The Bourne Identity, Robert Ludlum

Wow, what a book, I haven't been grabbed so tightly and taken for such a ride by a book in a while, mostly because I am reading Ed Greenwood, and his work has really gone down the crapper, but enough about Ed. From my book slump I decided it was time to branch into something new and random, or buy a bunch of hard covers. My pocket book being empty I opted for something in the new, random, and cheap pile. So I went to the library (cheapest pile of all.) Well almost cheapest, I had almost $10.00 worth of fines on my account, but they were mostly from my brother, I digress.

Since my usual fare is Sci-fi and Fantasy, I thought a little bit of cloak and dagger would be a nice change. Little did I know that the cloak and dagger / spy genre was actually the SUPPPPPPPPPER THRILLLLLLLLER genre! I actually discovered this much later, (in fact after I finished reading the book, I read the 'about the author' section, and discovered that Robert Ludlum was a master of the super thriller genre.

To insure an easy first step into this world, I figured go with what you know. Having recently watch the movie of The Bourne Identity, and enjoyed it, I figured the original novel was a good candidate. So off to the library I went, paid some fines, and carried away the book, much like a k-9 follows a command obediently for promise of a treat.

Since then I have been quite enamored with the book, it is a well written, interesting, and exciting book (much more so then that bland review of it.) What amazed me was that in spite having seen the movie I pretty much only knew one secret that the book had to reveal, and that was the main characters name was Jason Bourne (sort of,) but I mean the cover gives half of that away anyways.

Like I know books often get lost in translation, and a good book often doesn't always equate to a good movie, but to have a good book, and a good movie based on it, and then realize that the two of them are about as different as night and day was startling.

So in conclusion, if you liked the movie, you should like the book, but if you have seen the movie, you haven't spoiled the book, so go read it!