The literary faults and stylistic excesses that characterized The Icarus Agenda , The Gemini Contenders and other of Ludlum's works are present in his latest mammoth thriller, but fans will nonetheless cheer the return of his most popular character, David Webb, aka Jason Bourne, the assassin who never was. When the international terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal penetrates his civilian identity, Webb must again assume the Bourne persona to protect his wife and small children.

In this sequel to The Bourne Identity , David Webb, still suffering flashbacks to his Jason Bourne persona, is forced to undertake a final, possibly fatal mission after his wife is kidnapped. He must find and capture an assassin who is posing as Bourne in Hong Kong. By so doing he'll foil a plot that could plunge the Far East and then the world into war. Ludlum's latest has a best seller quality that many imitate but few master. You can quibble about this being too long, too talky, too preposterously implausible, but you can't quit reading. As often happens with sequels, this is not quite up to the standards of the original, but legions of Ludlum fans will send it soaring up the best seller list.

He has no past. And he may have no future. His memory is blank. He only knows that he was flushed out of the Mediterranean Sea, his body riddled with bullets. There are a few clues. A frame of microfilm surgically implanted beneath the flesh of his hip. Evidence that plastic surgery has altered his face. Strange things that he says in his delirium -- maybe code words. Initial: "J.B." And a number on the film negative that leads to a Swiss bank account, a fortune of four million dollars, and, at last, a name: Jason Bourne.

Earthlight is one of Arthur C. Clarke's earlier works, dating back to 1955. It is an expansion to novel length of a short story that he had published four years earlier. It is a science fiction adventure story set on the moon, where a government agent is looking for a suspected spy at a major observatory on the moon. The context is strong tension between Earth (which controls the moon) and independent settlers elsewhere in the solar system.