chatvert | Alex Eviscerates The Bourne Legacy: Prologue

Guys, there are actual tears in my eyes right now.

I hate this book that much, and I'm diving into the breach once again. I script-sporked this eight years ago (Jesus fucking Christ) in two parts, and that was painful enough.

For context? That was in high school, and I'm still not over it. If I ever meet this motherfucker in person, I'm going to take him aside for a reasoned discussion that begins with "What the hell, damn guy?"

(Funny thing? He's following me on Twitter for some reason. STOP SPYING ON ME YOU TWATWAFFLE.)

I know he lives nearby. I KNOW HE LIVES NEARBY. IT SAYS SO ON THE BOOK JACKET. I KNOW HE LIVES THE FUCK NEARBY. I have honestly considered leaving a flaming bag of dogshit on his doorstep. And speaking of dogshit...

Okay. Oooookay. I was going to drink while I did this, but the prologue, if I remember correctly, isn't exactly dogshit, and 1:30 pm is too early for daydrinking, imo.

Sheesh, okay. That's enough stalling, I think.

/cracks knuckles

[Aaron Burr voice] Okay, so we're doin' this.

...after an unexpected four-hour errand run, I am back, and it is now 5:30, and as such, a socially-acceptable time for the consumption of alcohol. Which I will now do.

All right. I have some Malbec in my jingling SCA goblet - let's do this bitch.

Okay, this is...kind of standard action thriller material so far. I think it's why I ended up getting blindsided by the shittiness later.

Here's a description of who will be our Dragon (warning: TV Tropes link!)

[Khalid] Murat [leader of the Chechen rebels] was darkly bearded, close to fifty, with a bear's broad stance and the fire-lit eyes of the true zealot. He had learned early on that the iron fist was the only way to rule. He had been present when Jokhar Dudayev had imposed Islamic Shariah law to no avail. He had seen the carnage wreaked when it had all begun, when the Chechnya-based warlords, foreign associates of Osama bin Laden, invaded Daghestan and executed a string of bombings in Moscow and Volgodonsk that killed some two hundred people.

So, this is going to be fun.

/sips on wine

And we turn to Hasan Arsenov, the Dragon's Dragon. The Dragon². And we get a description of him, too!

He was a brisk, energetic man fully ten years Murat's junior. A former biathlon champion, he had the wide shoulders and narrow hips of a natural athlete. When Murat had taken over as rebel leader, he was at his side. Now he pointed out to Murat the charred husk of a building on the convoy's right. "Before the wars," he said with grave intent, "when Grozny was still a major oil-refining center, my father worked there at the Oil Institute. Now instead of profits from our wells, we get flash fires that pollute our air and our water."

Nice telling-not-showing, dicknoodle. Jesus Hussein Christ, I haven't even finished page one.

The two rebels were chastened into silence by the parade of bombed-out buildings they passed, the streets empty save for scavengers, both human and animal. After several minutes, they turned to each other, the pain of their people's suffering in their eyes.

"Chastened into silence"? "The pain of their people's suffering in their eyes"? One, I think "chastened" is the wrong word there; two, that's just. Yikes. What a shit metaphor. Or. Uh. Synecdoche? Metonymy?

I'm not an English major, but I do know one thing: I fucking hate you.

Ooh, and in the style of

das_mervin's sporkings, LET US BEGIN THE COUNTS!

EVL = Jerry Jenkins: 1
I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means: 1
A Composition in Heliotrope: 1

Okay, okay, let's do the explanations.

EVL = Jerry Jenkins means that, like Jerry Jenkins, the actual writer of the Left Behind books, Eric Van Lustbader tells, not shows. Which means he's an exceptionally shitty author.
I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means is when a word is just...not used right.
A Composition in Heliotrope? Why, that's an exceptionally purple way to say "purple prose". Ergo: purple prose.

Right, okay...back to it.

Okay, blah, blah, blah, their convoy, which is disguised as Russian, is attached by their fellow Chechens, because for real dawg you didn't see that coming? So they go and see what's up, and...

A pallid face emerged from behind the wall, a boy not more than ten years old. He wore a filthy wool hat, threadbare sweater over a few thin plaid shirts, patched trousers and a pair of cracked rubber boots far too big for his feet, which had probably been taken off a dead man. Though only a child, he had the eyes of an adult; they watched everything with a combination of wariness and mistrust. He stood protecting the skeleton of an unexploded Russian rocket he had scavenged for bread money, likely all that stood between his family and starvation. He held a gun in his left hand; his right arm ended at the wrist. Murat immediately looked away but Arsenov continued to stare.

"A land mine," the boy said with a heartbreaking matter-of-factness. "Laid by the Russian scum."

Guys, I'm sorry, I'm trying not to quote so much. Really, I am. But this is.......Jesus Hussein Christ. Where do I begin? Aside from the pathos, dear god, the pathos. We're supposed to feel bad and conflicted because the bad guys are the Designated Bad Guys who really do have legitimate grievances and all, which, you know, is A Thing in real life, but...

...y'know, you didn't have to designate them as the bad guys getting hoodwinked by someone else for his own ends in this. Just saying.

As someone who's a student of insurgency and terrorism, let me just say that this plot could have been done way better, and I haven't read this book since before I went to college and majored in it.

So, Murat basically praises the child for being a good soldier and sends him off to his death and justifies it as giving him a reason to live. Arsenov is like "what the hell, damn guy" and Murat's like "no it's fine because 'the belief and courage of one inevitably grows and spreads, and soon that one is ten, twenty, a hundred, a thousand!'"

Cool story bro, but it's not going to help if this kid gets killed. You're not very good at this, are you?

And btw, he's mentioning Allah like every other sentence. I'm about 20 seconds from starting an Islamophobia count.

Something, something, they get to the rendezvous point and wait for someone called the "Shaykh", who, of course, is always right. God, how can he make what's supposed to be a tense scene so boring?!

STATE TRANSITION! I mean, SCENE BREAK!

And now we get some wanking about a sniper rifle and military gear a guy on a rooftop is wearing. A guy wearing "the camouflage uniform of the Russian military, which did not look out of place with the Asian caste of his smooth features."

I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means: 2

You can't just rely on spellcheck to fix everything for you, homes.

In his black eyes grew the world entire, and the street, the buildings upon which he now gazed were nothing more than a stage set.

A Composition in Heliotrope: 2

Something, something, he blows shit up and shoots most of the Chechens but makes sure to shoot Arsenov in the thigh. HOW CURIOUS. Then he takes a composite crossbow, shoots a bolt that has a line attached into a light pole, and - swear to Space Ghost - attaches himself to the wire and fucking ziplines down it.

What the shit?! HOW?! HOW DO YOU! HOW DOES THE BOLT EVEN HOLD IN THE LIGHT POLE WITH THE WEIGHT OF AN ADULT HUMAN MALE????

NEW COUNT!

Physics? What Physics?: 1

Also, for comedy value, when the assassin tries to kill Murat? Murat tries to bite off his ear. Calm down, Muhammad Ali.

Calmly, methodically, almost joyously he seized Murat around the throat and, staring into his eyes, jabbed his thumb into the cricoid cartilage of the Chechen leader's lower larynx. Blood immediately filled Murat's throat, choking him, draining him of strength. His arms flailed, his hands beating against the assassin's face and head. To no avail. Murat was drowning in his own blood. His lungs filled and his breathing became ragged, thick. He vomited blood and his eyes rolled up in their sockets.

Hmm. I wonder--

...google has my number, I see.

This seems to take almost no time at all?? And if I'm correct, drowning takes. Longer than that. Not like I've ever drowned someone, I mean...look bro it'd be quicker to cut his throat he'd bleed out. Or...literally do anything else.

For an assassin, you suck at killing people, is what I'm saying.

LOOKS LIKE YOU GOT A FIELD PROMOTION TO DRAGON, HASAN!

And then...~~STATE TRANSITION~~ SCENE BREAK!

A mysterious meeting on a steel bridge. It's so mysterious. Ooo.

"It's done," the first one said. "Khalid Murat has been killed in a manner that will cause maximum impact."

"I would expect nothing less, Khan," the second man said. "You owe your impeccable reputation in no small part to the commissions I've given you."

Now that we have that obvious joke out of the way ~~just kidding I'm going to make it several more times~~ I'm just going to...............well, I have Issues with him being called Khan and I'm going to save them for later.

Issues. Capital-I Issues.

He was taller than the assassin by a good four inches, square-shouldered, long-legged. The only thing that marred his appearance was the strange glassy utterly hairless skin on the left side of his face and neck. He possessed the charisma of a born leader, a man not to be trifled with. Clearly, he was at home in the great halls of power, in public forums or in thuggish back alleys.

EVL = Jerry Jenkins: 2

Again: Nice telling-not-showing, dicknoodle. Clearly, he was at home in the great halls of power. Clearly. Clearly. C L E A R L Y.

And COMMAS! COMMAS! FOR THE LOVE OF SHIT, USE COMMAS!!!

Khan was still basking in the look in Murat's eyes as he died. The look was different in every man. Khan had learned there was no common thread, for each man's life was unique, and though all sinned, the corrosion those sins caused differed from one to the next, like the structure of a snowflake, never to be repeated. In Murat, what had it been? Not fear. Astonishment, yes, rage, surely, but something more, deeper—sorrow at leaving a life's work undone. The dissection of the last look was always incomplete, Khan thought. He longed to know whether there was betrayal there, as well. Had Murat known who had ordered his assassination?

Plot twist: Spalko's the Shaykh. Also, Khan's a sadist who probably jacks off to his memories of murdering people. ~Serial killer!~ I'm going to ask what they do on My Favorite Murder: Did he get head trauma as a child? That seems to be a recurring theme with serial killers.

Anyway, Khan receives ~~a 25th murderversary present~~ some extra cash money in the form of a bonus from Spalko. And...look, I really am trying, but:

At length, Khan spoke. "In the jungle I learned two mortal lessons. The first was to trust absolutely only myself. The second was to observe the most minute proprietaries of civilization, because knowing your place in the world is the only thing standing between you and the anarchy of the jungle."

Spalko regarded him for a long time. The fitful glow from the firefight was in Khan's eyes, lending him a savage aspect. Spalko imagined him alone in the jungle, prey to privations, the quarry of greed and wanton bloodlust. The jungle of Southeast Asia was a world unto itself. A barbarous, pestilential area with its own peculiar laws. That Khan had not only survived there, but flourished, was, in Spalko's mind at least, the essential mystery surrounding him.

Calling it now: Khan is Mowgli. ~~no I'm kidding I know that's not Southeast Asia but can you imagine that fucking crossover~~

And then Spalko says he'd like to think they're more than businessman and client, and I want Khan to scream STRANGER DANGER and run away because clearly that bonus has strings attached.

There's no paragraph break between speakers in one instance, so it's either my PDF being weird or his editor's asleep at the wheel.

Khan looked into Spalko's eyes for a moment. His discerning nature had caught a certain air of condescension that he found inexcusable. As he had long ago learned to do, he smiled at the offense, hiding his outrage behind the impenetrable mask of his face. Another lesson he had learned in the jungle: Acting in the moment, in hot blood, often led to an irreversible mistake; waiting in patience for the hot blood to cool was where all successful vengeance was bred. Taking the folder, he busied himself with opening the dossier. Inside, he found a single sheet of onionskin with three brief close-typed paragraphs and a photo of a handsome male face. Beneath the picture was a name: David Webb.

DUN DUN DUNNNNNN DRAMATIC REVERRRRBBBBBB

But Spalko is playing him, too! What a chessmaster! Khan is just another checker in his game of Mouse Trap! Will he ever get Uno? Or will Boardwalk and Park Place forever remain out of his reach due to the Luxury Tax?

Find out next time...on ~~Days of Our Lives~~ Alex Eviscerates The Bourne Legacy!

/tilts back glass

EVL = Jerry Jenkins: 2
I Do Not Think It Means What You Think It Means: 1
A Composition in Heliotrope: 2
Physics? What Physics?: 1

Woof.