[.ca] The Matarese Countdown (ISBN 0553579835)

From Amazon.com:
In the audio version of Robert Ludlum's espionage thriller, The Matarese Countdown, the confident voice of actor Stephen Lang (Broadway credits include Hamlet, Death of a Salesman, and A Few Good Men) sets the stage. "He jumped out of the raft and pulled it between the rocks to the sand, securing it to the trunk of a palm ... it was time for the hunt, and hopefully luck would be part of it." And so the chase is on. Lang leads us through a suspenseful tale of inbred corporate corruption and free-market murder. With his customary polish, Ludlum has devised a mind-bending plot that twists and turns through a complex maze of deadly consequences, pitting his team of heroes against a vicious and all-powerful evil empire. As in the popular prequel, The Matarese Circle, Lang uses his impressive vocal talents to create characters whose accented voices, regional dialects, and identifiable speech patterns heighten the drama. Some might consider the performance over the top, but it is nonetheless skillful and helps carry the action in this far-reaching tale of international intrigue. (Running time: nine hours, six cassettes) -- George Laney

Amazon.com Author Profile:
Read about the author.

pathetic:
Okay. Lets face it, Ludlum was never much of a writer, but there was a time when we was a great story teller. He is one of those writers that a reader keeps picking up in the hope that, desptie that last 5 - 10 - 20 years, whatever, he may have a return to what he could once do ( think Stephen King or Peirs Anthony). In this case he falls short of everything he has done since that stuff that was rejected before his name was known and since published just because his name was one it ( oops flash back to the others I mentioned but that is another story ). There are really only two points needed in this book to dismiss it. The first being that it exists. This book is set up as a sequal to the Materese Circle in which the formerly thwarted bad guys have returned, but the end of the Materese Circle makes it clear that they don't need to return, despite that hero having won his battle he lost his war. In his pleasant retirement he contemplates their victory. Mow they are lost and trying again? The second point is even more grevious ( afterall, we all know that the first story will alway be thrown out the window for a sequal ), the bad guy tries to feed the hero to his pet birds. Even from a writer who would use the same metophores over and over until you were convinced it was simply a macro on his computer, you don't expect Snidely Whiplash villians. In this scean, as the birds turned on their master ( surprising, huh?) I fully expected him to rear up, twirl his mustache and say "curses, foiled again." If that is what you like, enjoy.

painfully bad attempt by the master:
I can't even begin to descibe this one. The late great Ludlum must have been drunk while writing this horrid novel. I didn't even come close to finishing this one; nothing about it was consistent while everything about it was nonsensical. I love the bulk of his pre-1990 works, and I even enjoyed The Scorpio Illusion and The Apocolypse Watch, but this one is a real stinker. Avoid.

What happened to Mr. Ludlum?:
I have just finished "The Matarese Countdown". It was difficult to finish because I kept putting it down in irritation. The story involves earlier Ludlum characters Brandon Scofield and Antonia whom we met in "The Matarese Circle". In "Countdown" the Matarese, defeated in "Circle", have risen again and are attempting to achieve world dominance by gaining control of all aspects of global economics. New character Cameron Pryce is sent to pull Scofield out of retirement and into the fight against the Matarese, and the remainder of the book deals with the attempt to identify and end the threat. The book has moments of interest and is mildly entertaining, but has such an overblown writing style that it is difficult to get past the dialogue and stay with the plot. The dialogue is terribly melodramatic and makes the reader wonder how Mr. Ludlum could think that anyone uses such language. The dialogue given to a black pilot, presumably to make us believe that the author is "hip", made me truly embarrassed for Mr. Ludlum. I have been an enthusiastic reader in the past, but had not read a Ludlum for several years because of his increasingly absurd dialogue. I took a chance when I bought "Countdown" because I had enjoyed "Circle". I was disappointed. For anyone who still wants to read Ludlums, I recommend the books co-written with Gaile Lynd. They are enjoyable reads.

The Swedish Chef Meets Dudley Do-Right:
I bought the book-on-tape of The Matarese Countdown and have been listening to it in my car for the past few days. Big mistake. The dialogue in TMCis so hilariously awful -unintended, I'm sure, by the author and the actor who's reading the book to us -- that I'm laughing too hard to steer the car and see the road. Every German character sounds like Colonel Klink; every Swedish character sounds like the Swedish Chef; you get the picture. All of this comes at you in a pulsing staccato reminiscent of the urgent voiceovers on 50's newsreels. I see from other reviews that much of the dialogue in TMC is punctuated with !, which may explain the breathless narrative. Reading this book couldn't be any better than listening to it, so I recommend that you give it a miss.

An unbelievable letdown:
Made the mistake of not scrolling through all reviews to see that the vast majority of readers panned this book. In this case, numbers tell the story. Like other readers, I just couldn't believe that the author of one of my favorite books, The Matarese Circle, could have written this sequel. The characters in The Matarese Countdown bear no relationship to the original cast of "Circle". The tension of the unlikely duo in "Circle", the intellectual and physical skills of two spies at the top of their game, is nowhere to be found in "Countdown". The new characters are never developed, and the old characters are no longer engaging. If, like me, you still find it difficult to believe how inferior this book is, at least try to borrow it from the library or buy it at a rummage sale for 50 cents.