I have now read the first three of these books: The first two were; The Bourne Identity; The Bourne Supremacy. The book really feels like it is dragging out the series. The Bourne Identity was quite good and Supremacy was worth reading. This one just went on repeating the same premise over 540 pages. The Jackal is now old and wants to kill Bourne before he dies. In order to live in peace Bourne must therefore kill the jackal. Bourne is getting old and feels aches and pains he would never have felt before. Set that in The Caribbean, Then in Paris, Then in Moscow, then in a KGB training complex where the Jackal gets it. Hope that didn't spoil it for you, but then that is one of the problems with this book – there was no way Jason Bourne was going to die therefore either the Jackal dies, appears to have died or escapes and disappears – with the second two having him pop-up again in the next book. There isn't enough to keep you hooked. There isn't enough to believe in. I won't read any more of the Bourne books – which I think aren't by Ludlum anyway. I might read one of his other books though –but not for a long time as I have a long list of books I want to read at the moment.
I started this one as I wanted to read a thriller as I am writing one at the moment. Not quite like the Bourne books but I wanted that feeling of pace. I set my self a target of 1,000 words a day for the first draft. I am on 56,000 words now and am on day 58. I missed one day when I was ill and still have my 1,000 to do tonight. I totally recommend setting a word count target for each day. It means not matter what distractions you face you still have to get on with it. I am aiming for 100,000 for the first draft probably dropping to 85-90 after the first edit. That means I have 44 days to go including today. The real trick to it is to just get it down and not think too much about what you are writing – that is for the first edit. I also started a Bible for this one, listing the characters and a very short note as to what they are doing. I haven't used this before (on the other novel I finished I only had four or five characters.
The Bourne Ultimatum, Robert Ludlum
