Best-selling thriller writer Robert Ludlum, author of The Bourne Identity, The Acquitane Progression, and The Moscow Vector, announced the end of his blockbuster career yesterday. Speaking to a packed meeting at the American Publishing Society conference in Florida, Ludlum said, “There comes a time when a man has to accept that he has run out of portentous sounding proper nouns.”
His decision was not a complete suprise to industry insiders following disappointing sales of his most recent novels, The Liberace Directive and The Spongebob Conspiracy. Ludlum said he would henceforth take a closer interest in movie adaptations of his work and spend more time with his family, writing only as a hobby, and then concentrating on children’s books. He joked, “Hell, if Madonna can do it, anyone can!” and waved the proof edition of his first foray into young fiction, The Odessa Heffalump.
Well, it cracked me up. But I’m sure you know he actually died 5 years ago. Which is sad.
He also did have a couple of non 3 word title books – though they were published under a different name until he was rich and famous enough to break his branding a bit – “The Road to Gandolfo” and “The Cry of the Halidon” (huge variation)
I didn’t know he’d died, but it’s not the first time I’ve unwittingly written a supposedly contemporaneous spoof news story about someone who isn’t around any more to be mocked (or to sue).
The boring reason I wrote this is that I had to return a pile of halogen lamps to Tesco yesterday because I’d bought the ones with the wrong connector. The correct ones were much cheaper so I had a £4 credit to spend. Ludlum’s The Ambler Warning was the least offensive paperback in the current best-seller rack. (Do you think it’s been reprinted because of a new film or something?) After I’d picked that up I still had almost enough left for a Mars bar.
Ah, it’s posthumous apparently. If I remember rightly, the last time I resurrected someone by mistake for comedy purposes it was a rapper whose demos were still being recycled into the charts.
Yeah – posthumous repetitive novels – woohoo. Don’t get me wrong, I liked the Acquitane Progression, I really did, and I like the Bourne Identity. But then I’m the kind of person who likes rereading books. After a while I realized it would be more cost-effective to reread the books of his I already had, rather than splash out on a new one. Which doesn’t make them bad books – just not very…distinct.
Much as I enjoyed the Jason Bourne films, I really don’t rate him as an author. I only read one, The Tristan Betrayal and it was so bad that I vowed never to waste my time with another of his books. It really was high scholl stuff.
I’m with you on this one, Tim. Enjoyed the Bourne films greatly; The Ambler Warning reeks.