, the only surprise at the end of the book was how much like all his other books this one was.

[Vijay Chengappa · Rating 3 out of 5]

There's a tamil movie starring Rajinikanth called 'Basha', pretty much the Kollywood gold standard for a story about a man with a (deadly) past*. Since that movie came out (and was a monster hit), most Hero movies in Indian cinema have tried to take in some version of the basic plotline (with mostly terrible outcomes).
If Suresh Krishna entered a time machine and eventually flew into Robert Ludlum's mind, this is one version of Baasha that would eventually be generated.
People are so predictable, the same stories get told over and over again. But we all lap it up like idiot frontbenchers. God, when is the singularity coming.

*Basha is a remake of a Hindi movie, and was itself remade in many languages, but dare anyone to challenge you that any of those movies held a candle in the wind to Rajinikanth.

[Maynard · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Prometheus Deception" is 1984 on steroids. Published in 2000, the author's prescience is both fantastic yet totally believable in light of recent headlines coming out of Washington, D.C., and the NSA. If you care for your freedom of privacy, once you've read this book you will become terrified. It is a wild ride not into the future but into today's world of surveillance and all things technology.

[Dave Lester · Rating 2 out of 5]

My family used to always talk about author Robert Ludlum when I was growing up. My mom and Uncle Bob would speak of convoluted plots, spy thriller tension and a plethora of characters that a reader would have to take notes on in order to keep track of all the development. I had never read a Ludlum novel. I figured I had better join the family club. I was at a friend’s house and saw a copy of “The Prometheus Deception” on the shelf. There was some downtime so I started to read.

Oddly enough, “Prometheus” was the final Ludlum book before he passed away in 2001 (a series of posthumous books were published thereafter) so I was starting at the end of a career rather than the beginning.

The story seemed to have some promise at the beginning. An agent, Nicholas Bryson, of a super secret government (or are they?) organization called the Directorate is under deep cover in Tunisia attempting to stop a Hezbollah operation from overthrowing the government. During battle, the terrorists discover that their weapons are defective and the leader of the terrorist group, Abu, stabs Bryson in the abdomen. He is helicoptered out. The action picks up next with Bryson walking into the Directorate headquarters (top secret, I might add again) and meeting with his boss/mentor Ted Waller.

Long story short, Waller fires Bryson as he believes Bryson’s cover is blown because of the Hezbollah operation going south. It is arranged for Bryson to become a professor of Byzantine history and for 5 years, he is a popular one in Pennslyvania under an alias. Recap: Bryson is outed from an organization he long served and, the fact should be mentioned, his wife Elena had left him. She had seemingly disappeared without any correspondence upon Bryson returning from one of his missions. Needless to say, things are not going well for our protagonist.

As Bryson is walking to his car after class one day, he notices some awkwardly dressed guys in suits who seem out of place. They proceed to attack him, seem like they want to kill him but he overpowers them and goes back to his house. A limo pulls up and a politician-looking character walks up to Bryson’s house, is invited in and proceeds to have a conversation with him. By the way, this apparently is a guy with the CIA (Harry Dunne) and the guys attacking Bryson were his men. He explains to Bryson that he had secretly been working for the Russians through the Directorate while believing he was serving American interests. Maybe because the Cold War was still happening in the year 2000, I have no idea.

Anyways, this sets up the rather cliché spy drama theme regarding the protagonist not knowing what the truth is about his life’s work and even himself. As one knows, this theme has been drudged up countless times and has been served better elsewhere than in this novel.

Too bad because during some sections, “The Prometheus Deception” are a page turner. The eeriness of Ludlum having written this book in 2000 (before 9/11) is also fascinating because the plot evolves into a grand political conspiracy that directly threatens individual privacy. True life revelations that would unfold after 9/11, with Edward Snowden’s info dump and the NSA’s warrantless wiretapping, one could consider Ludlum to have had premonitions or just logically thinking through where the new dotcom/tech bubble would eventually lead us.

A shadowy player eventually turns up in the book who sounds a lot like Bill Gates. He is the head of a massive computer company in Seattle and the description of his lake mansion sounds similar to Gates’ home in Medina. The player, Gregson Manning, is a huge supporter of the treaty of surveillance (viewed as the threat to individual privacy) and the book even gives him a decent reason to be. Where his allegiance lies, I won’t say.

While the themes are strong, I just wished the story were stronger. We are treated to the usual spy story gimmicks: chases and explosions on ships, cat-and-mouse chases in Europe (Spain), helicopters shooting out bridges and dropping vehicles into the water, double-crossing, double-dealing and people who aren’t what they seem. Ludlum seems to have thrown every element of any spy story ever assembled into this novel and made his hero like James Bond. Or, as is probably more apropos, Jason Bourne.

When the ending comes, the whole story becomes insanely ridiculous to the point where some of the character’s actions throughout the novel make no sense. The proceedings become so wildly unbelievable that many will probably regret having taken the time to dig into the novel at all.

Like I said, its too bad because of the recommendations I have gotten on Ludlum. In fairness, I probably should have started close to the beginning of his career rather than the novel immediately preceding his death. I certainly hope his other stories are better than this one.

[Tricia · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is not as popular as his Bourne series but I liked this more.

Yes it is far fetched but it had quite a few twists and turns that kept me interested.

[Graham Stull · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am giving this one *** only for those who are particular fans of the political thriller genre; for other readers I would suggest this is more of a two-star book.

The story is simple in its complexity: A superagent whose real name may or may not be Nick Bryson is taken out of retirement to fight against his former employer, the ultra-secretive 'Directorate' spy organisation which has gone bad. Or has it? Whom can he trust? What sinister conspiracy is driving the plot along at breakneck speed, from improbable shoot-out to improbable shoot-out? Will uncovering the mystery of his wife's disappearance five years previous provide the answers to these questions, just in time for him to save the day while racing away from gunfire and mega-explosions? [Spoiler alert: Probably]

For those who enjoy this kind of thing (i.e. have no pr0blem suspending their disbelief on a wire 600 feet off the cliffhanger chapter endings, while plutonium-enriched 39mm exploding bullets wiz past) this is a solid read. The pacing is near perfect, the protagonist is a likeable good-guy, and the prose is passably well-written. The best part is the author's (Ludlum himself or a clever ghostwriter?) meticulous attention to detail, sure to please enthusiasts of guns, spy gadgetry and exotic destinations alike. As a seasoned traveller myself, I was truly impressed by his careful descriptions of places I know well. If he bluffed the descriptions straight out of a Lonely Planet guidebook, he did a damn fine job of it.

On the negative side, well, let's just say there are almost as many clichés as rounds of spent ammunition. If you are looking for something truly different, keep looking. The other thing that had me grinding my teeth was the sheer quantity of what I call 'backsplaining' in the narrative. By this I mean the use of unrealistic dialogue to fill in background that should already have been given in the narrative, and which forces the characters to say things to each other which they never would, because they already know this. An example:

"Nick, as you know, our organization is highly secretive. We set it up that way because it was important to us that we avoid leaks. We do this through a series of knowledge compartments that enhance security and make us impermeable from the outside. Many operatives in the intelligence community don't even know we exist."

"Right Ted, I know. Our biggest fear has always been a repeat of the Jack Ngiski fiasco, when in the 1950s a high level CIA operative sold out to the Russians and blew the cover on dozens of our undercover agents."

"Exactly. That set us back for nearly a decade. This is the reason why you, one of our longest serving agents, still only know a handful of people who work here."

The above example is paraphrased, but it is hardly an exaggeration. If I - as a writer - am ever guilty of this level of backsplaining, I sincerely hope my editor goes deep undercover, disguises herself as a Chilean border control agent using an authentic uniform and a latex mask, then shoots me twenty-seven times with an Israeli-made Makarov / Uzi 13.5mm semi-auto with exploding radioactive bullets, laser sighting and a titanium/vanadium alloy silencer that can also be used to pick locks and decrypt enemy code.

In summary, if you like the genre and want an easy, light, fun, well-paced read, go for it. If however you want originality, depth and really good writing, don't waste you time on this one.

[Richard · Rating 2 out of 5]

5.5/10

A mixture of feelings on this one. It was good in places and bad in places. It read like a generic spy thriller with the hero pretty much being invincible.

I don’t mind this type of novel for a bit of escapism. I wouldn’t have watched every episode of 24 if I didn’t like one guy taking on the world sort of stories. But this was just a little too long. Coming in at over 600 pages I thought a vast chunk could have been chopped out of this. 400 pages would have been better with a few less descriptions and maybe just miss out some of the non-essential sub plots which didn’t add anything really. Occasionally when it flicked to a minor character I’d forgotten the relevance and felt that it was unnecessary to be reading about them.

The action was good and there was plenty of it even if it did feel like the main character was invincible at times and you knew however ridiculous the situation he would always walk out of it unscathed. The plot was a good idea with the whole organisation secretly hidden in a larger organisation but perhaps towards the end this became a little complex but this could also be down to my attention waning in the closing stages. The epilogue seemed a little strange too with “Ted” on the TV completing a month of books which have had weird epilogues!!

My first attempt at a Ludlum novel and the consensus seems to be that it’s not his best but I liked certain parts enough to make me try another of his earlier outings and see how that goes.

[Bethany White · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love novels that remind me of movies, specifically espionage styles. This book travels the world many counrtires over. All of the characters are intertwined, and yet you discover this throughout the entire story rather than within only the first few pages. I believe the pace is perfect, as you are engaged for the whole duration. His character development allows you to become one with the individual and take his journey with him. You, too, are seeing the sights in the Middle East, Paris, and throughout.

I also enjoyed that there was a significant amount of research involved; the tactics and the technology used by the characters, for example. He did his job well in that he gets his readers to want to delve into this world he has created. It's better than the boring everyday; it's exciting and new. I would love to integrate creative research into my work so that I may expand the range of possibility; this allows for one to create a solid, new atmoshphere for the reader to experience.

[Tania · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ludlum thrills with high-action, complicated relationships, and intricate plots - there is no lack of tension or mystery here. Ahead of his time in predicting just where terrorism, surveillance, and many other scary realisms were heading, The Prometheus Deception describes our worst nightmares and then some.

Ex-spy Nicholas Bryson believes he's out of the game, retired and hidden away at a university, until he finds himself pulled back in unexpectedly. Now he must rely on every trick he ever learned, every skill he ever honed, and his always trusty gut instinct to survive what's coming and unravel a mystery that threatens the world as he knows it.

Ludlum writes in great detail about everything - the length at which he describes settings, techniques, and situations can be overwhelming at times. That's the only reason I rated this 4 stars instead of 5, but it is still an attention grabbing book that I didn't want to put down.

[Hertzan Chimera · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE PROMETHEUS DECEPTION, published in hardback in 2000 and in paperback a month after 9-11 basically offers a narrative blueprint for the WAR OF TERROR.

He lays out in this book how to run a mostly Cyber War (a Surveillance War in the name of corporate profit and world domination) where there is no real enemy but the ghostly figures who're set up for specific terrorist events around the world ... sound familiar to anyone?

Robert Ludlum implied that his knowledge of the way the insanely convoluted covert world worked was specialist, if not voluminous. Ludlum was an amazing researcher and every paragraph is dripping with incidental detail you only miss when you read some of his 'franchise continuers'. Ludlum would surely have had A LOT to say about 9-11, had he survived beyond 2001.

[Mollie · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was a pretty good spy novel (more 2 1/2 stars), fast paced with enough intrigue and plot twists to keep it interesting. I was bogged down in the minute descriptions of the weaponry and hyper detailed fight scenes...the writers attempt at sexy talk...blah blah blah "her exquisite breasts"? Reminds me of the succulent flesh in the last book I read...eh boys. Maybe this vernacular does something for them. I'll remember that for my next sexy letter to my husband.

Several F bombs, war/terrorism/torture violence, exquisite breasts aside, there was a sex for hire murder and some married lovin.

[Aubrey · Rating 1 out of 5]

UGH. I wanted to read this book because people rave about Ludlum, but it's such a MAN book. Every female character is described in painful detail as being impossibly attractive objects. At random times characters are liberally given random skills (speaking a dialect only spoken in a tiny village in the Italian Alps, miraculous nursing skills, etc). It's a surprise I could make it all the way through with all the eye-rolling I was doing...

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an exciting read. There are so many twists and turns turns in this book it's hard to know who the good guys are and who the bad guy are. I find the premise of the book interesting. Could we really do without governments, especially the ones as corrupt as the ones we find ourselves faced with today. Perhaps this questions is more relevant today than it was twenty years ago when the book was written. At least it makes good food for thought. If you read it, see what you think.

[Roland Odinkemelu · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved it! I like books that really engages you, mentally. Books that make you feel that you're a part of the story. Robert Ludlum took his time to create a moving picture in the reader's mind with The Prometheus Deception. I find that this is a great read that I will enjoy reading again.

[Connie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I could put every Ludlum book on my list. I enjoyed this author. I have read every book he has written. They are all good if you like espionage

[Joanne Leddy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everything you expected from a Robert Ludlum novel. Espionage, twists and turns, amazing locales, and heart stopping action. Why only 3 stars? The editing was atrocious! It was so bad, I actually started taking notes (a rarity for me).

Here’s a few:

Page 134- Bryson puts on a white shirt after bandaging a bullet wound in his shoulder. Two pages later he is bleeding through his YELLOW shirt.

Page 364 - Elena talks about how her parents lived only an hour away from her workplace … housed close enough she could visit them often. Next page, she steps outside of her office building with Bryson and points to the cottage she lives in WITH her parents. Huh?

Page 442 - Helicopter tracking them reports “male driver with female passenger”. Two paragraphs later the story literally says, “Elena drove.” Then on page 443 the words “…he accelerated, got into the right lane, …”. In a matter of 1 1/2 pages, the drivers gender changed twice.

There are more examples but I don’t want to drone on. If you can “not see” the editor’s errs, this is classic Ludlum and a good read.

[itchy · Rating 4 out of 5]

eponymous sentence:
p400: A once-reputable bank that is now a vital link to the Prometheus deception.

cement:
p13: The building, all cement and gray-tinted glass, was scarcely distinguishable from all the other bland, boxy low-rises along this stretch of northwest Washington.

p422: Firing at him, his eyes cruel, almost sadistic; the same man lying dead, crumpled on the cement floor, blood erupting from bullet wounds in his chest after being shot down by his boss.

This is a rather controversial subject matter and I could see the allure of such prospect. I wonder what happened to Layla, though.

[Tazindayan · Rating 2 out of 5]

It would keep my attention one day at a time before putting it down for several in between.
The story was nice but I could not appreciate the characters or dialogue.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read, lots of action.

[Nineveh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t remember my actual rating or have any clue when I read this book but I just spent the better part of 2 hours trying to remember the title after remembering like all of the details and successfully figured out which book it was thanks to the help of GPT and now I have to save it to Goodreads because I don’t know why I didn’t already have it saved. The details stuck with me a ton so I clearly thought something of it/read it very closely

[Clarice · Rating 3 out of 5]

The plot of the Prometheus Deception reminded me of the idea behind the Bourne Trilogy. The similarities between Nick Bryson, who has to discover the truth about his past life, and Jason Bourne, who has to reconstruct his past following amnesia, are indeed striking. Both protagonists are lone fighters entangled in a web of conspiracies and their adversaries seem at first glance far more powerful. These motifs permeate most of Ludlum’s plots and the Prometheus Deception is no exception. Ludlum once again manages to weave a lot of accurately researched historical and technical information into the story. Another ingredient, which makes his books enjoyable reads.

The basic plot of the story can be summarised in a few sentences: Nick Bryson used to work for the Directorate, a secret intelligence organisation, which is so well hidden, that most people do not know it even exists. Following his retirement, he works as a university lecturer until he is recruited by the CIA, who make him believe that the Directorate was a false - flag agency set up by KGB conspirators, who attempted to undermine the operations of the Western intelligence services. As an ex-operative, Nick is recruited to help destroy the Directorate. From then onwards the story twists and turns, and in the end the reader and Nick Bryson can no longer be sure who is friend, and who is foe.

For the first four hundred pages, I was not able to put this book down. Just like Nick Bryson the reader becomes obsessed with discovering the truth. Ludlum successfully manages to make you feel that nothing in the whole plot is what it seems to be, and that ultimately every protagonists is in some way connected to the Prometheans.

At the expense of the suspense created in the first part of the book, I felt that Ludlum lost himself in too many technical details in the last part of the book. The combat scenes are far too elaborately described and thereby distract from the plot. The overall denoument of the story is somewhat unsatisfactory and hurried.

[Allison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fast paced but also hard for me to tell what the heck is happening at any given moment

[Angus · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the second Robert Ludlum that I have read - the first being that abominable pig slob entitled "The Scarlatti Inheritance". By default, this book is vastly better, but it wasn't the best thriller I've ever read. For one thing, it was REALLY long. Of course, I can't criticize a book because of its length, it's just that it started to get boring after a while, monotonous. I listened to this on audiobook, and it was 16 discs. As a reference point, normal audiobooks are between 10 and 12 discs long.
The plot was intelligent and relatively original, SOME of the characters were really good (especially Ted Waller - great character) but Bryson, as so many thriller heroes are, was cardboard and dull. He's a super ninja killing machine spy hot guy, but that's all he is. His character doesn't really lead anywhere. He's just another ex-spy who's had enough of the business then got roped back in. Blah blah blah, heard it a thousand times. I did like the romance however, because it was actually smart and believable, not just another typical romance in which love really has nothing to do with it. Bryson and his wife make a good team, interesting and relatable - a perfect romance.
There's not a whole lot to criticize, and I don't know exactly how to justify giving it 4 stars. It's just that I got bored of it, and a good thriller should never leave you bored. That's just me, though, and someone else may really like this book - it's a good read.